photo by: Submitted photo

A rendering shows the entrance and dining area for a proposed senior living community that plans to build on vacant ground near Theatre Lawrence in northwest Lawrence.

The dichotomy of retirees living across the street from one of the city’s largest high schools is about to get deeper in northwest Lawrence. Plans have been filed to build another retirement complex — this one with an Alzheimer’s facility — in the Bauer Farm development near Free State High School.

A St. Louis-based company is seeking to build 53 units of assisted living and 22 units for residents in need of memory care on a vacant piece of ground just east of the Theatre Lawrence building. Yes, that also will put it right next door to one of the city’s largest existing retirement communities, Meadowlark Estates.

That indeed will make the Bauer Farm development — which stretches along the north edge of Sixth Street from Wakarusa Drive to Folks Road — a hotbed for seniors, both the type that go to Free State High across the street and the type who are living out their golden years.

That wasn’t always the plan for Bauer Farms. When it was approved by city leaders in 2006, Bauer Farms was envisioned to become the city’s premier example of a new urbanist center that combined a mix of downtown-like retail establishments with apartments and single-family homes that would be filled with people who liked the idea of living in a pedestrian-friendly, urban center type of development.

The recession of 2008-2009 is largely blamed for knocking that concept off course, so it has been clear for a while that the idea of houses being built as part of the development was unlikely. But the approximately 7-acre lot that the senior living complex is planned for is still technically zoned for that type of development. It also is basically the last large vacant lot left in the development.

A representative with the St. Louis development company that is proposing the latest project said the site makes great sense for a senior living project in today’s environment.

“The senior growth rates in Lawrence and Douglas County are very high, and we expect that to continue for quite some time,” Nick Dwyer, development manager for Dover Development, told me via email.

Dwyer also said the site has become more attractive for that type of development with the completion of the LMH West Campus that is just down Sixth Street from the site. Plus, easy access to several grocery stores, a pharmacy and entertainment options — like the community theater — also played into the company’s decision to pursue the project.

If the approval process at City Hall stays on track, the developers hope to start construction in the spring of 2022 and open to residents in 2023. The plans filed at City Hall show a single-story building of about 70,000 square feet to house the 75 living units. But the plans also show a couple of interesting design elements, including two interior courtyards with walking paths.

The Lawrence project is slated to operate under the name Cedarhurst Senior Living. Dover Development operates about 55 senior housing communities throughout the Midwest and Southeast, with many of them operating under the Cedarhurst name. The company is making a push into the Kansas market. It has four communities in the Kansas City area, and is developing projects in Topeka and Salina.

As for the Bauer Farm development, the senior housing project won’t quite close the book on Bauer Farm. I believe there is still one vacant lot behind Theatre Lawrence that could be developed. There also is a vacant lot at the corner of Sixth Street and Folks Road. As we’ve reported, it has been approved for a new medical office building and pharmacy proposed by the owner of Sigler Pharmacy, but construction hasn’t yet begun on that project.

But the Bauer Farm development is close enough to being complete, and of an age — it has been 15 years since it was approved — that it is useful to look back on its winding path. I pulled out the article the Journal-World wrote about the development’s approval in 2006. Mr. Google said I wrote that article. (Thankfully, I have no memory of that.) We ran the graphic below with the 2006 article to show the basic idea of the mix of uses proposed for the project.

Below, here’s a satellite image from Google Maps showing the current mix of uses, for the most part.

As you can see the west half of the development moved ahead similar to what was envisioned in terms of uses, although the styles of buildings constructed to house the retail are quite a bit different than what was originally proposed. There were renderings at the time that showed multistory buildings reminiscent of what you would see downtown that would allow for shops on the ground floor and offices or residences on the second floor. In fact, one of the concerns expressed by some opponents of the project was that Bauer Farms might end up too much like downtown and be a competitor to the district.

It is the east half of the project that has developed significantly differently than what was envisioned. The original plan envisioned a mix of housing types including traditional single family homes and something called mansion homes, which we reported were buildings designed to look like large, old homes that actually would house condo units. We also reported the project would have a mix of custom homes, carriage-style homes and starter homes, and that many of the homes would be served by alleys to mimic the traditional neighborhood layout of places like Pinckney and Old West Lawrence.

That part of the development didn’t happen. Again, that is not a new revelation — nor a criticism of what has developed there — but as the development nears capacity and as the city finds itself again looking for new ideas on how to deal with housing issues, I wonder if there is any value in examining why most of the unique housing planned for the area never came to fruition.