photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Sunflower Outdoor & Bike plans to add a rooftop seating area to its business. It would be atop the 802 building, which is the brown two-story building in the photo above.

Having a beer and a burger on the roof of a downtown Lawrence building soon may be the latest Massachusetts Street experience.

No, a ladder won’t be required, nor will a good lawyer to beat the ticket. A leader in the city’s planning department has confirmed owners of two downtown buildings recently have had building permits approved to add rooftop seating areas.

One of them is the Sunflower Outdoor & Bike shop near Eighth and Massachusetts streets. The other is the bar and grill Logies on Mass, 728 Massachusetts St. If you remember, I reported in May that Logie’s was planning to construct a rooftop beer garden and dining area atop the second story of its large downtown building. But I also reported at that time that the city had not yet approved the building permit application for the project.

Wanting a rooftop dining area and getting a rooftop dining area in downtown Lawrence historically have been two different things. There have been several bars and establishments that have tried to get rooftop approval from the city before and failed, and I wasn’t sure that the city code even allowed such projects for the old buildings along Massachusetts Street. (Newer buildings, like the Oread hotel and the new downtown Marriott both have been built with rooftop terraces.)

But Jeff Crick, director of planning and development services, recently confirmed to me that city code does allow for rooftop seating areas and that the city had recently approved the building permit applications for Sunflower and Logie’s.

“Downtown rooftop spaces are possible and they they would have to comply with the Historic Resources code and the city’s adopted building and fire codes,” Crick said via email.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Logie’s on Mass has been approved for a building permit atop its second story at 728 Massachusetts Street. The building is pictured on Nov. 15, 2021.

Now, a big question becomes whether we will see a lot more of them in downtown Lawrence.

Crick said that’s hard to say. He said the requirements that determine whether a building could have a rooftop space are pretty technical and relate to engineering factors about how much weight a building can support. They also relate to whether egress — think a staircase — can be properly built that will allow patrons to quickly and safely exit in case of a fire. There’s also the type of materials used in the existing building and the rooftop construction. If they are too combustible, that likely will lead to a fire code violation that would kill the project. Plus, all construction and additions have to be done in a way that still allow the buildings to fit within the criteria of the designated historic district that covers downtown.

That makes it difficult to give guidance to building owners about whether they could successfully apply for a rooftop area.

“It really is going to be a building by building look at the engineering and the materials,” Crick said. “There is not a hallmark for what a building must have for it to go forward.”

Dan Hughes, owner of Sunflower Outdoor & Bike, has a pretty good idea of one thing a building owner will need — money. He didn’t provide an estimate for how much it will cost to add the roughly 500 square-foot seating area atop one of his two buildings.

“I try not to think about it,” Hughes said. “I really try not to.”

He said the project actually is building an entirely new deck that will be suspended above the existing roof. That means large steel beams will stretch across his 25-foot wide building to support the structure.

“They engineered the hell out of it,” he said.

The project also is designed to not detract from the historic look of the Sunflower space, which occupies one of the older buildings in downtown.

“We found that it was possible to put the rooftop deck on there without having anyone hanging out over Massachusetts Street or even being seen from anywhere on Massachusetts Street,” Hughes said. “I think that is important because I don’t think that is the look people want downtown.”

What downtown patrons and historic preservationists will think of the potential trend is an open question. But a more immediate one is, what will these rooftop areas be used for?

Sunflower operates a cafe that serves both coffee and beer, but Hughes said he doesn’t think the rooftop area will regularly be open to cafe customers. The cafe is on the first floor. Instead, Sunflower is in the midst of a strategic plan to really maximize the approximately 21,000 square feet of space in its two side-by-side buildings at 802 and 804 Massachusetts St.

Hughes said plans call for a renovation of the third story at the 804 building into a small event space. The rooftop area will be on the roof of the 802 building, which is only two stories tall. The project will build a door into the side of the 804 space that opens onto the rooftop of 802.

“It almost will be like a pocket park for us,” Hughes said, envisioning wedding receptions and other events using the outdoor space. Plus he said the bike and outdoor store may want to have some events of its own on the roof, given that the store is in the business of promoting the benefits of being outdoors.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Sunflower Outdoor & Bike has empty space on its third floor that it plans to remodel to use as event space. A portion of the wall would be opened to create a door onto the adjacent rooftop space.

The way the city’s code is written, any number of uses could be allowed on the roofs. Crick told me that rooftop areas would be allowed for restaurant uses, but also a bar that doesn’t serve food could have one too. For that matter, the business doesn’t have to be a bar or restaurant at all. Theoretically, a retailer could come up with a use for an open air rooftop area, or an office building may want it for an employee lounge, for example.

As for what Logie’s wants to do with its rooftop area, I wasn’t successful in catching up with a representative of that business on Monday afternoon. But, Logie’s is largely considered a college-oriented bar, although it does serves food. When I talked with an employee in May to write about its opening, she said plans were for the rooftop to serve as a beer garden and dining area.

If you have ever been to Boulder, Colo., you are familiar with some college establishments in that downtown area that have such beer garden and dining areas.

Somebody get busy building some mountains, and we’ll be set.

I’ll try to keep an eye on this issue because I suspect there may be some other rooftop projects that are considered.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

The view from the third-floor space at Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop.

•••

While I was talking with Hughes at Sunflower, I got an update on the large gravel bike race event that was hosted in downtown on Halloween. As we reported in June, the Belgian Waffle Ride series chose Lawrence as one of its tour stops.

Hughes told me the event was successful enough that it will be back for a second year, again slated for October. He said there were just more than 700 bike riders who participated in the gravel road race. Hughes felt that was a good number for the first year, especially given that there were still COVID considerations.

He thinks the event still has a lot of room to grow. The Belgian Waffle Ride in San Diego attracts about 4,000 riders. A similar event in Emporia that is not part of the BWR series attracts more than 2,000 riders. Hughes thinks that is very attainable for Lawrence.

“They are getting 2,500 people to Emporia, and what does Emporia have that Lawrence doesn’t?” Hughes said. “We are as cool as Emporia, and we are closer to the airport.”

Hughes said the event did attract multiple riders from the West Coast, and generated quite a bit of spending in downtown Lawrence. While the event provided Belgian waffles to riders — and specialty beer — organizers didn’t cater the other aspects of the event. Instead, they gave each rider a $20 Downtown Lawrence Inc. gift card to spend at local restaurants or retailers.