photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

A vacant lot at 430 Maple Street in North Lawrence is set to become a landscape materials center this spring.

There are all types of logistical problems in today’s world. Sometimes they revolve around a mass of cargo ships anchored off a California port. Other times they revolve around a question: What am I going to do with all this stuff that has piled up over the last 30 years?

A new landscape center slated for North Lawrence is coming into existence thanks to that type of problem.

The owners of Lawrence Landscape have filed plans to open a new landscape center at 430 Maple St. But don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t a big box type of landscape center. It would be more accurate to call it a big lot type of center.

Plans call for the center to locate on a vacant, narrow piece of concrete that is between Maple Street and the Union Pacific railroad tracks. If you are trying to picture the location, look for the big grain elevators. The lot is on the other side of the railroad tracks and just a bit to the east of the elevators. Years ago, Lawrence Ready Mix used to operate a concrete plant on the site.

By spring, look for the lot to be filled with bins for mulch, sand, gravel and other such commodities common when undertaking landscape projects.

But the more interesting stuff may be the leftovers. (Coincidentally, that’s also my mantra for the day after Thanksgiving. A breakfast of mashed potato pancakes and pumpkin pie is nothing if not interesting.) Lawrence Landscape does a lot of hardscaping projects. Think outdoor kitchens, pool decks, patios and other such projects. Most projects have leftover materials.

“A lot of it is high-end product that you wouldn’t be able to buy at a place like Home Depot,” said Glen Westervelt, president and CEO of Lawrence Landscape.

He said the company literally has a storage yard where items like pavers, retaining wall blocks, stone veneers and other such items have been accumulating.

“There’s always stuff left over, and we’ve got about 30 years of it saved up,” Westervelt said.

The company hadn’t really planned on opening up a retail site to get rid of the products. The company was content enough storing the product on a 3-acre lot in North Lawrence as it had done for more than a couple of decades. But the city of Lawrence recently gave the company a cease and desist order related to the storage due to zoning issues, Westervelt said.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention and landscape lots.

“I knew there was a big piece of concrete that was available,” Westervelt said of the vacant lot by the railroad tracks. At that point, he figured the company might as well move the material there and let the public sort through all the items it has accumulated over the years.

Westervelt said the hours of the operation probably will be more limited than a traditional retail center, and he said the lot also will do some wholesale business. If people come to the lot and don’t find the material they are looking for, he said Lawrence Landscape has the ability to custom order nearly any landscape product.

The new venture will serve as a complement to a tree farm business that Westervelt operates just south of Lawrence. LLI Tree Farm is located just south of the South Lawrence Trafficway, where it intersects with Kasold Drive. It grows and sells trees there, as well as other landscape materials. That operation will focus on the plants and other green materials, while the North Lawrence location will have more of an emphasis on the hardscape materials.

Look for construction work, which will include a small building for a sales attendant, to begin this winter with an expected opening in the spring.