Eastern Lawrence building seeks to redevelop as medical office center; figuring out the latest downtown bicycle parking plan

This sketch shows a bike corral design proposed for installation near Eighth and Massachusetts streets. In order to better reflect the street's actual layout, this image has been been flipped horizontally from the original rendering provided by the city of Lawrence.

Residents in eastern Lawrence may soon have better access to some health care providers. A project is in the works to convert an office building near 23rd and Harper streets into a medical office building.

DaVita Dialysis has signed a deal to locate in a portion of the vacant office building at 1918 E. 23rd St., which previously housed the offices of SurePoint, an online pharmacy company that is based in Lawrence.

DaVita will provide a full range of dialysis services for area patients, said Susie Mercer, a facility administrator for the company’s Lawrence operations. DaVita already operates a dialysis center at 330 Arkansas St. near Lawrence Memorial Hospital. But she said patient volume had grown to the point that a second facility was needed.

“We’re kind of busting at the seams right now,” Mercer said. “This will give us more capacity, and we certainly have patients on the east side of town that will appreciate a more convenient location.”

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Dialysis — which is a treatment used for people suffering from a variety of kidney diseases or conditions — often is required to be performed three times per week, Mercer said. Growth in the number of people requiring dialysis has occurred, in part, because treatments are better and people are living longer.

“We have people in their late 80s doing dialysis now,” Mercer said. “When I started here 15 years ago, we had 35 patients. Now we have close to 60.”

DaVita, however is taking only 6,000 square feet of the approximately 10,000 square foot building. Ken Hayes, a commercial real estate agent with Lawrence’s Hedges Realty Executives, said the building is seeking another medical user or two for the remaining space. Hayes said he thinks there is potential for certain types of medical providers to tap into the east-side market of town.

Medical office development has been kind of a hot segment of Lawrence’s commercial real estate industry, but most of the activity of late has been in the northwest section of town. Two urgent care medical centers have projects along West Sixth Street — one is open near Sixth and Kasold and the other is slated for Sixth and Folks Road. A Topeka-based ear, nose and throat practice has opened in a new office building at Sixth and Folks Road, a new doctor’s office has opened near the Wal-Mart at Sixth and Wakarusa and dentist offices also have been locating along the West Sixth Street portion.

We’ll see whether a similar trend gets started in eastern Lawrence.

As for DaVita, construction work has begun to remodel the office building. Mercer said the company hopes to occupy the building sometime in December. And in case you are worried about what happened to SurePoint, which has been a growing business for Lawrence, remember that we previously reported that it has moved its offices to a building just behind Kohl’s in south Lawrence.

In other news and notes from around town:

• Hayes also has another interesting eastern Lawrence property that he’s involved with. Hayes has the listing for the shopping center at 19th and Haskell streets. I have no major updates to pass along on that, but Hayes confirmed he’s not just trying to lease a few storefront spaces in the location. (Although he is doing that too.) He’s said the owners of the property are interested in a complete sale or total redevelopment of the property.

Hayes said some out-of-town buyers have expressed some interest in the property. Hayes said the property has an oversized parking lot, which would allow for the development of some out-parcels that could attract new businesses to the area.

“Redevelopment really could add value to the property, and really could add value to the entire area,” he said.

It may be an area to keep an eye on in the future.

• I remember the day when a proposal to take away downtown parking spaces on busy Massachusetts Street would require me to pack a tent, a case of beanie weenies, a portable generator for the chocolate fountain and all the other necessary survival gear. I would need it in order to endure the long City Commission meeting that would surely result from the proposal.

But perhaps the world has changed because city commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday will begin the process of removing two prime parking spots near Massachusetts Street, and they’re scheduled to do so with a simple vote on their consent agenda.

As we previously have reported, the idea involves trying to create more parking spaces for bicycles in downtown Lawrence. A plan endorsed by the Lawrence-Douglas County Bicycle Advisory Committee calls for one vehicular parking space near Ninth and Massachusetts streets to be removed and one near Eighth and Massachusetts streets to be removed, among other things. The two spaces would be replaced with bike corrals that would each accommodate 10 bikes.

