photo by: Journal-World file

More than seven years after a fire destroyed the Americas Best Value Inn at 515 McDonald Drive, pictured here on Jan. 16, 2018, plans have been filed to build a new apartment complex on the site.

In a world of uncertainty, longtime Lawrence developer Doug Compton thinks he’s got one thing figured out: If you are waiting for interest rates to return to their historic lows of 3%, you are going to wait a long time.

“I don’t think you will ever see 3% again,” Compton said of interest rates that are closer to 7% for home loans and many times higher for commercial projects. “You might see 5% again. I’m not an economist, I’m not with Goldman Sachs, but that’s what I think.”

He also thinks Lawrence has a serious housing shortage, so — interest rates be damned — it may be time to end the waiting game when it comes to starting new housing projects in the city. Compton in recent weeks has filed plans to build three different apartment projects in Lawrence, and said he expects to file plans for another one in the near the future.

For good measure, he’s also close to filing plans for a new apartment project in Eudora.

In Lawrence, some of the talk coming out of the University of Kansas has given him the confidence to move forward.

“There is a huge housing shortage in Lawrence, Kansas,” Compton told the Journal-World in a brief interview. “By KU’s numbers, they are maybe going to be 1,500 beds short for next year.”

As the Journal-World has reported, KU set a record for overall enrollment during the last school year, and also has received about $100 million in bonding authority to address student housing needs.

One of Compton’s three Lawrence projects indeed is close to the Lawrence campus. For several years, Compton has owned the site near Ninth and Avalon that previously housed the university’s Oldfather Studios complex. KU shut down that facility, which served as production studios for KU’s film department, years ago. Compton won the bidding to purchase the site, but hadn’t ever undertaken a redevelopment of the site.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The former Oldfather Studios site at Ninth and Avalon is pictured on June 23, 2025.

Plans now filed with City Hall call for two new buildings to be constructed on the vacant site. The two buildings would have a total of 56 apartments with 98-bedrooms, according to the plans filed by Lawrence-based Paul Werner Architects and CFS Engineers.

The property already has the necessary zoning for the apartment project, so it is just seeking some technical planning approvals from the city. Compton said he expects construction to begin on that project in the next few weeks.

The other two Lawrence apartment projects that Compton has filed with City Hall are:

photo by: Douglas County GIS/Journal-World

The blue star shows 515 McDonald Drive, the site of a proposed apartment complex.

• Plans for a new two-building apartment complex at 515 McDonald Drive. That site is just north of the intersection of Sixth and Iowa streets. The site for years was home to a hotel that operated under various names. But in 2018, the hotel — then operating as Americas Best Value Inn — caught fire and was destroyed.

According to the plans filed by Lawrence-based Adams Architects, one building on the site would have 14 two-bedroom apartments and five one-bedroom apartments, while the other would have 9 two-bedroom and five one-bedroom units. Both buildings would feature rooftop decks.

That site is seeking a rezoning to the city’s R4 residential zoning category to accommodate the apartment project, which likely will mean work on that project won’t start until several months.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The home at 1604 W. 5th Street is shown on June 23. Plans have been filed to demolish the home to make way for an 8-unit apartment building.

• At 1604 W. 5th Street — an area just a bit southwest of Lawrence Memorial Hospital — Compton has filed plans for a smaller eight-plex apartment project. Compton said he owns the old house on the property, and plans to tear it down to put the eight new apartments on the site. That plan filed by Paul Werner Architects calls for a two-story building with four one-bedroom and four two-bedroom apartments.

Compton also said he intends to file plans for another apartment project in Lawrence that would be larger than the other three plans he currently has in the system. He said he couldn’t yet provide details about that pending project.

photo by: Douglas County GIS/Journal-World

The blue star shows the site of a proposed apartment complex along Kansas Highway 10 in Eudora.

As for his plans in Eudora, Compton is looking to build at the largest intersection in town. He said Paul Werner Architects will soon file plans with Eudora officials for a 72-unit apartment complex near the Kansas Highway 10 and Church Street interchange.

Compton has long owned a vacant piece of land south of the Dairy Queen restaurant in Eudora. The property is next door to an existing apartment complex that Compton built approximately 20 years ago, but later sold. He kept the vacant piece of land, however, and said now seems like a good time to develop it.

The primary reason: The $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery plant in nearby De Soto that is in the process of opening.

“I think those 72 units, I will fill them in 30 days, just from the workers of the Panasonic plant,” Compton said. “If I had more land, I would do more there.”

Compton — whose First Management and First Construction businesses are both based in Lawrence — has seen more of his new development projects happening in other communities, including Kansas City, Denver and elsewhere in recent years.

“I’m starting to get excited again,” Compton said of the Lawrence prospects. “We’ve been pretty stagnant. The last couple of years we have been working elsewhere. I’m excited to be back working at home.”