News and notes from around town: ••• A flock of Jayhawks, so to speak, has delivered more than a half-million dollars in funding to a group of KU-connected start-up companies. As we’ve reported, officials at KU Innovation Park have created a new “angel investor” network that brings together KU alumni and others with Jayhawk connections who are interested in providing early-stage funding to ...
Lawrence not only set a new record low for single-family home construction in 2024, it took a hammer and saw to the old record and demolished it. The City of Lawrence issued just 57 single-family building permits during the last year, which was well below the previous low-water mark of 79 single-family building permits, set in 2022. In other words, Lawrence broke the record low by nearly 30%. The numbers ...
Many of you are probably familiar with the television program “MythBusters,” where a group of somewhat nerdy science aficionados disprove many myths — often by blowing something up. Well, the folks at the U.S. Census Bureau can do the same thing, and usually use a lot less dynamite in the process. New data from one of the Census Bureau’s most comprehensive reports — its five-year American Community ...
The world may have been bumpy in 2024, but shoppers were steady. The city of Lawrence’s budget: Less so. We now have a year’s worth of sales tax collections in the book, and Lawrence’s 2024 totals don’t look much different than 2023 figures. Lawrence sales tax collections were up by 1% from a year ago. Statewide, the story was much the same, with an average growth rate of 1.4%. Steady, though, means ...
Here’s a resolution for you in 2025: Use fewer forks. It might save you money (although wet wipe bills may eat into some of those savings.) What possibly could be my point? Not to quibble, but I have four of them. (I think that is true even if we are talking about a spork.) Forks can cost you money — and I learned that by reading the details of the law that eliminates the state sales tax on grocery items, ...
East Lawrence is set to get another affordable housing project, but the broader community may get something that proves even more valuable out of the venture — an affordable housing method. As we reported last month, a project in the Warehouse Arts District in East Lawrence was selected by the City Commission and the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board to receive $450,000 in local grant money. ...