Brick work has started on the exterior of the HERE Kansas apartment and retail project, pictured Tuesday, March 29, 2016, at 1111 Indiana St.

Only 218 vehicles could fit in an existing parking deck at HERE @ Kansas if it were to be a city-compliant self-park garage. That’s nearly 300 spaces fewer than what developers are proposing could fit with a valet system.

The new information provided by developers will be taken to the Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday, a week after commissioners asked that the numbers be provided for comparison. Mayor Mike Amyx suggested last week that the commission should maybe use the number of city-compliant spaces, rather than the number of smaller spaces developers are proposing, for determining what portion of the apartment structure could be occupied this fall.

The large structure near Kansas University won’t be completely filled in either scenario until more parking is secured. Developers had to rethink their parking scheme in October, after the company building the development’s planned automatic parking garage filed for bankruptcy.

Besides calculations on what meets city code, information provided Thursday also includes a change-up in the mix of restaurant and retail uses in the development, as well as a reduction in the number of parking spaces required for that commercial space. There’s also a new proposal from developers to give an annual donation of $100,000 to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Plans from HERE @ Kansas show the apartments on the third floor of the structure that would be left empty until developers could secure more parking spaces separate from their proposed valet parking deck.

Proposed vacancies on the fourth floor of HERE @ Kansas

Proposed vacancies on the fifth floor of HERE @ Kansas

The numbers

Meeting standards for a self-park garage — which includes 24-foot aisles, 8.5-by-18-foot spaces, and no cars stacked one in front of the other — would allow for 218 spaces. Another design for a self-park system was submitted that would include 22-feet aisles. Developers would have to receive a waiver to narrow the aisle width, and the change would increase the total spaces to 243.

With 243 parking spaces, and another 20 on-street spaces for residents, developers would be allowed to fill only 215 bedrooms, or 34 percent, of the 624-bedroom apartment structure.

With their proposed human valet system, developers would fit 510 spaces in the garage. Spaces range from 7.6- to 8-feet wide. With the 20 on-street spaces for residents, this system would have enough spaces to meet requirements to fill 548 bedrooms, or 88 percent of the apartment space. That would mean 31 bedrooms would remain empty.

City planning staff is recommending the City Commission approve developers’ proposal for a human valet system with 510 spaces in the parking deck.

“Staff, in consultation with the city manager, finds that the applicant’s proposal for a full-service valet parking, with the reduction in standards from a self-park system, will permit this project to move forward without harming the neighborhood or tenants of the project,” reads a March 31 memo from city staff.

Staff said The Oread hotel parking garage is the most similar parking scheme in Lawrence to what HERE @ Kansas is proposing. The Oread has valet parking with 8-by-18-foot spaces. The Oread received a variance from the city to reduce its number of required parking spaces from 320 to 167.

Staff is saying the approval should come with a list of conditions, which, in part, requires the garage to be staffed all day, every day by valets; developers provide a monthly report about the parking for one year; and developers deal with a complaint about construction affecting a neighboring property.

Change in commercial space

The City Commission agreed March 22 that at least some of the development’s 13,500 square feet of commercial space should be filled by the time the apartments open. Commissioners also said at the time that all 108 of the on-street parking spaces should be dedicated to the commercial space.

It had been decided by developers that all of the commercial space would be for restaurants. Since then, developers changed the plans to stipulate that some of the space be for retail businesses. The change reduced the required number of parking spaces for the commercial space from 106 to 88.

Developers changed the restaurant and retail mix, the memo states, to secure more on-street parking available for tenants “in order to gain more residential units.”

Metered spaces

The 108 on-street parking spaces available in the project are metered.

Under a development agreement between the city, KU and HERE, developers keep the hourly fees from the meters. The city is responsible for enforcement of the metered parking, and it collects the fines from parking violations.

Vice Mayor Leslie Soden criticized the agreement last week, saying it was a “terrible decision” and asking that City Manager Tom Markus try to negotiate the revenue back.

Developers will come back Tuesday with a proposal to annually donate $100,000 of revenue from the metered spaces to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

It’s been estimated that the metered spaces would generate $279,000 for developers each year.

According to the March 31 memo, developers have said they need to keep a portion of the revenue to pay for building and maintaining the on-street spaces.

There were questions March 22 about whether the city’s parking enforcement staff had the capability to routinely monitor there HERE spaces. Teri Pierce, the city’s parking control manager, has said it will take one officer an hour to do one round of enforcement at HERE, and parking enforcement can do two rounds each day “with negligible impact to the downtown area.”

New agreement

Besides deciding on a parking scheme, commissioners will be asked Tuesday to consider a new agreement with HERE developers.

Among other things, the agreement calls on developers to secure all of the parking necessary for HERE before they can receive any tax rebates. HERE’s Neighborhood Revitalization Act with the city gives developers an 85 percent, 10-year tax abatement.

Jim Letchinger, president of JDL Development — the firm behind HERE — has said he’s working on a solution to create the approximately 100 spaces that would still be missing with the 510-space parking garage. Details of that solution have not been shared.

City Commissioners will convene Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.