Map of proposed parking location for HERE Kansas apartment complex.

At their meeting Tuesday, Lawrence city commissioners will decide whether a plan to resolve the HERE apartment complex’s parking shortage will become reality.

The plan calls for demolishing two houses to expand an existing parking lot, and City Commissioner Matthew Herbert admitted he was not enthused about the plan, calling it the “least worst option.”

“The ideal option would have been the developers to do exactly what they told us they were going to do several years ago,” Herbert said. “But at the point at which that becomes not an option, we have to find something because we do owe it to the neighborhood.”

The $75 million luxury apartment complex at 1111 Indiana St. opened to residents in mid-August. The complex consists of 624 bedrooms and 13,500 square feet of commercial space. HERE is currently only allowed to fill about 550 of those bedrooms because the complex’s parking garage does not have enough spaces.

Originally, the development was to have a robotic valet parking garage that would have had the capacity for the entire complex, but the company responsible for producing that robotic system went bankrupt earlier this year. The proposed project would get the HERE project back into compliance with the city’s parking requirements and allow all 624 apartments to be occupied.

The proposed site for the parking lot currently consists of an existing parking lot and two multifamily properties at 1029 and 1031 Mississippi St. The homes and the existing lot would be demolished in order to construct a new 68-space lot at the corner of Mississippi Street and Fambrough Drive. As part of the project, Fambrough Drive would also be realigned to create a new four-way intersection with 11th and Mississippi Streets. Herbert said that aspect of the project was a plus.

“By working with the university we’re able to get this developer to rebuild some infrastructure that has been badly needed to be rebuilt anyway, and we’re able to put a lot of that on their dime,” Herbert said.

The majority of the property is owned by the KU Endowment Association. HERE would lease the new 68-space lot from KU Endowment, and HERE tenants would have to vacate it about 10 days per year for KU home football games and other events. Herbert said that stipulation of the lease, and the potential for an alternative place for the tenants to park on those days, is a topic he needs to hear more about.

“I think that discussion will take quite a bit of time on Tuesday night,” Herbert said. “Because for a lot of us on the commission, that’s going to be our opportunity to get to the bottom of a lot of this stuff that I don’t think has really been adequately discussed yet.”

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