photo by: Shawn Valverde/Special to the Journal-World

Downtown Lawrence, looking north, is pictured in this aerial photo from September 2023.

Downtown Lawrence Inc. — the nonprofit responsible for promoting the downtown district — has been without a director since July, and likely won’t resume the search for one for several more months.

One reason a new leader hasn’t been hired, members of the association were told Wednesday: The board of Downtown Lawrence Inc. isn’t quite sure what marching orders a new director should be given.

“The biggest question that kept coming up was, even if we did find the perfect director, what would we mandate them to accomplish?” Jennifer McKnight, vice-president of DLI Inc.’s board told a crowd of about 50 people who gathered for the organization’s annual meeting Wednesday morning at Maceli’s Banquet & Catering Hall.

McKnight said the board decided to pause the search process and use the time to think bigger about what role Downtown Lawrence Inc. should be playing.

“We decided that we needed to think about completely reimagining DLI as an organization,” McKnight said.

So, what does a new Downtown Lawrence Inc. look like? Board members told the crowd they are still gathering feedback and figuring that out. But, one question might be what does a new Downtown Lawrence Inc. sound like?

The group’s president suggested on Wednesday that louder is the answer to that question.

“I would classify Downtown Lawrence Inc. over the last decade as being more like Switzerland,” Downtown Lawrence Inc. board president Mike Logan said, referencing the famously neutral country. “We have not taken definitive stances on development and infill.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Downtown Lawrence Inc. board president Mike Logan speaks at the organization’s annual meeting on April 15, 2026.

That may change, although the board was highlighting that it wants to hear more information from its memberships of approximately 130 businesses, and also from businesses that are in downtown currently but haven’t yet joined the association.

The idea of making downtown Lawrence a more densely developed space — think taller buildings, for example — might be a topic that Downtown Lawrence Inc. wants to lean into. Part of Wednesday’s annual meeting was devoted to a partnership Downtown Lawrence Inc. has entered into with a group that generally promotes the value of communities developing more densely.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Downtown Lawrence Inc. board member John Gascon speaks at the organization’s annual meeting on April 15, 2026.

Downtown Lawrence Inc. is working with the data and planning firm Urban3, which often conducts studies for communities meant to show the value of denser development. DLI board member John Gascon told the group that numbers show that downtown Lawrence is not a very dense community compared to other metros or European communities that have really embraced density.

“Even if we double the density, we are still very low in Lawrence,” Gascon said.

Gascon said there are some strong reasons why downtown stakeholders should want downtown to become more densely developed. One of the bigger reasons is that denser development likely would mean more residences in downtown Lawrence, which in turn would mean more customers throughout the week. A theme at Wednesday’s meeting was that downtown businesses are becoming heavily reliant on visitors who are attending events in Lawrence.

“We have all kinds of wonderful events that we are putting on almost weekly, and then KU traffic to sustain our downtown businesses,” Gascon said. “But what do those businesses do on a Tuesday when there are no events?”

In a brief interview, Logan — the Downtown Lawrence board president and a music venue owner and promoter in downtown — said the board is likely to focus on getting through the extremely busy summer season, which will be unlike any other because Lawrence is playing host to a World Cup soccer team.

Logan said he expects the board to begin the search process for the next director in the late summer. All the while, though, board members will be working to craft a specific set of tasks that they want a new director to tackle, once that person is found.

“It is unfair to hire someone and say ‘create your own marching orders,'” Logan said. “It is hard work by the board to formulate what that job should be, and it is an ongoing conversation.”