photo by: Nick Krug

An area just southeast of the intersection of the South Lawrence Trafficway and Iowa Street is pictured in this 2017 file photo.

For more than a decade, the intersection of the South Lawrence Trafficway and U.S. Highway 59 has been circled by developers as a prime location for big-box stores and commercial development.

Times have changed.

If a Wichita developer has his way, the first thing he’ll get to build at the prominent intersection is more than 100 new single-family homes.

Both city planners and the public are getting their first detailed look at what a group led by Wichita developer Phil Bundy hopes to do with nearly 180 acres of farmland and vacant property at the southeast corner of the interchange.

The plans, recently filed at Lawrence City Hall, show the entire first phase of the project would consist of single-family home construction. The plans call for 63 standard-size single-family homes — on typical 7,000-square-foot lots — to be constructed on about 25 acres of property.

Another 13 acres of property would house 42 single-family homes on smaller, 5,000-square-foot lots.

Rising home prices and a tight housing market have changed the equation for the intersection in recent years. The site once was proposed to be the biggest shopping center in Lawrence. The plans back then envisioned multiple big box stores, and the site was seen as the most likely destination for huge retailers like a Costco or a Sam’s Club.

Now, medium-size houses are taking precedence over big boxes.

That doesn’t mean the site won’t have its share of commercial development, though. The plans filed at City Hall show the development — dubbed New Boston Crossing — would build houses first and then follow up with commercial development.

Details on the type of commercial development were light, but what was shown was intriguing. The biggest chunk of commercial land is labeled as “Entertainment Lots.” There’s one lot that sets aside nearly 12 acres for entertainment development. A second lot includes nearly 2 acres for entertainment uses.

Details about what types of businesses might fit the entertainment category weren’t included in the portions of the plan I saw. I put a call into Bundy, the leader of the Wichita development group, but he hasn’t returned my call and has said very little publicly since he began working on the project several months ago.

Plans also show sites for three hotels on the property. Additionally, there is one lot set aside for not just a gas station but also a “vehicle charging lot.” That actually would be one of the more prominent sites on the property, occupying the space immediately south of the South Lawrence Trafficway bridge.

photo by: Courtesy: City of Lawrence/Landplan Engineering

A master plan concept for the New Boston Crossing development proposed for the intersection of U.S. Highway 59 and the SLT is shown.

Others details shown on the plans include:

• Six lots — ranging in size from about 1 acre to 2.5 acres — that are labeled commercial building sites. Most of those lots have frontage along U.S. Highway 59.

• A pair of approximately 1-acre building sites that are labeled commercial/office parcels.

• An approximately 6.5-acre site right along the South Lawrence Trafficway that is set aside for “mixed use commercial/residential development.

• Nearly 3 acres of land that is set aside for townhome development, meaning either duplex or rowhouse style living units.

• Nearly 14 acres that would be used to construct large-lot residential, single-family homes. Each of these lots would be 10,000 square feet or more. Those large homes are part of the fourth and final phase of the project, and would be located the farthest south on the property, which stretches all the way to the Wakarusa River.

Some of these details are subject to change. For example, the idea of the large entertainment lots is listed in a document called a concept plan. Concept plans generally aren’t binding. What is binding is the zoning. The developer is asking for a mix of commercial and residential zoning types.

Those zonings will have to be approved by both the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission and the Lawrence City Commission before the project can go forward. Past development plans for this property have fallen apart during those approval processes.

This one may too, but it goes in the process on different footing. Bundy made the decision to first seek annexation of the property into the city limits, but didn’t ask for the property to be rezoned at that time. That is a different strategy than past developers have employed. City commissioners in March narrowly approved the annexation request on a 3-2 vote. That approval basically sent a message that a majority of commissioners are now ready for that property to be developed in some manner. That’s a different footing than what other developers have had when they’ve proposed projects for the site.

As for the zoning requests, the development group is seeking 48.42 acres of CC200 commercial zoning, which is the type of zoning often used by large, national retailers in the city. It also seeks 13.24 acres of CN2 zoning, which is a type of commercial zoning used more by neighborhood-oriented businesses. As for residential zoning, the plans call for 13.77 acres of RS5 single-family zoning, 24.85 acres of RS7 single-family zoning and 13.71 acres of RS10 single-family zoning. (The RS number designates the size of the lots, with the larger number meaning bigger lots, and generally bigger homes.)

If you are keeping track at home, that’s roughly 52 acres of residential zoning and 61 acres of commercial zoning, although it will be possible to build some residential properties on portions of the commercial sites.

But here’s another interesting number: The largest zoning category is actually open space. The property is seeking to zone about 64 acres as open space, which means you couldn’t build structures on the site.

The entire site is in an interesting location from an environmental standpoint. The Baker Wetlands is its neighbor to the east, and the Wakarusa River runs along its southern edge. Concerns about environmental impacts to those properties, were part of the reason the annexation request got negative votes at City Hall.

The plan is proposing to zone 10.6 acres that would be used as an “urban forest.” It also calls for creating an area that is labeled “Holcom Prairie Park.” Its dominant feature is a 13-acre pond that would be near the southern edge of the property, before you get to the Wakarusa River.

At the very southern edge of the property, the plan calls for a 9.6-acre corridor of land that runs parallel to the river to be designated as “sensitive land,” which would further limit any activity that could happen on the property. The plan also calls for preserving a smaller 4.5-acre urban forest that runs along a stream that bisects the property.

As for what’s next for the project, it will be making its way through the planning and City Hall approval process. But this is a large project. The development plans were book-length, and I’ve only hit the highlights here. The project likely will take a few months before it lands at City Hall for its key votes. I’ll let you know as the project makes its approach.

A phasing plan for the New Boston Crossing development is shown. The map shows which portions of the property would be constructed first.