Plans for downtown grocery store growing; Price Chopper still in the mix on project

The former Borders building, located at Seventh and New Hampshire streets, in a file photo from 2012.

Trust me, I’m familiar with the idea of supersizing at the grocery store. There’s a reason my house has cereal boxes that can double as walk-in closets. But soon, downtown Lawrence and its neighbors in East Lawrence may have to figure out what they think of supersizing the grocery store.

The idea of a downtown grocery store at Seventh and New Hampshire streets at the site of the former Borders bookstore is still very much alive, the proposed developers tell me. But the idea is growing. The development group now wants to build a 40,000 square-foot grocery store instead of the 20,000 square-foot store that had been contemplated.

That will require tearing down the former Borders bookstore site — previously it would have been remodeled — and developers want the new building to be three stories tall. The two extra stories will be used to house about 80 apartments. The entire project will have a large underground parking garage, which necessitates the demolition of the existing building.

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Bill Fleming, an attorney for the development group that is led by Lawrence businessmen Doug Compton and Mike Treanor, said several factors are leading to the push for a larger store. The biggest one, though, is simply competition.

“This will be a much more sustainable project for the community,” Fleming said. “There’s a reason there aren’t many 20,000 square-foot grocery stores anymore. They have a hard time competing against the larger grocery stores.”

Even at 40,000 square feet, this project wouldn’t be one of the larger grocery stores in town. Fleming estimated it would be comparable to the Dillons store near 19th and Massachusetts.

As for who will be running this store, if it comes to be, that is still one of the more interesting questions out there. Fleming said the developers haven’t made a decision between the two previously announced grocery companies: Lawrence-based Checkers and Queen’s Price Chopper out of Kansas City .

Checkers was first to the scene on this project, but certainly Price Chopper has become a real possibility. I know the Price Chopper folks have talked about the benefit of a larger store. Fleming said he’s heard from them about the efficiencies that a larger store creates. Generally, a store that doubles in size does significantly more than double the revenue.

The project has other questions, though, before it can move forward. Fleming said the development group is having conversations with the owners of the condominiums in the Hobbs Taylor Lofts. There are covenant issues related to the former Borders property that would make it difficult to build a traditional grocery store on the site. Those covenants were put in place, in large part, to protect the adjacent Hobbs Taylor Lofts development. Fleming said the development group is actively engaged in conversations with Hobbs Taylor Lofts, and said that issue hasn’t yet been resolved.

“We’re listening to their concerns,” Fleming said.

It also will be interesting to watch what the reaction is to tearing down the old Borders building. The Borders building isn’t a historic one. It was built in the 1990s. But it replaced an older building, and there was a nasty fight about whether that building should be demolished to make way for the Borders building. Part of the compromise that was reached is that a couple of the walls of the original building remained. Fleming and I didn’t get into details about how they plan to construct this new three-story building, but that will be an issue to watch. Donald Trump’s wall may not be the only one that gets discussion this fall.

Tearing the building down, though, appears unavoidable, if the project is to move forward as now proposed. Fleming said the underground parking garage is a key to the entire deal. He said grocery stores demand a lot of parking before they commit to a project. The project easily could require 200 spaces or more.

“It is hard to do that without digging a hole,” Fleming said. And, he added, it is hard to dig a hole, if the building remains.

Watching the reaction of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association also will be interesting. Fleming said the developers have begun discussions with that group. He said he thought the discussions have gone well, thus far.

But this project is still in the early stages. No development plans have been filed yet, so there are probably more twists and turns to come. Although I didn’t delve into the topic with Fleming, I suspect this project will request a significant amount of incentives from the city. The city currently is debating how or whether it should offer incentives, especially for projects that include apartments. Fleming told me he anticipates the developers would seek to set aside about 15 percent of the apartments for an affordable housing program. Whether that will be an acceptable number to the city also will be worth watching.

Warm up the forklift to fetch the supersize popcorn because there will be many things worth watching on this project. The project has the chance to be fascinating because it is the rare one that has caused downtown developers and East Lawrence residents to both say the same things at times: Both groups essentially have ached to have a downtown grocery store for a number of years. Both think that it can be pretty positive to the health of downtown and the adjacent neighborhoods.

But now we are getting down to the details, and you know what they say about those. Of all the art forms that Lawrence is proud of, it will be interesting to see if the art of compromise is among them.