Projects of all shapes and sizes are vying for their share of nearly $25 million in federal pandemic funding that has been allocated to Douglas County. There’s a nearly half-million dollar campground for homeless people (recommended for funding) and about $270,000 for tents for outdoor ...
Figuring out how to distribute nearly $25 million of unexpected federal funding related to the pandemic can be a bit like standing in front of a massively stocked buffet (remember those?) but having only one plate to fill: It takes a lot of planning, and it can get messy. Douglas County ...
I’ve long wanted to combine “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Karate Kid.” The movie could have been an hour shorter if Mr. Miyagi would have led that sad-sack group of characters. (Full disclosure: I’m a proud Kansan who has never fully watched “The Wizard of Oz,” despite having a ...
May normally is a banner month in Lawrence. Graduation ceremonies, full hotel rooms, bustling restaurants, catered parties and much more. This May, there were banners all right in Lawrence. Most of them read “closed.” The latest sales tax report from the state of Kansas — it is the July ...
Sometimes I’ve been accused of making a real process of making a sandwich. (If the bread is the right size, a scoop shovel for the mayo is appropriate, I continue to contend.) But a new deli is coming to downtown that takes the process several steps further. It plans to prepare most of its ...
A downtown Lawrence business is risking as much as $100,000 of its own money in an effort to get a new sport established in high schools and middle schools across the state. Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop has pledged the money to be used to start a new, competitive mountain biking league ...
A U.S. passport doesn’t work as well as it used to in helping you see the world, but maybe a bowl of couscous will. (I wouldn’t suggest trying to hand it to the TSA officer at airport security though.) Of course, that’s not what I’m talking about it. Instead, food might be the most ...
A taste of Taiwan has come to south Iowa Street, which in this case, means tea, and perhaps in ways that you've never tasted it before. Presotea recently opened in the shopping center at 2540 Iowa Street. If you are having a hard time picturing the location, it is the shopping center that ...
Mortgage interest rates may be historically cheap, but the number of homes prospective buyers have to choose from in Lawrence also is near historic lows. The result in June was a local housing market on the downturn. The number of homes sold and their average selling prices both were down in ...
Most of the numbers in this pandemic haven’t been that welcome. This one might be: $129 million. Douglas County businesses and nonprofits got at least that much in low-cost, potentially forgivable federal loans. You might remember this spring when Congress approved the Paycheck Protection ...
The movement in Douglas County right now is to save rural farmland, which has created an interesting question for a pending project in North Lawrence. Where do you park the tractors? Plans have been filed for a 35,000-square-foot building to be constructed on a North Lawrence farm field along ...
Maybe while you’ve been in lockdown mode during this pandemic, you’ve wanted to climb the walls. Soon there will be a new spot in Lawrence that makes a business of it, and it may change the downtown skyline in the process. All the way back in January, we briefly reported that plans had ...
Drive-thru coffee has been known to get me moving. (I don’t drink it, but I do spill it on my lap.) Now, maybe it will get a new west Lawrence commercial development moving as well. Plans have been filed at City Hall that would clear the way for a drive-thru coffee shop to locate just off ...
A Lawrence landmark is now on a firmer financial foundation than it has been in years. You may remember that in March we reported the United Way of Douglas County had reached a deal to move its offices into a portion of the historic Castle Tea Room building near 13th and Massachusetts ...
A Johnson County nonprofit is expanding its program to test asymptomatic people for the COVID-19 virus in Lawrence next week. Lenexa-based Heart to Heart International will operate free testing sites for basically anyone in the community, Mark Gleeson, a Lawrence resident who works for the ...
A community just on the other side of the Douglas County line has landed a $100 million high-tech industrial project. Merck Animal Health announced Monday morning that it is has approved a $100 million expansion plan for its facility along Kansas Highway 10 in De Soto. The press release ...
News and notes from around town: — A development group looking to build a downtown grocery store has won a key lawsuit, but it has lost the grocery store project anyway. The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday announced it has ruled in favor of Treanor Investments, a local development group ...
The hit to retail businesses from the pandemic is showing up in new sales tax numbers, and they indicate Lawrence has suffered one of the starkest slowdowns of any major city in the state. Lawrence’s sales tax collections dropped 13.2% in the June sales tax report issued by the state today. ...
A company that makes flashing red lights for the railroad industry is on the verge of giving the green light to a project that would bring dozens of manufacturing jobs to Douglas County. Canadian-based Modern Manufacturing is in negotiations with the city of Eudora to locate a factory in the ...
It used to be that a bonbon fix in Lawrence meant a box of fancy chocolates, a pair of stretchy pants and at least an hour’s suspension of all shame. Then along came the East Lawrence restaurant Bon Bon, which brought new meaning to the idea. Now — find the stretchy pants — we are back to ...