Stoddard won’t be candidate for Lawrence city manager post; Chick-fil-A sets date for South Iowa street opening
photo by: Mike Yoder
This news just in from Lawrence City Hall: Interim City Manager Diane Stoddard won’t be a candidate for the open city manager’s position in Lawrence. Stoddard sent out a message to employees updating them on several City Hall matters.
In that message she said “after significant reflection and discussions with my family, I have decided that the timing now isn’t right for me personally to apply for the position.”
Stoddard, though, said she does intend to remain as an assistant city manager upon the hiring of a new city manager.
“Once the new city manager is hired, I will return to my capacity of assistant city manager and will work to assist the new city manager in whatever way that I can to ensure a smooth and successful transition and continue all of the great public services and exciting projects currently underway in our community,” Stoddard wrote.
Stoddard, in the memo, briefed city employees on the process for filling the vacant seat left by former Commissioner Jeremy Farmer’s resignation, following financial irregularities at his previous employer. Stoddard did not go into any more detail about that situation, and the upheaval it has created at City Hall. She did not indicate that upheaval played a role in her decision. And to be fair, she had told me at the time of David Corliss’ resignation — he took a similar job in Colorado — that she wasn’t sure whether she would apply for the position. And that was before all of this upheaval created by Farmer’s resignation.
But there were certainly reasons to think Stoddard may apply. She is an experienced city executive, and she grew up in Lawrence. She’s gained a strong reputation for being able to help communities through complex economic development deals.
“This is an outstanding city, and an outstanding opportunity,” Stoddard said of the city manager’s position.
Stoddard’s decision certainly increases the likelihood that City Hall will have an unfamiliar face as its leader in the future. Stoddard is the most senior member of the city manager’s office. There certainly could be other candidates from Lawrence City Hall who will apply for the position, so I don’t want to discount their chances. There also are a number of people who previously have worked at Lawrence City Hall who have gone on to leadership positions in other cities. One of them may return.
The past two city managers in Lawrence were promoted from inside City Hall. When Buford Watson died while serving as city manager, Mike Wildgen — his assistant — was promoted to the top job. When Wildgen resigned after a long tenure, Corliss — one of Wildgen’s assistants — was promoted. So, it has been a while since a true outsider has taken the reins of City Hall’s top administrative post. The odds of that happening seem a bit greater now.
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My doctor already has prescribed the handcuffs, the chains and the shock collar. I guess he thinks it really wouldn’t be a good idea for me to try to win a year’s worth of free Chick-fil-A as part of the fast food chain’s grand opening in Lawrence. But maybe the battery in your shock collar is running low. If so, I’ve got a date for Chick-fil-A’s Lawrence opening.
The company plans to open its store on South Iowa Street on Sept. 2, a spokeswoman for the restaurant’s PR company told me. Like it does in all of its markets, Chick-fil-A will host a giveaway where the first 100 people in line when the doors open at 6 a.m. on Sept. 2 will receive one Chick-fil-A meal per week for a year. My understanding is that in many markets, lines start to form about 24 hours in advance, and the parking lot of the restaurant looks a bit like a tailgate with tents, grills and chants of “wait ’till basketball season.” (Maybe that last one is just a local tradition with tailgates.)
In case you have forgotten, the new Chick-fil-A is located in the parking lot of the shopping center that houses Dick’s Sporting Goods at 27th and Iowa streets. If you have forgotten what Chick-fil-A is, ask the doctor to turn the collar down one notch. Regardless, the restaurant bills itself as the “home of the original chicken sandwich.” The menu includes several versions of a chicken sandwich, chicken strips, chicken wraps, chicken salads, and a host of side items and ice cream desserts.
The restaurant is part of a national chain, but the franchises are independently owned and operated. According to the company’s website, the Lawrence store is operated by Denise Martinek. According to a spokeswoman for the chain, the Lawrence store will employ about 80 people.
As part of its grand opening, the restaurant also will be hosting a book drive for the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, and a food drive for Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, according to the spokeswoman. I’m still waiting on a press release with additional information about those events.
In other news and notes from around town:
• South Iowa Street remains as hot as a well-used deep fryer. I believe there are a lot of companies giving the street a look for a potential location, and there are a lot of property owners along the corridor repositioning themselves.
One is the group that owns the property near 25th and Iowa streets. The shopping center that houses Office Depot, Tuesday Morning and that used to house Discovery Furniture has filed to rezone the property in a manner that will make it easier to attract big-box development at the site.
In addition, a related development group owns property across 25th Street: the shopping center that includes Paisano’s Ristorante and other smaller businesses. That shopping center also has applied for the same type of zoning designations.
Both parcels of property won a recommendation for approval from the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission on Monday. Now, the rezoning requests will go to the City Commission for final approval in the next few weeks.
I’ve got calls into members of the development groups to find out what their latest thinking is on the properties. The rezoning request is to change the properties’ zoning from Neighborhood Commercial Center to Commercial Strip. Planning staff members in their analysis have noted that the proposed zoning category allows a wider range of uses that would be more consistent with what people would expect along South Iowa Street, which has grown into the city’s largest retail district.
Bottom line, the zoning should make it easier to redevelop both sites. Whether the property owners have plans to do a complete redevelopment, I do not know. As I’ve previously reported, there is speculation that Hobby Lobby has been looking for a new location that could accommodate a larger store. There are a multitude of other retailers we have mentioned that are looking at the property south of the SLT and Iowa Street interchange: Academy Sports, Old Navy, Designer Shoe Warehouse, to name a few. So, interest seems to be strong.
I think the area between 23rd and 25th streets on the west side of Iowa will be interesting to watch. That is a large area with a lot of traffic that goes by it every day. There is quite a bit of vacant space or underutilized space in the development. Some of the buildings are starting to show their age. It could be an area where significant retail redevelopment occurs.