This sketch shows a bike corral design proposed for installation near Eighth and Massachusetts streets. In order to better reflect the street's actual layout, this image has been been flipped horizontally from the original rendering provided by the city of Lawrence.

The idea is catching on in other places, and it may do so here as well. Commissioners aren’t slated to give final approval to the idea on Tuesday, but rather they are being asked to approve an application for an approximately $9,000 grant to fund the project.

It will be interesting to watch how the issue unfolds. You don’t have to spend much time reading the letters to the editor of the LJWorld to understand that there is some tension brewing between some folks who love their automobiles and some who desire a much more pedestrian/bicycle oriented future. Much of the tension has focused on the proposal to redesign a portion of Kasold Drive, but the tensions may not be limited to just that issue.

How you view this bike parking issue may boil down to whether you believe there is a shortage of bike parking in downtown Lawrence — or in particular on Massachusetts Street — or whether you think this effort is more about raising the visibility of bicycling as a form transportation in Lawrence.

City staff members that have proposed the idea have described it as a little bit of both. In a memo to commissioners, the city’s planning staff says there are 306 bicycle parking spaces in downtown Lawrence, compared to 4,083 spaces for vehicles. The memo notes that new developments in other areas of town would be required to have a greater percentage of parking spaces than what is currently provided in downtown.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=z4ssIWJ4AzTA.kH0K5a-ZPbeM

But one thing to keep in mind is that the city’s count of bicycle parking spaces does not include the several hundred parking meter poles that line Massachusetts Street and various side streets. It is legal to lock your bike to those poles (as long as it is not a handicapped spot), and certainly many bicyclists do park their bikes on those poles. If those poles were included in the city’s analysis, the downtown bike parking numbers would look different.

It should be noted though that the parking meter poles aren’t perfect bike parking locations. Many of the poles don’t allow bicyclists to use a U-lock to lock their bike to the poles. Instead, they have to use a cable lock to secure their bikes. The cable locks are more susceptible to somebody carrying around a pair of bolt cutters, cutting the cable and making off with your bike. U-locks, I’m told, are preferred by some bikers. Of course, not all vehicle parking spaces are perfect either. As my insurance agent will tell you, a parallel parking space involves many imperfections for a hick with an F-150.

Thus far, there have been no discussions at City Hall about making it illegal for bicyclists to use the parking meter poles as parking spaces. In fact, the city has made accommodations to make some of the poles more accessible. You can add a special loop onto the poles to make them accessible for U-locks. Whether adding such loops to all parking meter poles would be more expensive than the proposed $9,000 plan, I don’t know. I have heard from some bikers that would be upset if the city did anything to make it illegal to park their bikes at the parking meter poles. It makes for convenient parking.

Several different types of bicycle parking are shown in these photos from the City of Lawrence.

If you believe that the parking meter poles are legitimate bike parking spaces — and I realize perhaps some folks don’t — then it is hard to argue there is a shortage of parking spaces for bicyclists on Massachusetts Street, at least not a parking shortage comparable to what vehicles face. I’ve seen many occasions when every vehicle space on Massachusetts Street has been occupied. I’ve never seen every parking meter pole on Mass. Street occupied by a bike.

But as I mentioned earlier, staff members also have noted this plan is at least partially about increasing the visibility of bicycling in Lawrence. In the memo, the staff notes that replacing some vehicle parking spaces with bike corrals will help “advertise bike friendliness and bring legitimacy and visibility to bicycling for transportation.”

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that is inappropriate. It may be a really good goal, and it may be a really good use of public policy to promote that goal. But, it seems to me that if that is what we are doing here, then people need to understand that is what we are doing. I suspect there are some people who don’t want to reduce downtown parking spaces unless there is an actual shortage of bicycle parking spaces.

As I said, it will be interesting to watch not only what happens with this plan, but what proposals come forward in the future. The staff memo indicates this project is a pilot project that could lead to other downtown bike parking proposals in the future.