photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Susie Carson, Lawrence's economic development director, addresses the Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.

From his experience working in sales, Vice Mayor Mike Courtney knows there are no sure things.

And that gave him pause this past week as he looked at an economic development application – one he worried could turn long-awaited projects in west Lawrence into less-sure things.

“I remember earlier in my career, I worked on a couple ones where somebody said, ‘Hey, this thing’s in the bag, we’ve 100% got this, no problemo,'” Courtney told the City Commission on Tuesday. “And, at the last minute, the rug was pulled out from underneath us.”

He doesn’t necessarily think that will happen with the projects he’s talking about – the new Costco store just east of the South Lawrence Trafficway and a proposal for at least a thousand housing units just west of the trafficway. But he said it was important to be cautious with the application, which as currently proposed could touch both of those projects and a development on the south side of town that’s taken major turns over the years.

The application is from a group called K-10 Development Group LLC, which is associated with Wichita businessman Phil Bundy. He’s the one who proposed the big housing development west of the trafficway, referred to in the application as Beacon Landing, and he also has been pursuing the south Lawrence project, which was previously called New Boston Crossing and would include housing and a sports complex, among other things.

One thing the group is seeking is a type of special taxing district that would encompass both of those projects and let the developers capture nearly all of the sales tax revenue created by new businesses there. To get there, the developers have reworked those developments to include a couple of new attractions — a multi-use arena and an interactive “life-sized” board game experience.

But where does Costco, which is not a Bundy project, fit in? That’s something Courtney and other commissioners had questions about, because the territory of the district, as shown in a preliminary map submitted by the developers, would include the Costco store.

Costco only just received its building permit last month, and the city is expecting the store to play a major role in its sales tax picture once it’s complete. And at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, Courtney made that comparison to his sales career and said the stakes were too high to do anything that might jeopardize the Costco development.

“Do I think that’s going to happen with Costco?” he said of the proverbial rug pull. “No.” But, at the same time, he said, “I don’t want them getting cold feet by putting them into something before the building’s built, before the doors are open, because our execution phase depends on that going forward.”

In addition to the Costco issue, Courtney was concerned that tying Beacon Landing to the former New Boston Crossing might mean a delay for the new housing at Beacon Landing, or even that it might not get built at all.

As it stands, there is a lot left to figure out about the incentives application. The commission voted 4-1, with Courtney opposed, to receive the application, but that doesn’t bind commissioners to approve anything else about the development.

Three of the commissioners who voted yes – Mike Dever, Kristine Polian and Mayor Brad Finkeldei – said they had similar questions to Courtney’s. But they said that only by receiving the application and having staff and consultants study it more thoroughly could they get answers.

“I will go ahead and be in favor of (receiving) the application,” Polian said. “But I have a lot of questions, and that does not mean I’m in favor of the project.”

photo by: City of Lawrence

A map submitted to the City of Lawrence by K-10 Development Group LLC shows a proposed STAR Bond district that includes the Costco site.

The district

The type of tax district the developers are pursuing is called a STAR Bond district. STAR Bonds are a state program that’s helped fund entertainment and tourism projects around Kansas, including the Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte County, the River District in Wichita, and the University of Kansas’ Gateway project.

STAR Bonds are basically a mechanism that lets a developer keep nearly all the sales tax money a development creates. They can be particularly powerful because, unlike other incentives, they let developers capture revenue from state sales taxes, not just city and county ones, and the state charges the most sales tax by far. With a STAR Bond, the state contributes 90% of every new sales tax dollar it would have collected otherwise toward the developers.

The projects that the STAR Bond program has been used to fund range from museums to sports facilities to a dinosaur park. But how can a couple of housing or mixed-use developments be seeking a STAR Bond incentive? The answer appears to be that neither one is exclusively a housing development anymore, and each would have a larger entertainment-oriented attraction included in it.

According to the incentives request, the part of the development formerly known as New Boston Crossing – now called The 1059 – would feature an “indoor multisport facility” and six outdoor fields where tournaments could be held. It would also include a barefoot walking trail and an attraction called “Hasbro LIFESIZED.” Brian Clothier, special projects manager for K-10 Development Group LLC, told the Journal-World via email that this would involve “immersive, life-sized experiences inspired by recognizable Hasbro board game brands” like Monopoly, but didn’t provide much detail beyond that. “Final programming is still being developed,” he said.

The Beacon Hill part of the development, the application says, would feature a “Free State Arena” with a capacity of 3,000 to 5,000 people. As for how the arena would be used, the application says it would be “Available to host any number of sports, music, or community events.”

Both The 1059 and Beacon Hill would still include housing, and they would have restaurant and retail spaces too.

One thing city commissioners want to find out is why both developments are being proposed in the same STAR Bond district.

A preliminary map, which a city spokesperson, Millie Pageau, said was the only district map the developers submitted to the city, shows the district wrapping around the south and west sides of Lawrence in one contiguous piece. It would run near the Haskell Indian Nations University campus and The 1059 development in the south, then would run west and north up K-10 to the Beacon Landing development west of the SLT. From there, it would run east on Sixth Street and take in the site of the planned Costco store.

