Dog treat business eyes East Lawrence for headquarters; roundabout talk at City Hall; city manager search update
Dogs around the country may end up getting a taste of East Lawrence, which may cause you to wonder whether canines soon will start creating funky art, hosting wild kickball games and forming their own powerful neighborhood association. But that’s not what I”m talking about. Instead, I have news of a business that plans to use an East Lawrence building to distribute dog treats across the country.
Lawrence businessman Gary Rexroad has confirmed that he and his wife, Angie, have purchased the long vacant building at the northwest corner of 11th and Pennsylvania streets to house a new dog treat venture. The Rexroads have been running a dog food business called Love Grub for the last couple of years. Its dog food is on the shelves of grocery and pet stores throughout the Lawrence, Topeka and Kansas City area.
But about three months ago, the couple purchased the rights to Lucky Paws dog treats, which was created by Lawrence entrepreneur Raven Rajani. Rajani was looking to exit the business, and Rexroad purchased the recipes and the rights to market the product.
Rexroad said the dog treat business was appealing because dog treats are lightweight. Bags of dog food, on the other hand, are heavy. It costs a lot of money to ship bags of dog food to stores around the country, but shipping dog treats nationwide is much more feasible for a small company. Rexroad said the plan is to make the dog treat business a national one through deals with retailers and through online sales.
That’s where the East Lawrence building at 1045 Pennsylvania St. comes into play. Rexroad has filed plans at City Hall that would allow for the dog treats to be “manufactured” inside the building.
“Manufacturing is such a big word though,” Rexroad said. “It is not smokestacks or rendering plants or anything like that. It is just a commercial oven. Right now we are doing it out of our kitchen, but there is only so much volume you can do that way.”
Rexroad said the business already is having difficulty keeping up with the demand for the product. The company has negotiated a deal to be in Natural Grocer stores across the country. He said Lucky Paws seems to be filling a niche in the treat market because it is grain free, gluten free, and made in small batches.
“We’re selling it as a product produced by a small company that gives you a healthy alternative that you can trust,” Rexroad said. “The company’s phone number is on every bag, and that number rings to my wife’s cellphone. It is not like it goes to a big switchboard.”
Rexroad said if plans are approved, the company likely would add a couple of employees to assist in the production of the dog treats, which are made from ingredients such as potato flour, whole rice flour, peanut butter, eggs, ground turkey, and even real salmon filets.
“It is a real high-end treat,” Rexroad said. “The ingredients are people-food quality.”
I’ll be honest, this is the point where I became a bit nervous. The last time I wrote an article about a dog treat business — a nonprofit venture by the Lawrence Community Shelter — I ended up being persuaded to eat a dog treat because they “taste a lot like a cookie.” I have no doubt that the dog treat was very high quality, but I will say that dogs are not the best judge of cookies. (Although, I’m sure dogs all over town talk behind my back about how my coat is lacking in sheen.)
Rexroad did not offer me a sample, but if plans are approved, you likely will be able to go to the business and buy some for yourself. In addition to the production and warehousing operations, plans call for the 2,200 square-foot building to also house a pet supplies and grooming retailer. Rexroad said an existing company in town would run that portion of the business.
Rexroad said he’s begun having meetings with the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association and other residents in the area to talk about plans for the building, which several years ago operated as a store that sold used items for home improvement projects.
“We want to be great neighbors in East Lawrence,” Rexroad said. “We want to be part of that neighborhood. It is such an awesome part of town.”
The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission is scheduled to make a recommendation on the special use permit for the business at its July 22 meeting. City commissioners would hear the issue a few weeks later.
In other news and notes from around town:
• It is a busy night at City Hall this evening. Commissioners meet at 3 p.m. to go over the recommended 2016 budget from Interim City Manager Diane Stoddard. Then, commissioners have a long list of topics they’ll discuss. Here’s a look at some of the larger ones:
• The Lawrence Community Shelter on Monday made its plea for increased funding from the Douglas County Commission to help the homeless shelter address a shortfall in funding this year. Tonight, the shelter will make its request to the City Commission. It is seeking $200,000 total from the city and the county, and has warned of staffing and service cuts if it does not receive the funding this month. City commissioners are expected to hear the item tonight but not make a final decision on any funding, Mayor Jeremy Farmer told me.
• We’ll learn something about roundabouts and city commissioners this evening. The three commissioners who took office in April will have their first decision to make about a roundabout. The commission is being asked to accept a $600,000 federal grant that would fund the construction of a roundabout at Harvard Road and Wakarusa Drive. The past commission had gotten back on the roundabout bandwagon after construction of the devices had slowed somewhat in recent years. That group approved the construction of the new dual lane roundabout at Wakarusa and Legends/Inverness Drive. At the time, engineers said they likely would recommend one for Harvard and Wakarusa, which has been the site of 18 crashes from 2011 through 2014. We’ll see whether this commission continues to support roundabout projects. This grant will require the city to come up with $60,000 in matching funds.
• In case you have forgotten, the city is searching for a new city manager. That process hasn’t come out of the gates blazing, but rather commissioners have taken their time to find a search firm to help with the process. Tonight, commissioners will consider a $26,200 contract to hire Ralph Andersen and Associates to oversee the city’s search process. According to the contract, the firm expects the process to take about 75 to 90 days. No word yet on other details of the search process. For example, commissioners will need to decide whether they want to host public meetings with two or three finalists for the position. That has become a more common practice with high-profile hires in governmental organizations. I’ve heard some commissioners express interest in that idea, but the commission hasn’t yet committed to the process.
• Property tax breaks for the rest of us. That’s one way to look at a discussion that is expected at City Hall tonight. Commissioners will discuss how to use the Neighborhood Revitalization Act in the future. The act is a method where property owners can get a rebate on a portion of their property taxes, if they make improvements to their properties that cause the value of their properties to increase. For example, I tear down the ramshackle garage on my house, and replace it with something more befitting my scholarly nature, like a library that just happens to have an 85-inch flatscreen television and a chair with a built-in cooler. (For like Shakespeare on PBS and such.) That may cause the value of my house to go up, say $40,000. The Neighborhood Revitalization Act would allow me to receive at least a partial tax rebate on the property taxes I would pay on that $40,000 addition.
But commissioners haven’t used the act in that way. Instead it has been approved to provide a tax rebate for an expansion of The Eldridge Hotel, for an architecture office, for the rehabilitation of an abandoned historic property, apartment projects, improvements in the Warehouse Arts District and several other projects. Plus, commissioners have struggled with the policy that currently is in place. The policy recommends that the standard NRA tax rebate should be for no more than 50 percent of the new taxes. But thus far, every NRA rebate the city has approved has been greater than 50 percent, often checking in at the 85 to 95 percent level.
Commissioners will discuss whether they want to shift gears a bit by declaring a few neighborhoods in need of revitalization, and then letting property owners know that their improvements would be eligible for a partial tax rebate. There also will be discussion about whether the city wants to continue to use the act to provide an incentive to larger commercial projects as well. But all indications are that the three new commissioners — Stuart Boley, Matthew Herbert and Leslie Soden — are going to have a different set of criteria for determining when such projects should receive an incentive. If you are in the business of developing multimillion dollar developments in town, the discussion tonight and in future days will be one to follow.
Commissioners meet at 5:45 p.m. tonight at City Hall.