A pedestrian walks past the large glass windows of the former Pachamama's building, 800 New Hampshire St., on Monday, Feb. 29, 2016.

Before construction can begin this month on the newest apartment project in downtown Lawrence, developers must gain City Commission approval Tuesday on two key items.

The development group led by Lawrence businessmen Doug Compton and Mike Treanor is planning a $7 million, four-story addition to the former Pachamamas building at 800 New Hampshire St.

The group is seeking approval of its traffic-control plan, which will pare down the 800 block of New Hampshire Street to one northbound lane and one southbound lane for seven months. It’s also looking for rights from the city to 30 feet south of the building, but there’s question as to whether city commissioners will make the group pay for the 30 feet at the appraised value of $70,000.

Bill Fleming, a Lawrence attorney representing the group, said construction would “commence immediately” following the City Commission meeting. The project is expected to be complete in November or December, the same time as a seven-story apartment project by the same group at the northeast corner of Ninth and New Hampshire streets.

“We got our building permits ready to go,” Fleming said. “This is the last issue, getting this finalized.”

30 feet for $70,000

The city’s downtown zoning allows for owners to build structures to their property lines. The first item developers must obtain Tuesday is a 30-foot easement, allowing the group the rights to the 30 feet of city property south of the building so another structure can’t attach to its southern face sometime in the future.

The 30 feet of space is required to meet city fire codes and provide windows for south-facing apartments.

The question Tuesday isn’t whether developers will obtain the easement, but whether they’ll have to pay for it.

With the apartment project at Ninth and New Hampshire streets, the city granted free-of-charge a 30-foot easement to the north of that project. This time, however, city staff is recommending the City Commission vote to charge developers for the space.

Interim City Manager Diane Stoddard said the property is “highly valuable,” and the easement would affect a future project the city may do in that space. The lot south of the Pachamamas building is currently a city parking lot.

“Our thought is: it’s valuable, it’s on city property that otherwise would be able to be developed, and the city would be foregoing that,” Stoddard said. “We recognize there is a value associated with it.”

Fleming said the cost was “a little bit of a surprise.”

“I think they need to look at all the issues there, including the fact you want to encourage people to build apartments in downtown Lawrence; you don’t want to discourage that,” Fleming said. “Is it insurmountable? No. Does it create a problem? Yes. We have the financing and budget lined up. The $70,000 just doesn’t appear.”

In December, the City Commission voted 3-2 approving a sales tax exemption on construction materials for the project that’s estimated to save developers approximately $317,000.

Before that vote, the development group pledged to make a $75,000 contribution to the city’s affordable housing trust fund — about the amount the city will be losing in sales tax revenue.

“We’re already providing $75,000 to the affordable housing trust fund,” Fleming said Monday. “This is a little bit of a surprise to us that they would want to be paid for [the easement].”

Traffic control

The second item city commissioners will consider is a right-of-way permit that would allow the contractor, First Construction LLC, to close parts of New Hampshire and Eighth streets from March through December.

Under the contractor’s traffic-control plan, the entire length of the 800 block of New Hampshire Street would be narrowed to one lane in each direction. Currently, most of the block is three lanes. It narrows to two lanes in the southern half of the block, near construction of the other apartment project.

“They’ve indicated to us that both projects — the one that’s currently underway and this new project — will both be completed about the same time in late November or December of 2016,” said Mark Thiel, the city’s assistant public works director. “We’re hopeful they’re both done and open then.”

Parking along the south side of the 200 block of Eighth Street would be blocked off during construction, as will the sidewalk on that side of the street, the sidewalk to the west of Pachamamas, and the alley behind it.

The two parking lots both east and west of New Hampshire Street would remain accessible. On-street parking along the northwest side of New Hampshire Street would also stay open.

To accommodate nearby businesses, the city is proposing changing 16 spaces in the parking lot on the west side of New Hampshire Street from two-hour spaces to 10-hour spaces, according to a city memo. The city is also suggesting some spaces in that parking lot be designated for use solely by employees of certain businesses.

Contractors met with representatives from the Downtown Lawrence Farmers Market, which will operate in the city parking lot east of New Hampshire Street starting April 9.

Karen Pendleton, of Pendleton’s Country Market, said it’s been arranged that contractors would remove a boundary fence on Saturdays, opening up more space for vendors.

“It’s not the best,” Pendleton said. “But at the same time, we will have people who live there and look down on us every Saturday morning and say, ‘Hey, I want to be down there with them.’ Hopefully it will be a good thing and bring us more customers. It will affect us, and we’ll have to adjust with everybody else, but once it’s all completed, it should be pretty nice for us, we’re hoping.”