Sometimes my job of covering Lawrence City Hall involves me reading the tea leaves. Sometimes it involves me turning to a beverage a bit stronger than tea. Sometimes it involves me dressing like the Great Carnac and holding city agendas, planning documents and other scrap paper to my head. (Sometimes the glass of the other beverage is a bit too big.) I’ll let you decide the best way to decipher this one, but there certainly is a City Hall question these days: Is a proposed $75 million apartment project actually going to be built near KU?

The project we’re talking about is the proposed multi-story building at 1101 and 1115 Indiana St., across the street from KU’s Memorial Stadium. The last we heard about the project was on Oct. 21, when city commissioners declined to grant a parking exemption for the 237-unit apartment complex. The Chicago-based development group, HERE, LLC, said the parking reduction was critical to the future of the project. After the meeting, a representative of the company declined to comment on whether the project would move forward.

In the days since, I haven’t had any luck in getting an update from the development company. But there have been a couple of recent signs that suggest the project is not yet dead. This is where your tea leaf skills may come in handy, but city commissioners at their meeting tonight are being asked to approve an ordinance authorizing the issuance of industrial revenue bonds for the project. The ordinance is mainly a technicality. The project is seeking the industrial revenue bonds not for financing purposes but to get a sales tax exemption on construction materials they purchase for the project. The key point in all of this is that company officials recently asked the city to process this piece of paperwork. The fact the company made the request after the Oct. 21 meeting seems to indicate the project is not yet dead.

Perhaps an even larger sign is that on Nov. 5 the development company filed for a demolition permit for the old house that sits on a portion of the property. That would seem to be another sign that the project isn’t yet dead.

Prior to the Oct. 21 meeting, the development group also had filed for building permits for the project. City officials tell me they are still doing the work to process those building permits. They said no one from HERE has asked the city to stop the processing work on the building permits.

I think it is probably is too early to say that the company has definitely decided to move ahead with the project. Neither one of these recent actions — the IRB ordinance and the demo permit — are particularly expensive for the company to undertake, so they could still nix the project. But it does appear that the company hasn’t nixed the project at this point. The city’s denial of the company’s incentive request hasn’t been fatal thus far.

I talked briefly with Georgia Bell, the 91-year old woman who lives in the home that is slated for demolition. The development company has reached a preliminary agreement to buy the property, but Bell said the deal hasn’t been completed yet. In other words, she hasn’t been paid the full purchase price for the property. She said she hasn’t heard anything definitive from the development group about when it may purchase the property.

“I’m sitting on pins and needles,” said Bell, who said she hasn’t yet found a new home to purchase.

It is an issue to watch. If I can get this darn Carnac hat to cooperate, I’ll keep my eyes on it.