Hopefully The Mattress Hub has all of its display models encased in those plastic slip covers. The Wichita-based chain is indeed the mattress retailer that is locating in the same 23rd Street building that houses Hog Wild Pit BBQ, and I’ve learned the hard way that pulled pork in bed is a bad idea without one of those plastic covers.

We’ve been reporting for months that a mattress retailer was going to go into the portion of the former Blockbuster video building, 1516 W. 23rd St., that Hog Wild didn’t occupy. Now we know that retailer is The Mattress Hub because the sign for the store recently has been installed.

I’m still working to gather more details about The Mattress Hub, such as its projected opening date. But I can tell you the company is a regional chain based out of Wichita. According to its website, the company has about 15 stores in Kansas and Missouri, with stores in both the Kansas City and Topeka areas.

According to some coverage the company has received in the Wichita Eagle, the company was founded in 2008 by Wichita businessmen Ryan Baty and Mark Barrientos. In late 2012 company leaders told the Eagle that the company had major plans to expand into the Johnson County area, despite Nebraska Furniture Mart’s major presence in the Kansas City mattress market.

“We feel like there’s room to come in and grab some market share,” Baty told the Eagle in 2012. “We just feel like there’s room for a different customer experience in Kansas City.”

The company carries brands including Serta, Beautyrest, Tempur-Pedic, and Five Star Mattress, according to the store’s website.

In other news and notes from around town:

• I told you last week that I was hearing rumblings of a possible deal to bring a major business to Lawrence Venture Park, which is the business park the city is creating at the former Farmland Industries site in eastern Lawrence. Well, I still don’t have all the details, but chamber leaders now are starting to publicly talk about the efforts as well.

Larry McElwain, president of The Chamber, told a group of real estate agents recently that economic development leaders are in deep discussion with a major manufacturer for one of the sites.

“We are talking to a very good prospect about a significant manufacturing plant,” McElwain said. “The day you read about it in the newspaper, it will lift your spirits because it will be a sign that Lawrence is back in the game.”

McElwain said he couldn’t provide other details about the company, but hopes an announcement will be made in the next 90 days. He also told the crowd that economic development leaders are in good discussions with two bioscience companies about locating in the city. He didn’t identify either of those companies, but said that the “hottest prospects” the community has currently are in the animal health field. He said companies increasingly are becoming more interested in locating next to Kansas University’s highly ranked pharmacy school. KU’s expertise in drug delivery systems has a lot of cross-over potential into the animal health world.

The community has some space for biotech companies in the newly expanded BTBC incubator facility that is right across the street from the pharmacy school. But I think in coming months it will be interesting to watch the northwest corner of 23rd and Iowa streets. That’s where the university has some soccer fields and other recreational space. But that corner also has been envisioned for bigger things in KU’s master planning process. That could be the location for a type of public-private business research park.

Big companies have shown an interest in having office space on KU’s campus. Garmin and Assurant — two large companies well past the incubation stage — have space in the BTBC facility because they want easy access to the young talent that is graduating from KU and also want access to the faculty talent at the university. But the BTBC space put some limits on how large of an operation a company could have on campus. A West Campus business park would remove some of those size limitations. A business/research park on West Campus is certainly an idea that is getting some talk in economic development circles, but it is hard to say what will be the tipping point for that idea to turn into action.

• Perhaps you remember that city commissioners previously approved a city ordinance change to accommodate the testing of a ride-sharing program that involves people along the side of the road holding a white board with the name of their desired destination.

But several of you have noted that you haven’t seen many people with white boards along the side of the road. (That one day I was doing it doesn’t count. I simply panicked when I spilled the barbecue sauce on the mattress and thought that would be the best get-away option.)

Well, city commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting will get an update on that project. Commissioners are being asked to temporarily extend the city ordinance that granted the Lawrence OnBoard program time to conduct a pilot project of its ride-share program. But the group will be testing a different model because it has partnered with Carma, an international company that has developed a smart phone application for carpooling. Carma is hoping to test a version of its program called CarmaHop in Lawrence. Participants may still use a whiteboard along the side of the road to attract motorists willing to give them a ride. But users will first download the CarmaHop app, which allows them to create a profile and look up the availability of participating drivers and such. The system will allow ratings to be created of both drivers and motorists. It also will facilitate drivers winning some prizes for participating in the program.

City commissioners on Tuesday are being asked to grant the project another six-month exemption from the city’s traffic ordinances, which generally prohibit people from standing alongside a road for the purposes of soliciting a ride. City staff members are recommending the six-month exemption because the company did not conduct much testing of its system during the previous six-month exemption period. Instead, the Lawrence OnBoard became focused on its merger with Carma.