Fast-food chicken restaurant coming to west Sixth Street; 23rd Street chicken wing chain begins work; urgent care deal falls through

South Lawrence diners aren’t the only ones who will get to have all the fried chicken fun in this town. While there is a host of new chicken restaurants coming to south Iowa Street, plans have been filed for a new fast-food chicken restaurant on west Sixth Street as well.

If you remember, I told you a few weeks ago that I had heard speculation a fried chicken restaurant was going into the Bauer Farm development near Sixth and Wakarusa Drive. Well, plans for a new restaurant have been filed at City Hall, and a representative of the Bauer Farm development has confirmed to me that it is a chicken restaurant. The group, however, hasn’t yet been authorized to release the name of the new restaurant.

I know for many of you the news causes you to speculate it may be the Church’s Chicken chain. Church’s probably is the largest chain that doesn’t have a presence in Lawrence. As you may recall, we’ve previously reported that Popeye’s has filed plans to build a restaurant near 26th and Iowa streets in the shopping center that houses First Watch.

A source involved in the local development industry has confirmed that Church’s definitely has been looking for locations in Lawrence. But the source also told me that Popeye’s has been looking for a second location in Lawrence. So, it is really a guessing game at this point.

The project also still needs to win a key approval from City Hall. When the local group began developing the Bauer Farm project it agreed to a City Hall restriction on the number of drive-thru restaurants that would be located in the development. The development group — which is led by Lawrence businessmen Doug Compton and Mike Treanor — are seeking an increase in that drive-thru cap in order to accommodate this new restaurant. The group wants the cap raised to eight drive-thrus for the development, up from six. The plans states two of the eight would be limited to office drive-thrus, which could be for banks and such.

As for the location of the proposed restaurant, it is slated for the vacant lot just east of the Burger King restaurant.

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• Perhaps some of you are having a hard time keeping up with all the chicken news in Lawrence. A quick recap includes: the Popeye’s at 26th and Iowa; a new Raising Cane’s chicken finger restaurant is slated for the spot in front of Bigg’s BBQ near 25th and Iowa streets; and, of course — as evidence by the fact I no longer have a stain-free white shirt — Buffalo Wild Wings is already open at 27th and Iowa streets.

Some of you may remember, though, that I’ve occasionally mentioned that a business called WingStop is coming to the Louisiana Purchase shopping center at 23rd and Louisiana. That has been a slow moving project, though. Well, it is slow moving no more. Signs recently have been posted that say the restaurant will be open by December. Construction work is underway to remodel the space. The restaurant is going into the space just north of the Mr. Goodcents location. The last I knew, former KU basketball star Keith Langford and his family are the owners of the new franchise, which serves about a dozen different flavors of chicken wings.

Who knows, perhaps the restaurant will be open by Christmas. I can see it now: spicy wings in my stocking. (Trust me, I’ve had them in worse spots.)

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• Back to Bauer Farm for a moment. We previously had reported that plans had been filed at City Hall for a new XpressWellness Urgent Care center to be built near Sixth and Folks Road. Bill Fleming, a representative of the Bauer Farm group, has confirmed to me that those plans have fallen apart. The property near Sixth and Folks Road is back on the market.

You will see some construction in the area, though. Plans to build a new apartment complex in Bauer Farm are moving ahead. Fleming said the plans now call for about 100 living units in the complex, which is a bit smaller than when we originally reported on the project back in March.

As for the loss of the urgent care center, I suspect that was driven by the fact that another urgent care center, MedExpress, beat XpressWellness to the market. MedExpress opened just down the street on the site the formerly housed the Spangles restaurant.

Or maybe there was something else at play in XpressWellness’ decision. Maybe their pharmaceutical rep — upon seeing the pending plethora of fried chicken — said there is no way it can possibly ship enough cholesterol medicine to Lawrence.