photo by: Bremen Keasey

The construction site where the future Municipal Services & Operations department campus will be in Eastern Lawrence on Jan. 10, 2025. City commissioners will consider approving further agreements with construction and design firms for the $130 million project.

Lawrence city commissioners will consider approving construction and engineering agreements with two firms for work on the city’s new Municipal Services and Operations campus.

The agreements would cover different parts of the construction work on the campus, which would be located at VenturePark in eastern Lawrence on the site of the former Farmland Industries fertilizer plant. One would be a $17,983,565 construction management agreement with McCownGordon for the construction of the first phase of the project, and the other would be a $4,474,375 engineering agreement with Dake Wells Architecture Inc. for the design of the second phase.

The first phase of the project, which has been underway since December, will include construction of the building housing the majority of the MSO department’s divisions and the fueling station, as the Journal-World reported. The expected cost for the first stage is estimated to be $65 million. If the commissioners approve this agreement, the city would have allocated a total of $46,671,309 in contracts with McCownGordon.

As the Journal-World reported, the commission voted in April 2024 to approve an accelerated timeline for the construction of the MSO campus — a $130 million project that will bring together various city divisions, including streets, water, sewer, inspections and traffic. In addition, the campus will have space for MSO administration, the fueling station and a central maintenance garage. The funding set aside for the project has been part of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan for years.

A city memo said the construction firm anticipates two more agreements for the project will be needed before the completion of phase one. The city anticipates the first phase of construction to be finished in 2026.

The second phase of the project would include the completion of the solid waste building and the central maintenance garage. That project is expected to be completed by 2027.

In other business, commissioners will consider approving $150,000 in grants to help fund special events.

The Unmistakable Events Grants, formerly known as the Transient Guest Tax Grants, will be distributed to 32 events. According to a city memo, 41 groups applied to the grant program, and the ad-hoc committee that evaluated the requests recommended that 32 of them receive funding.

None of the groups that requested grant money for this year are recommended to receive the full amount that they requested. Last year, as the Journal-World reported, four events received the full amount that they requested, including the Lawrence Busker Festival, but only 20 total grants were awarded for that year.

photo by: Shawn Valverde/Special to the Journal-World

A fire breather blows flames just feet away from the crowd during the Lawrence Busker Festival on Friday, May, 24, 2024.

Here’s a list of the groups recommended to receive grants this year, and the amount they’re recommended to receive:

• Free State Festival 2025, $12,000

• Lawrence Busker Festival, $11,250

• 2025 Juneteenth Celebration, $11,250

• Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade, $9,000

• Theatre Lawrence Annual Holiday Show, $9,000

• Lawrence Comedy Festival, $9,000

• KU Powwow & Cultural Arts Festival, $8,000

• LAAND, $7,200

• Lawrence Art Guild Art in the Park, $6,000

• Lawrence Restaurant Week, $6,000

• Live on Mass, $6,000

• The Avocado Tree LLC/El Arbol de Aguacate, $6,000

• Art Tougeau Art Car Parade with Low Riderganza!, $5,010

• Paper Plains Zine Fest, $4,800

• MixMaster2025, $4,000

• The Nutcracker, A Kansas Ballet, $4,000

• Lawrence Pride Park Party, $4,000

• St. John the Evangelist Church Mexican Fiesta 2025, $4,000

• Kaw River Roots Festival 2025, $4,000

• 44th Annual Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships AKA FidPick, $3,000

• Second Annual Downtown Lawrence Music Crawl, $2,578

• Great Plains Art & Music Festival, $2,250

• runLawrence Thanksgiving Day 5K Run, $1,628

• Society for the Preservation of Natural Historic Collections Annual Meeting, $1,500

• Lawrence Mardi Gras Parade, $1,218

• Park(ing) Day, $1,200

• 2025 Central States District of the Barbershop Harmony Society Fall Convention, $1,190

• Lawrence Opera Theatre Season 16: “Gianni Schicchi”/”Pagliacci,” $1,026

• Haunting Humanities, $1,000

• Lawrence Pride: Queer Prom, $1,000

• The Fond Dinner Series, $1,000 and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Spring Festival, $1,000.

Events that aren’t recommended to receive funding include Lawrence Lights: Making Spirits Bright; Memorial Day Takeover; National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships — Heartland Regional; KU Sip & Shop; 30 Plays in 60 Minutes; Alliance of National Heritage Areas Meeting — Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area; National Christian Homeschool Volleyball Championships; Lawrence Pickle Fest — A Big Dill; and 2025 Lawrence Veterans Day Parade. That doesn’t mean the events won’t happen, only that they did not receive grant support.