Sometimes art is fleeting.

Look at Christo, the artist who wrapped sidewalks in Kansas City, positioned bright umbrellas in the California hills and created a ribbon of saffron fabric gates through New York City’s Central Park. Or the monks who spent three days at the Lawrence Arts Center last November creating an intricate sand mandela only to see their work swept away the next day.

The creators of the “Pollinators” mural may have intended for their work to last longer than seven years, but in the changing landscape of downtown Lawrence, it now appears the artwork won’t survive, at least in its original form, because of upcoming construction of a new apartment building at Ninth and New Hampshire streets.

The 20-by-60-foot mural honoring seven black artists with Kansas ties was created in connection with a 2007 exhibition at Spencer Museum of Art. Spencer’s curator told Lawrence city commissioners this week that she would like to see the mural preserved, but that doesn’t seem feasible because underground parking for the apartment building will be constructed directly beneath the mural’s current location.

The mural could be cut up and moved, but probably not without significant damage. A better option, it seems, is to have the original artist recreate the mural on the new building. The development group, led by Doug Compton and Mike Treanor, deserves credit for raising the mural issue in a timely fashion and agreeing to spend $20,000 to move or recreate the artwork.

Demolition of the existing building is scheduled to begin around June 1, which gives the city a little time to consider its options. Commissioners agreed Tuesday night that preserving it at its current location wasn’t possible and asked the developers and Spencer officials to look at the project and report back at the April 8 commission meeting.

Hopefully a satisfactory compromise can be reached. It seems unlikely the mural will survive in its current form, but that doesn’t negate the artistic process that created it or the enjoyment it brought to those who saw it.