photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Reuter Organ building on New Hampshire Street is pictured on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026.

City leaders on Tuesday gave final approval to an incentives package for the redevelopment of the historic Reuter Organ building in downtown Lawrence – a project the developer said was “too big” to do without help.

The Lawrence City Commission voted 4-1 on Tuesday, with Vice Mayor Mike Courtney opposed, to approve the incentives for the Reuter Organ property at 612 New Hampshire St., and the adjacent property at 614-616 New Hampshire St. While the commission had already voted on the incentives once last year, city policy required it to take a final vote after the package had been approved by the Douglas County Commission and Lawrence school board.

As the Journal-World has reported, a private developer in Lawrence is seeking to create 10 new residential units in the Reuter building, with seven two-bedroom units, two studio/one-bedroom units and one three-bedroom unit. Four commercial units would be developed as well, distributed among the first floor, second floor, rooftop and basement. The smaller building on the south side would be redeveloped to house three commercial units.

Commissioner Mike Dever said the project was a way to help revitalize a “part of our community that’s been sitting derelict for years and years and years.”

The incentives package will provide the developers with a 95% tax rebate on the project’s new construction over 15 years and create a new sales tax district that would add a special 2% sales tax to any purchases made within the building for 22 years.

The applicant, Matt Gilhousen, said the incentives request wasn’t typical for his projects. He said he’d redeveloped historic properties before without incentives, including the Sylas and Maddy’s building and the Caramelo tortilla shop, but that the Reuter project was “too big for me to do myself.”

“I’m not your traditional developer,” Gilhousen said. “This isn’t a money grab.”

The reason the project was too big without incentives, said Tom Kaleko of financial advisory firm Baker Tilly, is that the Reuter building is “in very poor shape.” As the Journal-World reported, the limestone building that dates back to 1882 nearly collapsed in recent years.

Because of the building’s condition and historic preservation requirements, Kaleko said, “we believe the project is not likely to happen without the incentive.”

Commissioner Kristine Polian wanted to know, hypothetically, what would happen if the incentives didn’t go through. Gilhousen said the building would likely have to be razed at some point if the project couldn’t proceed. Polian didn’t want that to happen.

“We want to revitalize this neighborhood, which is very important to the community,” Polian said.

There was some broader discussion among commissioners about the tax rebate being requested. Courtney said he wouldn’t vote for the incentives because he wanted incentives for projects like this to be more in line with the incentives offered by the city’s Catalyst Program.

That program applies to companies locating in the city’s two business parks, Lawrence VenturePark and East Hills Business Park. It offers either a 50% or 70% property tax abatement for 10 years, a sales tax exemption on construction materials and free land from the city if the company builds in VenturePark or East Hills.

Polian said that she was torn on the vote – “It hurts my feelings,” she said. While she was strongly in favor of saving a historic building, she also was interested in a discussion about incentives in the future: “I would look forward very much to exploring incentives that are not 95% and 15 years.”

“I think I’m going to vote in favor of it solely because of the historic part of it,” Polian said.

While Commissioner Amber Sellers said she would be “more than happy” to talk about changes to how the city handles incentives, she also said that the request for this project made sense.

“This is a tool that’s being used and is being used right,” she said.

And Mayor Brad Finkeldei said the city would be gaining nothing if the project didn’t go ahead. There was no property tax or sales tax benefit, he said, from an empty lot.