Liquor store coming to Ninth and New Hampshire; city set to increase golf fees at Eagle Bend; cost of trees going up too

I’m in the mood for some this ‘n that — and weather that doesn’t require me to wear rubber socks and a life jacket. I can help with one of the two. Here’s a look at some this ‘n that items set to occur at Lawrence City Hall in the coming days.

• The center of downtown Lawrence is set to get a liquor store. An application has been filed at City Hall for City Wine Market to open in the same building that houses the Marriott Hotel at Ninth and New Hampshire streets. City Wine Market operates a liquor store at Sixth and Wakarusa. The company has filed a renewal permit for that store, so the downtown location would be an expansion of the company’s offerings in Lawrence.

Steve Wilson, who runs the business along with manager Jamie Routledge, said the store will be on the Ninth Street side of the hotel building and will share an entrance with the new Port Fonda restaurant that currently is under construction on the ground floor of the hotel. Wilson said he hopes to have the liquor store open in late July or early August.

Like the West Lawrence store, the focus at the downtown location will be on wine. But the store will have a larger beer section than the west Lawrence store, and it also will offer other spirits besides wine. The West Lawrence location has about 400 “everyday wines,” plus quite a few upper-end wines as well. Wilson said he expects to have that type of selection downtown as well. Plus, the downtown location will have a wine-tasting bar that will host weekly events, Wilson said.

Wilson said the company was looking for expansion opportunities after the west Lawrence store hit its five-year anniversary recently. He said the company long had thought its next store would be in Johnson County, but he said the amount of residential development that is occurring in downtown Lawrence made the area too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“With the apartments, the hotel guests and Port Fonda, the density of people at the intersection is going to be pretty impressive,” Wilson said.


• The price of golf at Lawrence’s Eagle Bend Golf Course is set to increase. City commissioners on Tuesday are being asked to approve an immediate increase of $1 for all green fees and $2 for all golf cart fees at the course, which is located below the Clinton Lake dam.

The increase would mean 18 holes on a weekday with a cart would come to $33, up from $30 currently. (None of those fees, of course, include the premiums for the necessary liability insurance. What? You’re not required to take out insurance when you play?) The fee for 18 holes on the weekend with a cart will increase to $45, up from $42.

Eagle Bend, like many golf courses, had dropped its rates during the economic downturn. In 2012, rates dropped all the way to $25 for 18 holes and a cart on the weekdays at Eagle Bend. The course has been gradually raising fees since then.

Eagle Bend officials said they’re confident this latest fee increase will keep Eagle Bend’s prices slightly below several other area courses. The staff surveyed the rates of 11 other courses in the area — such as Lake Shawnee, Alvamar Public, St. Andrews, Ironhorse, Prairie Highlands, and others. City staffers found that the proposed fees for Eagle Bend will be $3 to $6 lower than the average fees at the 11 courses surveyed.

We’ll see what type of impact the fee increases have on the number of golfers using the course. The city’s parks and recreation department is projecting the current fees will cover the course’s approximately $790,000 in operating expenses. But it would like to have additional revenue to begin funding capital improvements, such as replacing aging equipment and such at the course.


• We go from golf to trees, and for once that transition did not result in a costly Municipal Court ticket. City commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting are being asked to increase the price of trees sold by Lawrence City Hall.

You have that perplexed look on your face like when your 5-iron gets stuck in the tree. Don’t feel bad, lots of folks perhaps don’t know that City Hall sells lots of trees. The city has a Master Street Tree Program that requires the planting of a certain number of trees along city streets when new building permits are issued. Builders pay for the trees as part of their building permit fees, and the city plants the trees during the appropriate times.

Well, apparently tree prices are on the rise. The city says recent bids have made it clear that an increase is needed. The city is proposing to charge $365 per tree, up from $245 per tree. The $365 price includes a $25 administrative fee, which would be an increase of $5 from the current administrative fee. The city notes the last time it increased the tree fee was in 2003. Parks and recreation officials, who oversee the purchase of the trees, said their suppliers tell them tree prices are on the rise nationally because of poor conditions related to the drought and increased costs to battle several types of diseases affecting a variety of trees.

The city, at the request of the Lawrence Home Builders Association, is proposing to make the fee increase effective in about 90 days in order to give builders time to adjust their pricing on homes.

In case you are wondering, the city has planted about 4,400 trees as part of the Master Street Tree Program since 2002.