photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The Turnhalle building at Ninth and Rhode Island streets is pictured on Oct. 24, 2025.

The Turnhalle building at Ninth and Rhode Island streets, just east of downtown, is nothing if not patient.

Dating back to 1869, it is believed to be the oldest community building in Lawrence, and it has remained standing despite decades of little to no use of its grand hall that features wood floors, a balcony and a makeshift stage, among other amenities.

The building likely will need to be patient for another year, as a search for a user probably still has a ways to go, according to the building’s owner.

“We are really expecting to focus on Turnhalle in 2027,” Zarif Haque, who owns the building with his wife, Mamie, told me recently.

You might remember that Haque recently was in the news for his Lawrence-based tech startup, The Good Game, which connects trainers, coaches and other experts with youth athletes and their families. That start-up venture, which he is in the process of taking national, will consume some time, plus finding a commercial user to occupy a building that is near downtown but not close enough to benefit from the district’s foot traffic is a difficult task.

“We want to find operators,” Haque said. “We love the building and we want to save the building, but we don’t want to run a business there. We want to empower somebody to run a business there.”

photo by: Submitted: The Good Game

Zarif Haque

Haque said using the main floor as an event space and the basement level as a food and drink establishment, or perhaps a related use like a catering kitchen, still seem to be the most likely possibilities for the business. As we reported in 2023, Haque filed plans with the city for that type of development, but the project didn’t end up progressing.

The Haques are the second ownership group to try to come up with a plan to make the building productive again. All the way back in 2012, the Lawrence Preservation Alliance purchased the building because the group was afraid the building was at risk of some real structural damage if some repairs weren’t made.

Not just its age, but its unique place in Lawrence’s German-American history made it a critical building to save, preservation leaders said at the time. Turnhalle was the home to the Lawrence chapter of Turnverein, a longtime German club that had an odd requirement that all male members between 18 and 30 participate in gymnastics classes. The large hall was used for those gymnastic exercises and other activities.

During Prohibition, it also was one of the few places in the city legally allowed to serve beer because the club qualified for an exemption on the grounds that beer was a true cultural element of the German establishment.

photo by: Mike Yoder

In this file photo from Sept. 26, 2012, Dennis Brown, president of the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, is pictured inside the Turnhalle Building, 900 Rhode Island St.

The Preservation Alliance made the repairs to stabilize the building, and by 2014 Lawrence developer Tony Krsnich — who specializes in historical buildings and has been the force behind the Warehouse Arts District in East Lawrence — bought the building. He began a search for a user of the building, but ultimately sold the building to the Haques in 2022.

Zarif said he and Mamie remain as committed as ever to restoring the building to a prominent place in the community. He said they bought the building after selling their previous business — Draiver, an app that provides more efficient delivery system of used cars to dealerships — to a Mexican company in a large deal. The couple was looking for real estate investments to diversify their portfolio.

“When we walked in, we didn’t even talk about it,” Zarif said of the first time he and Mamie saw the building. “We just looked at it and said this is awesome. It is such a cool building.”

As far as a real estate investment goes, however, it leaves a bit to be desired, but Haque said that is fine.

“Do I think it is a project that is going to make a large return?” Haque asked. “No, I do not, but I know the building needs to be saved. It is so cool.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The north side of the Turnhalle building at Ninth and Rhode Island streets is pictured on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024.