Chicken is on my mind. Buffalo wing sauce is on my tie. Crumbs of crispy, deep-fried breading may or may not be on the stubble of my beard. And all of this is before city leaders wisely rename south Iowa Street Deep Fried Drive to honor the chicken wars that are certain to come. In other words, there’s news of another chicken chain coming to south Lawrence.

Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers has filed plans at City Hall to build a new drive-through restaurant at the site of the former Emprise Bank location at 2435 Iowa St. Back in February, we briefly reported that there was speculation Raising Cane’s was honing in on a site on south Iowa Street. It turns out that speculations was as true as fingers on chickens. (I would have never thought they were so stubby. I guess that is why you never see a chicken playing the piano.)

Raising Cane’s would be the third chicken restaurant to open along a two-block stretch of south Iowa Street in recent months. Buffalo Wild Wings is open in a brand new building at the northeast corner of 27th and Iowa streets, and Chick-fil-A is under construction caddy-corner from Wild Wings in the parking lot of Dick’s Sporting Goods. No word yet on when Chick-fil-A will open, but the restaurant has filed for a permit to set up a trailer to begin taking job applications on the site.

As for Raising Cane’s, they really are focused on chicken fingers. As near as I can tell, its entire menu is just chicken fingers served in different packages. It has one chicken sandwich on the menu, but it actually is three chicken fingers in a kaiser roll. The restaurant touts its chicken fingers as never frozen, premium chicken tenderloins that are marinated for 24 hours and then hand-battered and cooked to order. Sides look like crinkle cut fries, Texas toast and some coleslaw. A special mayonnaise type of sauce with a kick also is a staple of the menu. Plus, for those of you who like a little tea with your sugar, the restaurant serves the southern delight of sweet tea.

The restaurant may be unfamiliar to several of us. It looks like the chain currently does not have any locations in Kansas or Missouri. According to its website it has multiple locations in Tulsa and Oklahoma City to the south, and also Lincoln and Omaha to the north. The restaurant got its start in 1996 with a single restaurant near the entrance of Louisiana State University.

No word yet on when the restaurant may open in Lawrence. Plans filed at City Hall call for the approximately 3,600-square-foot bank building to be torn down and replaced with an approximately 2,900 square foot restaurant with a drive-thru. So, it likely will take several months before the restaurant opens.

And while we’re talking about chicken, don’t forget there is also one other entrant into this battle, although this one will be on 23rd Street. We reported back in April that former high-flying Jayhawk basketball player and current European star Keith Langford had signed a deal to bring Wing Stop to Lawrence. Langford has said the restaurant will be in the Louisiana Purchase Shopping Center near the Mr. Goodcents.

In other news and notes from around town:

• Perhaps South Iowa Street will become for chicken what West 23rd Street has become for Mexican food. As I have noted before, there are four Mexican restaurants within about two-tenths of a mile on 23rd Street — Taco Bell, Taco John’s, Chipotle and Border Bandido. We previously have reported a fifth — a place called Panchos Mexican Restaurant — has filed plans to go next door to Border Bandido in the old Pizza Hut location. That development has been slow to materialize, but when I last checked, the plans were still active.

Well, I’m hearing speculation of another Mexican-themed development along the stretch of road, and oddly, it is not the Mexican embassy. I’m hearing the Mexican chain Qdoba is looking at property along West 23rd Street. I’ll work to firm up a few details and report back to when I get additional information.

• Perhaps a bowl of chips and salsa, a side of chicken fingers and about five gallons of sweet tea would facilitate a good conversation at Lawrence City Hall. It appears city commissioners may need to have a complicated conversation about gentrification.

If you are confused, don’t feel bad. I too thought it was a lot like a taquito, but it is not. Gentrification basically is the idea of revitalization of property in a distressed neighborhood causing property values and property taxes to rise to a point that poorer residents can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood.

The idea has been brought up a few times at City Hall, especially as it relates to East Lawrence. The idea came up again at last night’s meeting. My colleague Peter Hancock reported that Commissioner Leslie Soden expressed concern about expanding the use of the city’s Neighborhood Revitalization Act to include entire neighborhoods that city officials deem in need of revitalization. The act would allow property owners to receive a partial, multi-year property tax rebate for making improvements to their property. Several communities across the state use the act in such a manner to spur revitalization of targeted areas of their community.

But Soden said she’s not sure that is such a good idea in Lawrence.

“We already have a problem with affordable housing,” Soden said. “I’m not interested in spurring gentrification of our neighborhoods when we already have an affordable housing crisis.”

Perhaps gentrification would be a problem, although it would be interesting to see if that has been the net result in other communities across the state. There should be some good data on that. The act has been in place since 1994.

But it seems there also should be some discussion about what are the ramifications of the city trying to avoid gentrification. I don’t know the answer to that, but it creates interesting questions. If we are afraid of property values going up in a neighborhood, does the city try to discourage revitalization of areas that show signs of wear and tear? Is it only private improvements that increase property values, or do public projects do so as well? Are there existing homeowners who want to see their property values increase over time? What’s the city’s longterm strategy?

That last one is particularly interesting because the city has provided millions of dollars of incentives to help the East Lawrence Warehouse Arts District — and the affordable housing projects that are part of it — get off the ground. That was a past City Commission though. But still, it was a major decision by the City Commission, and clearly the Warehouse Arts District is the type of project that could cause property values in the area to increase. Is the city’s policy now going to be that ordinary citizens in East Lawrence who want to add a bedroom onto their home, build a new garage, or spruce up the house with new siding are the gentrification straw that breaks the camel’s back?

Again, I don’t know the answers, but it seems like it could be one of the more important discussions this new commission has. Expect it to come up as part of any future debate about the Neighborhood Revitalization Act, but also expect it to be part of the discussion of whether the city should support the Ninth Street arts corridor. The concern of gentrification has been brought up in that debate too.

At the moment, I think the best strategy is to order a refill on the chips and salsa.