The idea of building a conference center downtown or elsewhere in Lawrence is still getting studied at City Hall.

But voters who may want to know more about a conference center proposal before going to the ballot box in November for a sales tax to support a new police headquarters likely won’t have much information.

City officials said Tuesday that a feasibility study for a Lawrence conference center has been delayed from its original schedule, and now it is unlikely that the first phase of the study will be completed before the Nov. 4 election.

“The key is to have a good study, not a rushed study,” City Manager David Corliss said.

City officials don’t yet have formal plan for a conference center in front of them. But leaders of The World Company, which owns the Journal-World and LJWorld.com, have announced they are actively working on plans to redevelop the Journal-World’s former printing plant at Sixth and Massachusetts and Sixth and New Hampshire streets into a mixed-use project that would include a hotel, apartments, an open-air plaza and a conference center. Company officials have said the city may be approached to financially participate on the conference center portion of the project.

Shortly after that announcement in late June, city commissioners approved a contract on July 1 to hire Convention Sports & Leisure to measure the market demand for a conference center in Lawrence. The firm’s contract with the city estimated the preliminary study could be done by mid-September. But Corliss said the consultants haven’t yet been able to come to Lawrence to speak to key stakeholders, and the study likely won’t be completed until late fall.

Corliss said difficulty in coordinating schedules with city and Kansas University officials, who are helping to pay for the $29,000 study, has slowed the project. In addition, City Hall officials have been busy preparing the city’s 2015 budget.

In November, the public will consider a 0.2 percent sales tax to pay for an approximately $28 million police headquarters. A conference center proposal will not be on the November ballot. But residents in recent months have expressed frustration that they don’t have a clear picture of what major projects the city may be seriously considering for the future.

For example, residents have asked questions about why more information wasn’t available regarding the need for a police headquarters when city commissioners were considering an $18 million expansion of the Lawrence Public Library and $22.5 million for a recreation center at Rock Chalk Park.

Last week, county officials alerted the public that regardless of whether the $28 million sales tax issue is approved for the police headquarters, the county likely will need to pursue within the next three years a multimillion-dollar expansion of the county jail. As for a conference center, figures for how much public funding may be sought for such a project aren’t available. A conference center project in Manhattan involved more than $10 million in public money.

Mayor Mike Amyx said he doesn’t think it is likely city commissioners will have any serious discussions about a conference center before the November elections.

“My opinion is that we’re still so early in this process that before we can have a good discussion, we have to get the report back,” Amyx said.

Dan Simons, president of the digital division of The World Company, said the company is continuing to review plans for a gateway project on the company’s downtown property.

“The conference center definitely has been a key component as a possibility, and we look forward to the opportunity to meet with the consultants,” Simons said.