photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

This farm field at the northeast corner of Queens Road and Wakarusa Drive is slated for an apartment development.

News and notes from around town:

• Plans have been filed for a new upscale apartment complex in northwest Lawrence. A Nebraska development company hopes to build about 125 units of “luxury, class A” apartment units near the intersection of Queens Road and Wakarusa Drive.

If you are having a hard time picturing the location, it is a farm field at the northeast corner of the intersection’s roundabout. (I’ve probably made both geometry and English teachers groan by saying a roundabout has a corner.) The site is essentially across the street from The Links apartment development, which is a large apartment complex built around a small golf course.

There won’t be any golf course on this 10-acre site, but a representative with the development group said it will have an all-inclusive feel. That includes a pool, clubhouse, smart home technology, manicured grounds, and seven-day per week management staff to provide residents with maintenance-free living.

Kassie Inness, president of Omaha-based Metonic, said the company has similar developments in the Omaha area, and finds that about 35% of the units are rented by members of the 55-plus age group, while empty-nesters and young professionals are also major tenant groups for the developments.

“We get a very affluent, very great clientele,” Inness said in a brief interview.

The company refers to the development as a townhome development. In Lawrence that phrase often has evoked a picture of duplex-style development where each building has two living units. Preliminary plans call for a different type of townhome structure here. The preliminary plans show about 10 buildings spread throughout the 10-acre site. But unlike many traditional apartment buildings, some of the structures will come with attached garages. Inness said she believes the townhome units will be significantly larger than many apartment units in the area.

“We think it will be a very new and innovative townhome product for the area,” Inness said.

The vacant piece of land already has the necessary zoning in place to allow for the project. It will have to receive platting approval from the planning commission and the Lawrence City Commission. A preliminary plat has been filed with local planners. Inness is hopeful approvals will be forthcoming, and that construction will begin in the second quarter of next year.

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photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A 105,000 square-foot office building that has housed a number of large call centers in Lawrence over the years is pictured on Sept. 11, 2023.

Look for remodeling work to begin soon on one of the largest, vacant commercial buildings in Lawrence. A building permit application has been filed for the vacant call center building at 2201 Noria Road in the East Hills Business Park.

I won’t attempt to list every business that has had call center operations in the building, but at various times it has been part of Pearson, General Dynamics, and Maximus, among others. You may recall that the call center complex is comprised of two buildings. The one that has been vacant for a couple of years is the one farthest to the east. Yes, it really has been vacant that long. We reported in September 2023 that the building was vacant and had been placed on the market.

Over the years, that complex has been one of the largest employment centers in Lawrence, as various companies have had federal customer service contracts for student loans, health care programs and other such ventures that employed more than a thousand people at the site. The real estate advertisement for the site highlighted that this building alone has seating for 800.

Well, the proposed development at the property is a sign that times may be changing in the call center industry. The building permit filed at City Hall actually is to convert a portion of the building into shop space.

The P1 Group is seeking to convert about 35,000 square feet of the building into shop space for its operations, which provide all types of heating, cooling and mechanical work for large construction projects throughout the Kansas City region and elsewhere.

P1 already is a large employer in Lawrence. For years it has had one of its major shops located at 2151 Haskell, and has a long history in Lawrence. Prior to being P1, the company was known as Huxtable & Associates, and had its corporate headquarters based in Lawrence. The company’s corporate headquarters are now in Lenexa, but Lawrence continues to be home to a lot of the actual production work undertaken by the company. That includes a lot of sheetmetal and pipefitting work that is then transported to construction sites.

I don’t have many details about what is leading to this new shop for the company. It also is unclear what may happen to the rest of the call center building. The most recent plans call for about $400,000 worth of construction on about 35,000-square-feet of space in the building, according to a building permit filed by Lawrence-based Paul Werner Architects.

The entire call center building, however, has about 100,000 square feet of space available, so stay tuned for other potential development to happen at the location.

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Construction work, pictured on Nov. 10, 2025, is underway for a new US Engineering building in Lawrence VenturePark

Lawrence actually is becoming quite the town for sheetmetal and pipefitting work. Just a bit west of the old call center site is a multimillion dollar project that will add more sheetmetal workers and pipefitters to the Lawrence workforce.

Indeed, construction work has begun on an expansion of US Engineering’s facility in Lawrence VenturePark. We’ve reported multiple times on the plans for US Engineering, which also is in the business of producing large heating, cooling and mechanical components for commercial construction projects in the region.

However, I thought I would note the project again because construction work is now very evident along the north side of 23rd Street, near O’Connell Road. I have had several people ask me what new business is going in the business park, not realizing that it is the US Engineering expansion. That’s understandable because the company’s expansion actually is an entirely new building rather than an addition onto its existing Lawrence location. The approximately 100,000-square-foot building will be across the street from the existing 150,000-square-foot building.

The new building is expected to initially house 30 new employees, with room to grow. US Engineering’s primary Lawrence production plant, which opened in 2022, has about 150 employees.

As for the new building, city officials recently received an application for a building permit for $14 million worth of construction at the site. The company has previously said it hopes to have construction completed by July.