photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Sixth and New Hampshire entrance to the Riverfront building is pictured on Friday, May 8, 2026.

For city leaders, settling a lawsuit over the former Riverfront Mall building isn’t just about ending a legal fight – it’s also a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to do something new in downtown Lawrence.

That’s what Vice Mayor Mike Courtney said Tuesday before city commissioners unanimously approved the settlement with the ownership group of the Riverfront building that will give the city control over the structure in spring of 2027.

The settlement puts a close on a suit that was filed in February 2024 by the building’s ownership group. Back then, the owners alleged that the city and its contractors damaged the building by altering the bank of the Kansas River during a repair project at the Bowersock Dam. The ownership group owns the building, but the city owns the land on which it sits and leases it to them.

According to the agreement, the city will be paying $325,000, and the suit’s other defendants, several contractors and subcontractors, will be paying $2.175 million. The contractors and subcontractors also named the city on their insurance policies, and the insurers covered the city’s legal fees in the case, as the Journal-World previously reported.

The city will gain control of the Riverfront building once the SpringHill Suites hotel that’s currently there vacates it, which the suit says must happen no later than April 5, 2027.

Once that happens, city commissioners said Tuesday, it would be a great space to do a project to enhance downtown – or, as Commissioner Mike Dever put it, “create some action along the river.”

In their memo to commissioners before Tuesday’s meeting, city staff had mentioned the possibility of demolishing the Riverfront building, and the commission seemed interested in ideas that would open up more access to the Kansas River. Courtney mentioned the natural features of the area, including eagle habitats there, and said the land could be “a major key to rejuvenating downtown and remembering who we are as a community.”

During public comments on Tuesday, the idea of using this location for a farmers market site was brought up, and multiple commissioners agreed that that might be a good use for the land. Mayor Brad Finkeldei also suggested tying it in with the Lawrence Loop trail, or even some kind of new connection with North Lawrence.

“I think there will be a lot more discussion to come on this particular piece of property,” Finkeldei said.

(Full disclosure: One member of the ownership group, Riverfront LLC, is operated by the Simons family, the former owners of the Journal-World. However, the Simons family no longer has any ownership interest in the Journal-World, and the Journal-World has no ownership interest in the Riverfront property.)