Lawrence City Commission passes HERE parking proposal, expresses disdain for sexually suggestive video

A student walks across a vacant lot catty-corner from the recently opened HERE Kansas apartments along Mississippi Street, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016.

Though Lawrence city commissioners voiced disappointment in the situation — as well as disdain for what they deemed an inappropriate promotional video — they narrowly passed a parking plan for the HERE apartment complex.

The previous City Commission provided the HERE project an 85 percent property tax rebate after the Chicago development group touted the $75 million luxury apartment complex as being a major boon for the city’s rental market. Those incentives were far from forgotten as the parking plan was discussed at the commission’s meeting Tuesday.

The incentives had been granted under the Neighborhood Revitalization Act, but Commissioner Matthew Herbert — who voted against the parking plan along with Commissioner Leslie Soden — said that revitalization has not been accomplished. Herbert told those with the project they needed to be a “good neighbor.”

“If you’re going to be accepting a neighborhood revitalization tax incentive, you need to do something on your end to demonstrate that you’re a good neighbor,” Herbert said. “And up to this point, I have seen nothing that demonstrates you’re a good neighbor — and quite the opposite. This is getting to a point, you know, where I keep waiting for the next shoe to drop.”

Herbert criticized a promotional video for the complex that was sent to the commission by members of the Oread Residents Association. The video includes actual footage from a party at the complex’s pool, in which people in swimsuits are seen drinking alcohol and dancing, with the camera often zooming in on women’s bodies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9QQHo08SU

The video was used promotionally, but has since been removed from the HERE website, according to James Letchinger, president of JDL Development, the group behind HERE. Letchinger told the commission the video “was a mistake that was made early on.”

“The whole event was inappropriate; the video was inappropriate,” Letchinger said. “It’s been taken down (from the HERE website).”

Though the video prompted pointed discussion, so did the parking plan itself. The plan calls for demolishing two houses to expand a nearby parking lot to provide an additional 68 spaces for the complex, which was originally to have a robotic valet parking garage.

Residents of the Oread neighborhood told commissioners they were concerned that the higher-density zoning required for the parking lot would open the door for apartments to be built on the lot in the future. Commissioners made sure in their motion to address that concern, calling for specific notation in the city’s comprehensive plan that would indicate the exception being made would only allow for a surface parking lot.

“I think the safeguard is there,” Mayor Mike Amyx said.

Amyx also addressed the video, and told Letchinger that drinking at the pool party was “an accident waiting to happen.”

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

The majority of the property that will make up the new lot is owned by the KU Endowment Association, which will lease the new lot to HERE. As part of the 50-year lease agreement, HERE tenants will have to vacate the lot about 10 days per year for KU home football games and other events.

A local representative of the Chicago-based development group, Brian Sturm, of Landplan Engineering, addressed the question of where tenants would park on those days they have to vacate the lot. Sturm said that alternate parking arrangements would be made for tenants in open spaces in the HERE garage, or in parking lots owned by KU or KU Endowment.


In other business, commissioners:

• Approved annexation and rezoning requests that will allow for an apartment complex to be built at the southeast corner of 31st and Michigan streets. The 55-acre apartment development will house about 240 apartments.

• Voted to expand the scope of and enter into a cost-sharing agreement with Douglas County to finance the remodel of the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical’s Fire Station No. 1 and Douglas County Senior Services, located at 746 Kentucky St. The total cost of the work is estimated at $6.4 million and will now cover both facilities.