The Journal-World asked Clothier why the projects were put into the same district, and he said it was because they were intended to work together as a “regional destination.”

“The proposed district combines The 1059 and Beacon Landing because the K-10 corridor creates an opportunity to connect multiple attractions, destinations, and visitor experiences into a single tourism district,” Clothier said via email. “Together, the projects are designed to complement one another and create a broader regional destination than either project could independently.”

Susie Carson, the economic development director for the City of Lawrence, told commissioners Tuesday that she couldn’t speak to whether this district would meet the state’s criteria for STAR Bond districts.

“There’s a lot of statutory eligibility requirements with the STAR Bond process, and I have not dug into the project enough to know if it meets all those eligibility requirements,” Carson said.

But she said that after the application had been received, staff would be looking into the fine details, including consulting subject-matter experts like the city’s bond counsel. She also noted that the development group, not taxpayer dollars, would be paying for this review: “The applicant covers all costs of us digging into the application a little bit more, so our taxpayers do not.”

Finkeldei was interested in getting those answers.

“I think a lot of the questions being asked are questions everyone wants to know the answer to,” he said Tuesday. “What’s Costco’s role in this? What’s the linking of the two?”

Two phases

One particular detail of the application caught Courtney’s attention: that the two halves of the project wouldn’t happen at the same time.

Instead, the application lists them as phases. The 1059 is Phase 1, and Beacon Landing is Phase 2. It estimates that The 1059 “will take approximately five years to complete” and that the Beacon Landing project would “commence approximately six months after The 1059 is fully constructed.”

“To me, that gives me pause,” Courtney said. “Because that almost sounds like if The 1059 doesn’t happen, we could lead ourselves into a situation where none of the west gets built.”

As the Journal-World has reported, the story of the site where The 1059 is proposed is a long and complicated one. The site is bounded to the south by the Wakarusa River, and over the last decade, more than half a dozen plans have been proposed and multiple development groups have tried unsuccessfully to win zoning approvals for it.

Bundy’s group was once able to get City Hall zoning approvals for the site, but that was for a different plan than the one that’s being considered now.

Beacon Landing, meanwhile, has its own hurdles it must clear. One is that the land it would use still has not been annexed into the city. The annexation of about 650 acres would be one of the largest in the city’s history, but earlier this spring the annexation request was deferred before it even got to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission.

In late April, planning director Jeff Crick told the Journal-World that was because the rezoning application was “incomplete.” Bundy said at the time that he still intended to pursue the annexation and rezoning requests.

Carson said the annexation was an absolute must if the project were to use STAR Bonds.

“We cannot legally do a STAR Bond over property that is not within the city,” she told the commission.

Haskell and Costco

Then, there are the questions about how the district would affect Costco and Haskell Indian Nations University. Neither one is part of The 1059 or Beacon Landing projects, but both would be affected in the preliminary district map.

The application states that Haskell was included because the developers intend to provide $2 million to Haskell if the project goes forward “to enable Haskell to complete improvements to its campus.”

In an emailed response to questions from the Journal-World, Haskell Acting President Alex Red Corn said the university had been in communication with the developers “about possible STAR bonds to help fund several investments in our historic campus.”

Red Corn said the work the developers mentioned could include improvements to the Haskell powwow grounds, the stadium and the Haskell Cultural Center, as well as new boardwalk access to the wetlands.

But he also said that the university had not committed to anything yet.

“As of now, we have no official stance or commitment from our leadership, the Haskell Foundation, or the Haskell Board of Regents to this project,” Red Corn wrote. “More community and stakeholder engagement is needed before any projects are approved. Haskell leadership appreciates the opportunity to be included in the conversation as it continues to evolve.”

During the City Commission’s meeting on Tuesday, commissioners heard about 30 minutes of public comments about the application, and multiple commenters said they suspected the developers were offering the $2 million so that Haskell would not oppose The 1059 project. One commenter called it a “meager” incentive and said that the Haskell community had historically been against developments in that southern area near the wetlands.

The Journal-World asked Clothier what, if any, requirements or conditions there might be for Haskell Indian Nations University in connection with the $2 million contribution if the project were to move forward. Clothier said that the group was “not authorized to speak on behalf of Haskell Indian Nations University” and that the question would be better directed to Haskell leadership. The Journal-World also asked Haskell about any potential conditions, but Red Corn did not mention anything about this in his response.

As for Costco, Carson, the economic development director, said that she had already informed them of the application as a courtesy, “just to kind of give them a heads up.” But for any answers, the commission will have to wait for the application review.

The research will take a while. Carson said the application’s complexity meant it could take months to review; she made a ballpark estimate of 3 to 6 months.

“There could be a good project here and we don’t know,” Carson said. “Or, there may not be and we don’t know.”

But city leaders also noted that the process wasn’t far along, that nobody had committed to anything yet, and that the City Commission would have the final say.

“An application from a developer asking to put Costco in is a far thing from Costco actually being in,” Finkeldei said. And that decision on whether it is or isn’t in “would be something we would do.”