photo by: Cynthia Hernandez/Journal-World Photo

The east entrance of First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, is seen on Friday, March 22, 2024.

The public hearing for a local historic register nomination of a church near Clinton Parkway will continue into April after some surrounding property owners said they had yet to receive notice of the hearing ahead of the Lawrence Historic Resources Commission’s Thursday meeting.

The Historic Resources Commission on Thursday opened the hearing to consider placing First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, on the Lawrence Register of Historic Places and voted unanimously to continue the hearing until its April 18 meeting.

While not addressed directly at Thursday’s meeting, First Presbyterian Church is the same church that sued the City of Lawrence to halt a project planned for property across the street at 2300 Crestline Drive that calls for building a more than 300-bedroom apartment complex spread across 57 duplexes and six detached dwelling structures. As the Journal-World has reported, that lawsuit was first introduced in late 2021, dismissed a few months later, then revived midway through 2023 after a successful appeal.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Part of the property at 2300 Crestline Drive is pictured Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. It’s the proposed site of a 300-bedroom apartment complex housed in nearly 60 duplexes, rather than a larger single building, and currently the subject of a lawsuit against the developer and the City of Lawrence.

Earlier this month, the lawsuit was the subject of a two-day bench trial in Douglas County District Court. A few days after the trial took place, the Journal-World learned from City Attorney Toni Wheeler that the court took the issue under advisement. Wheeler said the city expected a ruling in the future but didn’t know when it would be made; there haven’t been any additional court filings in the case since March 5, the day before the trial began.

There wasn’t much discussion among members of the Historic Resources Commission about the nomination itself, but they did hear a brief presentation from city staff and a pair of public comments. Historic Resources Administrator Lynne Braddock Zollner told commissioners that staff was recommending the nomination be approved based on the church’s architecture; it was originally constructed in 1967. Braddock Zollner said the church has already been listed in the Kansas Register of Historic Places and a recommendation is pending for it to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

When properties are listed on the local historic register, a 250-foot “context area” is also established requiring neighboring properties within that boundary to obtain a certificate of approval before they can take actions like demolitions or exterior construction visible from the public right of way. A map of the proposed context area included with Thursday’s meeting materials shows that it would indeed affect a portion of the currently vacant 2300 Crestline Drive property — which surrounds an existing day care facility — along with multiple apartment complexes surrounding the church and a small strip of land on the northern side of Clinton Parkway.

photo by: City of Lawrence screenshot

This map shows the 250-foot “context area” around First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, that would be established if the church is added to the Lawrence Register of Historic Places.

As for the commenters, one of them was Jeff Southard, who submitted the historic register nomination in December 2023. Southard said he wasn’t sure why the Historic Resources Commission would defer its decision, given that the church has already been recognized as a historic place at the state level.

“I don’t know what somebody could say that they were going to contest the fact that it’s a historic structure worthy of listing on the city’s registry,” Southard, who told the HRC he serves as an elder at the church, said at Thursday’s meeting. “It may cause some problems if they want to do some development within that 250-foot (context) area, but that’s a different question for another day. It has nothing to do with the merits of our position (that) our church should be put on the registry.”

Greg Musil with Rouse P.C., a Leawood law firm representing the owners of the vacant property to the west of the church, was the other commenter at Thursday’s meeting. Musil said there are a number of property owners in the area that are concerned about the designation, including a pair of apartment complexes to the south, a retail strip to the east and KU Endowment.

Musil said he didn’t plan to address any “substantive concerns” Thursday, including possibly disagreeing with Southard’s points, and instead said his group would be taking the time before the commission’s April meeting to review the nomination in more detail.

“Our initial procedural concerns are simply the lack of notice,” Musil said. “My client received notice last Thursday, and frankly, the (U.S. Postal Service) is now almost unreliable for things because I think my client’s address was the farthest away in California and they were the first one to get the notice, while people here in Lawrence have not yet received their letter.”

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The Historic Resources Commission on Thursday also approved, on a 5-1 vote, new design plans for a proposed project seeking to convert the former Journal-World printing plant near Sixth and Massachusetts and Sixth and New Hampshire streets into a commercial and office development.

photo by: City of Lawrence screenshot

This rendering shows the proposed design for the facade of the Q39 restaurant slated to be a part of the large-scale development project at the former Journal-World printing plant near Sixth and Massachusetts and Sixth and New Hampshire streets.

Specifically, the portion of the project addressed at Thursday’s meeting was for a space intended to be occupied by Kansas City barbecue restaurant Q39. As the Journal-World has reported, the restaurant will be in the former loading dock area of the Journal-World plant, with the main entrance located on New Hampshire Street.

City staff recommended against some elements of plans for the exterior of the Q39 entrance, including plans to paint the brick building facade white and incorporate unpainted timber columns. The project team opted instead to replace the wood columns on the front facade with metal-clad columns, and was able to garner approval for painting this section of the building after detailing products that would protect the painted brick and noting that the painted section would only account for 3% of the building’s entire facade.

The plans will next go to the Lawrence City Commission for final approval at a future meeting.