HERE @ Kansas seeks permission to fill apartments without required number of parking spaces

HERE Kansas apartments are shown under construction, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016, as seen looking east from near Memorial Stadium.

The parking conundrum at the under-construction HERE @ Kansas apartment and retail project will be dissected at City Hall on Tuesday, when city commissioners will be asked to decide on the developers’ petition to fill the apartments before it has the number of parking spaces city code requires.

HERE LLC, the Chicago-based development group behind the $75 million apartment project near Memorial Stadium, learned in October that the manufacturer of its planned automated parking garage — one of the points of the project that helped secure an incentives package from the city — had filed for bankruptcy protection. Developers had to think up a new parking plan, for which they will have to get two rounds of approval from the city.

“It is definitely between a rock and a hard place right now,” said Sandra Day, the city planner working on the project. “It’s a tough situation.”

HERE’s new parking concept at 1101 and 1115 Indiana St. leaves the complex with 69 fewer spaces than planned and 25 fewer than what’s required by city law.

City staff is recommending a parking waiver be denied and that the complex not be filled to capacity until it has the spaces to support the number of residents.

If the City Commission agrees and rejects the waiver, 23 bedrooms of the 624-bedroom project would have to remain empty until more parking spaces are secured.

“Parking has been the one issue through the entire project that has been a known concern,” Day said. “Parking is tight. It’s a significant issue in the neighborhood.”

The automated parking garage, which would have been the first in the state, would have used lifts and tracks to park cars without the assistance of motorists.

The developers’ new plan includes doing away with the automation and having valets stack cars in the garage. Because construction is well underway, it’s not feasible to add ramps to the garage, so developers are proposing adding an entrance off 11th Street that would provide access to the garage’s top floor.

“It’s the same kind of system, it’s just that now, it’s being operated by humans,” Day said. “This is kind of making the best of the situation that they have.”

Developers have also submitted plans for a traditional parking garage at 1137 Indiana St., which is currently the site of an apartment building owned by a group led by Lawrence resident Ed Carter.

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The garage, south of HERE, would have 96 parking spaces — enough to meet the city’s residential parking quota as well as the number required for those using the 13,000 square feet of retail space on the development’s lower floors.

But that parking structure must go through several levels of approval before the City Commission considers it.

The property would have to be rezoned to a mixed-use zoning designation. Day said the issue is tentatively scheduled to go before the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission in February, but because the property is in a historical area, the Historic Resources Commission must also provide input.

While developers work to secure approval for the off-site parking garage, it’s requesting that the city allow a temporary deficiency in parking that would let HERE fill the apartments in time for Kansas University’s fall 2016 semester, even without the required number of spaces. That request is what city commissioners will decide Tuesday.

Developers are not asking that it receive a waiver for its lack of parking to accommodate the project’s retail uses. According to a city memorandum, HERE has agreed to not lease the retail space until more parking is secured.

If the City Commission does not want to allow a parking waiver, HERE is asking that it be permitted to purchase 25 nearby spaces from KU, which would bring the number of spaces up to what’s required to fill the 624 bedrooms.

In 2014, the previous City Commission rejected HERE’s idea to cut a deal with KU that would allow residents to off-site, university spaces. It was denied after residents in the area voiced their opposition, saying KU parking was already spilling into the neighborhood.

Parking for the project has been a topic of contention since its beginning. The previous City Commission also turned down in 2014 a proposal to reduce the size of the parking garage by 100 spaces, which developers said was feasible because they estimated 30 percent of residents wouldn’t have cars.

Day said the City Commission has three options on Tuesday. The first option, and the one recommended by city staff, is to not allow occupancy for all of the project’s commercial spaces and 23 bedrooms until the number of parking spaces meet city code.

Commissioners’ second option is to not allow occupancy of the commercial spaces but permit full occupancy of the apartments. The third is to not allow occupancy for the commercial spaces and allow full occupancy of the apartments only if the developers secure 25 spaces from KU.

Tuesday will be the first instance the current City Commission makes a decision on the HERE development — a project that created debate about what types of projects should receive economic development incentives.

The previous City Commission voted 3-2 to approve an 85 percent, 10-year tax rebate for the project that fell short of the 95 percent, 12-year tax rebate that the development group had sought.

The City Commission will meet at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.