photo by: Nick Krug

Golfers set up to putt while on the green of the ninth hole on the public side of Alvamar Golf Course on Monday, May 9, 2016.

Lawrence city commissioners will get a look Tuesday at updated plans to redevelop — and financially salvage — Alvamar Country Club, which now includes office space and reconfiguring the course to 27 holes of golf, instead of maintaining 36.

Since the City Commission first approved a preliminary development plan in October, developers have made other changes: They’ve added a chapel and independent living facility, removed space for a hotel and decided to renovate the existing clubhouse, rather than demolish it and build a new one. The variations were enough to require another look from commissioners, said City Planner Sandra Day when the plan went back to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission in March.

At the time, Day said the change from 36 to 27 holes of golf generated questions and concern from those living around the “back nine,” which residents thought would be abandoned and used for further development. Paul Werner, the Lawrence architect on the project, clarified the entire course would still be used, but designed to fit three nine-hole courses. The three courses would all be private.

“We are not simply removing nine holes,” Werner said. “Our goal is to use the space where holes are today.”

A layout of the redesigned course has not yet been made available.

Before the course can be redone, a new street can be built, the clubhouse can be renovated, and residential developments can be started, developers must get final approvals from the city, Werner has said. But one of changes — an office space meant to offer some financial relief to developers — has faced rejection.

In March, the planning commission voted in favor of the revised development plan, but it denied a rezoning that would allow for private, professional offices meant to offer some financial relief to developers.

Werner said the space was intended for medical offices, such as a chiropractor.

Bob Johnson, chairman of the board of directors of Alvamar Inc. — which sold the private and public courses to a group led by Lawrence businessman Thomas Fritzel — asked commissioners to “do whatever you can to make sure you’re not, and we’re not, an impediment to the golf course.”

“If you live on a golf course, you want to stay living on a golf course,” Johnson said. “The only way that can happen is if the golf course is viable and can maintain itself. I think this is consistent with everything going on out there and helps with the viability of the operation going on into the future.”

Though Werner said the offices would “fit in” and be an “asset for the overall development,” Day told planning commissioners it wasn’t compatible with the area.

Day also said the rezoning would “open the door” for other types of offices.

“Where do you start to draw the line?” she said. “Is it one chiropractic office, is it three or four or 10? Do you allow financial services; do you have a bank? It just continues. And there are already areas in this neighborhood for those uses.”

Commissioners agreed with Day, voting unanimously to deny it.

Late last week, Werner suggested a compromise: to have the City Commission approve the rezoning, with conditions.

The first condition would be that the office space not grow beyond 30,000 square feet. The other would be to disallow certain kinds of offices, including veterinary, payday advance and car title loans.

City commissioners will meet at 5:45 p.m. today at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.

In other business, commissioners will:

• Vote on an approximately $1.5 million bid for infrastructure improvements surrounding the HERE Kansas apartment project, of which the city would pay $258,439.50.

Under the original cost-sharing agreement with HERE Kansas, the city committed to paying half of the costs to reconstruct Mississippi and 11th streets. But, during the discontentment caused by HERE’s evolving parking problems, the agreement was changed to stipulate the city’s maximum share be $258,439.50 — which was half of the original estimated cost for the improvements.

The new agreement calls for developers to pay all of the storm sewer improvements, on-street parking spaces, bus turnout, sidewalks and landscaping.

If the contract is approved Tuesday, construction would begin later this month, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 12.