photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Scooter's currently operates a drive-thru location near Ninth and Iowa, in the parking lot of the QuikTrip convenience store.

After a week away from the office, let me get back in the swing of things with some news and notes from around town:

• Despite its name, this drive-thru coffee chain is moving a lot faster than your average scooter. The Nebraska-based chain Scooter’s Coffee has filed its third set of plans in as many months for a new Lawrence location.

This time, Scooter’s plans to locate at 23rd Street and Haskell Avenue, taking the spot of a used car dealership. The company has filed a site plan at Lawrence City Hall to demolish the garage and office building that used to house AutoExchange at the northwest corner of 23rd and Haskell.

That’s right across the street from the QuikTrip convenience store on 23rd Street, and that probably is no coincidence. If you remember, we reported in late March that Scooter’s filed plans for a new location just north of Ninth and Iowa streets, near the new QuikTrip there. And then, late last month, we reported that Scooter’s had filed plans to locate at 2500 Iowa St., which is basically across the street from the big, new Kwik Shop convenience store.

Like the other two projects, Scooter’s is planning to operate a simple drive-thru-only business at the 23rd and Haskell location. The plans call for a small, 650-square-foot building and a single drive-thru lane that will accommodate about 10 vehicles at a time.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Scooter’s Coffee plans to build a drive-thru location on the former site of AutoExchange at 23rd Street and Haskell Avenue.

As for AutoExchange, the used car dealership had largely vacated the site months ago. The company continues to have a dealership on south Iowa Street in Lawrence.

As for Scooter’s, I won’t go into too much detail about what to expect from them, since I’ve already been over this two other times in the last two months. But, in general, the shop will sell all types of coffees, both hot and cold, plus some pastries and bakery items, among other goods.

The biggest thing to note about Scooter’s is how fast it is growing. The company has about 400 stores in 24 states, and it has added about 100 of those stores since October, according to information from the company’s website.

• For years, there has been a Lawrence name that has made its way across the country in a variety of building projects — Gould Evans architects. But look for that name — which was a combination of the last names of the two KU architecture graduates who founded the company — no longer. Gould Evans has changed its name to Multistudio.

The company, which was founded by Robert Gould and David Evans in 1974, has about 160 employees, although not all of them are based in the Lawrence office. The company will continue to have one of its main offices in Lawrence, along with other locations in Kansas City, Missouri, New Orleans, Phoenix and San Francisco.

In a press release, the company said it decided to change its name to better reflect how it is has evolved and its aspiration “to become a socially responsible design collective.”

Locally, the company has designed many public buildings in Lawrence, including the DeBruce Center that houses the rules of basketball on the KU campus, the KU Earth Energy and Environment Center, the remodeled Lawrence Public Library and many public schools in the Lawrence district.

• Speaking of schools, look for some construction work to take place near Bishop Seabury Academy, the private school at 4120 Clinton Parkway. But no, there are not plans for a new signature building. Instead: a signature piece of grass.

Plans have been filed at City Hall for a new grass soccer field just west of the school building. Lawrence architect Paul Werner, who is designing the project, told me the plans don’t include any lights for the field. That’s has been a sticking point for neighbors when other schools have tried to add athletic facilities on their campuses. This project also won’t be anything close to a full-on stadium project.

While the plans call for a full 55-yard wide by 100-yard long soccer field, they don’t call for any grandstands or other such seating area. Instead, the north, south and west edge of the fields will be landscaped to create a buffer between the field and nearby residential areas. It looks like seating will be the bring-your-own type.

The field, however, does represent a significant upgrade for Bishop Seabury. The program traditionally has had to play all of its games off-campus, with many of its home games taking place at the city’s soccer complex below the Clinton Lake Dam.