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

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

No matter how you slice it, a notable change has struck downtown Lawrence — there are no more slices of pizza at 934 Massachusetts Street.

The popular Kansas City chain Minsky’s Pizza has closed its downtown Lawrence location, which also was its only location in Lawrence. The closing happened earlier this week, and it marks the end of a 14-year run for the Lawrence establishment.

But that’s just the half of it — or, maybe more accurately, approximately a fifth of it.

The location at 934 Massachusetts Street has been making a living as a pizza place in a college town for a very long time. The location became a Pizza Hut in the very early 1960s, making Lawrence an early expansion market for the pizza behemoth that was founded in Wichita. That’s more than 60 years of pizza making at the downtown spot.

Pizza Hut closed the downtown location in late 2011, but Minsky’s stepped in a few short months later with plans to open its own pizza restaurant there. Who knows, perhaps some other pizza restaurant will be next in line for the spot, but there isn’t any word of such a deal. Rather, it may be an end of an era.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The former location of Minsky’s Pizza in downtown Lawrence is pictured on Aug. 4, 2026.

Minsky’s, which has been operating in Kansas City since 1976, didn’t provide any specific details about why it chose to close the Lawrence location, beyond a sign on the door that thanked all of its customers for their patronage over the years.

Downtown closings, though, certainly haven’t been a rarity recently. Earlier this week, I walked both sides of Massachusetts Street from Sixth Street to 11th Street and came up with 23 vacancies. Downtown has had periods like this before, so I’m not prepared to say this is the worst vacancies have been in downtown. Plus, I still hear from out of town visitors who can’t believe the number of shops and businesses that are located in a downtown of our size.

Yet, 23 vacancies is significant.

I checked in with Kirsten Flory, president and CEO of Lawrence-based Foundations Commercial Real Estate, about what trends she’s seeing in the downtown Lawrence market. While there have been some restaurant closings, Flory said the part of the market that is under greater pressure are retail storefronts that can’t easily be converted to a restaurant space.

Interestingly, the trend with those spaces is the exact opposite of what it used to be a few decades ago. When big box stores like Wal-Mart or SuperTarget were the threat to kill traditional mom-and-pop retailers, the knock on the traditional downtown storefronts — at 25 feet wide by 100 feet long — was that the space was too small to compete with big box stores.

Now, as the internet has become the threat to kill traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, the knock on the downtown storefronts is that they are too big.

“We’re seeing that most traditional retailers don’t need 2,500 square feet of space. They need about half that,” Flory told me.

Splitting a traditional downtown storefront in two, however, is no simple task. Building a long wall down the center of the building and adding another front door to the storefront, likely wouldn’t fare well under the city’s historic district guidelines, which seek to protect the traditional look of Massachusetts Street. Adding a short wall across the building to create a front half and back half of a store might be easier, but finding a retailer who is fine with having its only exposure on the alley side of the building might be difficult.

Perhaps there are ways to overcome those difficulties, though. Could a pair of businesses share the front door of the building, but then have their shops split in two once the customer has entered the building?

Flory didn’t weigh on that specific idea, but said downtown property owners and prospective businesses do need to be thinking about such scenarios.

“It is trying to get creative on what that could look like,” Flory said.

Flory said some of the thinking also might want to consider how downtown property owners can best use their second floor space, if they own a two-story building. She said making sure they are maximizing the value for those second floor spaces might give a building owner more flexibility in working with potential tenants for ground floor space.

She said second-floor apartments rent very well in downtown Lawrence because there are number of residents who want to live downtown. Using the second floor apartments for VRBO or other short term rental programs also could be lucrative, she said.

“I think we have to just be creative in how we are using the buildings, and the people who own the buildings on how they are maximizing value so they can get more creative,” Flory said. “Maybe there are apartments above or offices above. Can they be renovated in a way to command higher rents?”

Flory said there also are some big-picture issues that are emerging downtown that could create significant new demand for downtown spaces. Specifically, she mentioned the city taking ownership of the former Riverfront Mall property and the former Journal-World printing plant at Sixth and Massachusetts streets.

Plans on what the city might do with the Riverfront Mall property are fluid and have included a multitude of ideas about how to use the property to provide more public access to the Kansas River. Plans for the former Journal-World property — which is large and stretches from Massachusetts Street to New Hampshire Street — have focused on using the property as an annex for City Hall offices, Municipal Court and other such functions.

Flory said if the city is open to potential public-private partnerships, the two properties could house developments that might create more demand overall for downtown. For example, if the city doesn’t need all of the space available in the former Journal-World building, would the city be interested in making some of the space available to a high-end office user that would bring jobs to the district? With Riverfront, the list of possibilities is probably longer, given that there are so few properties in the downtown that can truly provide frontage along the Kansas River, she said.

“I think we have to be really open to what that could look like, and not be afraid of private dollars and potential partnerships and incentives,” Flory said. “I think that definitely could reinvorgorate downtown and provide a lot more traffic and retail opportunities.”

•••

Vacancies block by block

Here’s a look at properties that were vacant along Massachusetts Street when the Journal-World surveyed the scene earlier this week. Some of the properties may have pending deals that soon will occupy them, but they were currently vacant or occupied by a use that clearly was temporary in nature.

600 Block

• 619 Massachusetts. Former home of Globe Indian Food

• 643 Massachusetts, suite D: Former home of Silver Lake Bank.

• 645 Massachusetts, suite 102: Former home of Winfields home furnishing store

• 646 Massachusetts. Former home of Squishington’s Candy Shop. The space is occupied with a temporary art gallery, but is still seeking a new tenant.

• 647 Massachusetts, Suit 101C: Former home of Claire’s boutique.

• 647 Massachusetts, Suite 101B: Former home of Starbucks

700 Block

• 717 Massachusetts: Former home of Glicks clothing store. We’ve reported the building is being renovated to house Mass Street Deli later this year.

• 724 Massachusetts: Home to Delicias del Sur, which announced in December that it was temporarily closing the restaurant and has not reopened.

• 742 Massachusetts: It recently was announced on social media that Ad Astra Piercing has purchased the building.

800 Block

• 812 Massachusetts: Former home of the Explore Lawrence office. The space has an art gallery in it currently, but the space remains for lease.

• 821 Massachusetts: Former home of Prairie Patches. The building is being used for storage by a nearby retailer.

• 836, 838 and 840 Massachusetts: Former home of Pro Print.

900 Block

• 926 Massachusetts: There is art in the window, but there doesn’t appear to be an active business on the ground floor. The second floor continues to be home to the Jazzhaus music club.

• 928 Massachusetts: Former home of The Etc. Shop.

• 934 Massachusetts: Former home of Minsky’s Pizza.

• 935 Massachusetts: Former home of Love of Character

1000 Block

• 1001 Massachusetts: Former home of the Masonic Temple

• No address: Former home of Allen Press warehouse.

1100 Block

• 1105 Massachusetts. Former home of Brothers Bar & Grill. Work is underway at the site, but a member of the construction crew told me it was not for a specific tenant.

• 1111 Massachusetts: Former home of Mana Bar.

• 1115 Massachusetts: Former home of Fuzzy’s Taco Shop

Note: There were a handful of spaces that have business equipment and signage, but were not open despite the check occuring during their normal operating hours. I didn’t count those businesses in this list. Also, not counted but worth noting is a trend toward some storefronts having tenants that are using the spaces on a more part-time basis. There are at least a couple of storefronts that simply are being used for private event space for nearby restaurants or catering companies.