photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The former garden center site at 1501 Learnard Avenue is pictured on Nov. 20, 2025.

As KU says it has a bed shortage for its record high enrollments, a Lawrence developer has an idea for how to turn approximately 40 bedrooms near the edge of campus into more than 300.

But he’s going to need to turn a former garden center property in central Lawrence into a parking lot to make it work.

Plans have been filed at City Hall to turn the former Sunrise Garden Center property at 15th and Learnard Avenue into a 234-space surface parking lot that would serve a new, dense apartment development proposed for the Oread neighborhood about one mile to the west.

Longtime Lawrence apartment developer Doug Compton is the party behind the project. As the Journal-World recently reported, the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission gave an unanimous recommendation to rezone a set of Compton-owned properties at 1430 and 1432 Louisiana Street and 1423 and 1433 Ohio Street to a new “very high density” zoning category.

Compton on Thursday told me that he has concept plans to build an approximately four-story building on those properties that would house more than 300 bedrooms for students. The property — which is basically half a block behind the popular college bar The Wheel — currently has about 40 bedrooms in a pair of aged buildings.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The building at 1423 Ohio St. This is one of the properties that is proposed for rezoning from R-4 to R-5.

The Ohio Street project would have some parking on site, but not enough to meet the city requirement of one parking space for every bedroom. That’s where the 234-space surface parking lot would come into play. Compton said the idea is that the new apartment complex would offer a morning and evening shuttle to the parking lot for tenants, or they could Uber or walk to the site when they need to access their vehicles.

The bet that Compton would be making is that the students wouldn’t actually be accessing their vehicles that often. The Ohio Street property is within easy walking distance to classes, to football and basketball games on campus, and to the popular bar district located along 14th Street.

“We think 80% of these kids aren’t going to move their cars until the weekend,” Compton said.

If that’s the case, having their vehicles parked in a secure lot about a mile from their apartments shouldn’t be a problem for the tenants, Compton believes.

But it would be different for Lawrence.

Compton, though, said developers have been encouraged by city leaders to think differently about development. The city’s new development code has done much to emphasis the importance of looking to develop existing lots rather than simply expanding the city limits. It also has said the city needs to develop more densely, if it hopes to push back against a housing affordability problem.

“I hope I’m following their guidelines and wishes,” Compton said of city planners and commissioners.

Whether it is following the wishes of neighbors may be a different matter. The architect for the project — Lawrence-based Lance Adams — hosted a meeting for neighbors of the property on Wednesday evening. He said about 50 to 60 people attended, and there were multiple concerns expressed about the former greenhouse site becoming a parking lot.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The former garden center site at 1501 Learnard Avenue is pictured on Nov. 20, 2025

Adams said he knows the parking lot proposal may be “shocking” to some neighbors. But he said he wants to make sure that neighbors understand the large property is going to be the subject of a redevelopment someday by somebody. He said the current industrial zoning of the property could allow any number of uses — from an industrial building to fast food — to locate on the site.

Adams and Compton said they are confident the parking lot development would be a better fit than many of those other uses.

“We will berm and landscape the heck out of it so you won’t even see a car,” Compton said, noting that plans also call for the parking lot to be gated and lit with short, three-foot tall pedestal lights.

Multiple neighbors at the meeting expressed a desire for the property to be redeveloped with housing, given that the site is surrounded by single-family homes. Adams said, given the asking price for the property — advertised at $975,000 for the three-acre site — any traditional single family housing development would be financially challenging for the property. Adams contends the site would result in really small houses at really high prices.

The property currently is owned by the Millstein family, which purchased the property after the Sunrise Garden Center closed in 2013. The Millsteins have been longtime business owners and historic preservationists in the community, restoring multiple downtown buildings over the years. In a letter Adams sent to neighbors of the Learnard site, it was stated the sale of the property would help Susan Millstein fund the planned rehabilitation of Liberty Hall in downtown Lawrence.

The parking lot project is far from a done deal, however. The property’s current light industrial zoning doesn’t allow for a commercial parking lot. Compton’s group has filed for a rezoning to a version of light industrial zoning that would allow for a surface parking lot of this nature. That means the property will need to win at least a pair of votes — one each from the Planning Commission and the City Commission — before it even has a chance to proceed. After that, the project would need to win site plan approvals from City Hall, which is the part of the process where issues such as lighting, landscaping and other design elements are scrutinized.

The parking lot idea would be the biggest change to the property in decades. Past Journal-World articles have reported that the site has served as a plant nursery since the 1920s. Longtime florist Jim Owens operated the site for many years, and it had a long history as Pence’s Garden Center. The property has a distinctive smoke stack. I’m not sure if that is a relic from when nursery operators were producing their own heat to warm the greenhouses, or if there is an even more interesting story behind the tall brick structure.

Regardless, Adams said the parking lot plans call for the smokestack to remain and for a small sitting area to be built around it. The stack is a popular nesting areas for birds during certain times of the year, and it has become a bit of a neighborhood landmark.

Adams said the parking lot plan won’t require all the buildings to be removed from the site. A seed distribution business, Seeds from Italy, still operates on a portion of the site, and Adams said it would be able to remain at the location, under the current set of plans. Plans also call for existing fruit trees on the site to remain, he said.

The rezoning request for the property could go before the Planning Commission as soon as next month.

As for the apartment project near 14th and Ohio streets, Compton said he wouldn’t seek to begin work on that project until after August. The apartment buildings on that site are currently leased, and Compton said he would need to wait until those leases end to demolish the structures there. That would mean the soonest a new apartment project could be completed at the site would be sometime in 2028.

photo by: Douglas County GIS/Journal-World

The blue star marks the site at 1501 Learnard Avenue.