photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Lawrence Economic Development Director Britt Crum-Cano addresses city leaders during the Lawrence City Commission meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023.

A bus hub, a downtown grocery store and more affordable housing are among the ideas Lawrence leaders have for how some existing city-owned downtown parking lots could be repurposed in the future.

During Tuesday’s Lawrence City Commission meeting, commissioners set the stage for city-owned lots to host future mixed-use developments that could eventually incorporate any number of those ideas — or even others that developers have yet to suggest.

City staff members presented commissioners with four different lots to consider as priorities for redevelopment at the meeting. The lots are at 711 New Hampshire St., 836 Vermont St., 825 New Hampshire St. and 1020 Vermont St., and each one was the subject of redevelopment ideas from commissioners.

One idea floated by Commissioner Brad Finkeldei — which caught on with the other four commissioners, too — was to use one of the lots to develop a downtown bus station. Finkeldei told the group he was modeling the idea off of a transit hub he saw in La Crosse, Wisconsin, earlier this summer. That station had a first-floor bus hub, a second-floor parking garage and three floors of residential space above. It also included some retail space.

“The bus hub, I think, is worth looking at,” Finkeldei said. “If, basically, it’s our land and we build a parking structure, a building which the buses could go under like the La Crosse one, then we say ‘Give us a plan for the three floors above it,’ you already have a structure, you have free land, I could see that possibly being something that could be worked in.”

Commissioner Bart Littlejohn also specifically mentioned an idea for how one downtown lot could be repurposed that was first considered about a year ago: using the lot at 826 Vermont St. for a project that includes, among other things, a downtown grocery store. The city previously agreed to donate the lot to Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center for a unique multistory housing project, but that idea was walked back within a few weeks.

Commissioner Courtney Shipley also echoed an interest in both the bus hub and grocery store ideas, along with a desire to incorporate affordable housing.

Commissioner Amber Sellers, meanwhile, noted that a permanent home for Lawrence’s downtown farmers market, if covered with a roof, could be a good venue for not only a lengthened market season but also for use for other events and agencies.

Commissioners didn’t make any decisions about future projects, but they did seem to come to a consensus that they’d like to see the parking lots at 711 New Hampshire St., 836 Vermont St. and 1020 Vermont St. be a focus for any potential redevelopment moving forward.

In other business, commissioners:

* Approved a rezoning request and preliminary development plan for a project at 1717 Research Park Drive.

The project, which proposes developing 14 single-dwelling residential lots on a 1.73-acre property, is currently zoned for office and business park uses, but it hasn’t been developed.