photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

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

The sun has set on an idea to use the former Sunrise Garden center as a 200-plus space parking lot for a proposed apartment complex about a mile away in the Oread neighborhood.

Lawrence businessman Doug Compton told me he recently canceled his contract to buy the former Sunrise Garden Center at 15th and Learnard Avenue. However, Compton has not canceled his plans to build a dense, 300-bedroom apartment complex along the edge of the KU campus in the Oread neighborhood.

The former Sunrise Garden center was envisioned to provide about 240 parking spaces for that proposed apartment complex — with regular shuttle rides for residents to get their cars — but many neighbors voiced opposition to a rezoning request that would have allowed the garden center to be converted into a secure parking lot.

Now, Compton has a decision about how many parking spaces he will provide for the new apartment complex, which has been named The Place @ KU. Plans recently filed with City Hall show 90 parking spaces for the 300-bedroom apartment complex, which is slated for 1430 and 1432 Louisiana Street and 1423 and 1433 Ohio Street.

Just a couple of years ago, there would have been a one-word description for a project that proposed 90 parking spaces for 300 bedrooms: Illegal. City codes would not have allowed it without a variance.

But today, the city’s new code places far less emphasis on the number of parking spaces required for a development, with the idea that more people will walk or take public transportation in the future.

photo by: City of Lawrence

The south elevations of a pair of proposed apartment buildings for the Oread neighborhood are shown in renderings submitted to Lawrence City Hall.

In fact, Compton’s proposed apartment complex doesn’t even need 90 spaces to meet the city’s new code requirements. It could pass muster with 75 spaces — which is equal to one space for each apartment. Plans call for the apartment project to have 75 apartments spread out among two buildings on the site. However, each apartment will have four-bedrooms, thus 300 in total.

Compton said one option for moving forward is to simply build the project as designed, providing 90 dedicated parking spaces for the apartment complex. After all, it is not a certainty that each tenant will even own a vehicle. A big selling point of the proposed apartment complex is that it is adjacent to the KU campus.

“You can walk to class, walk to football, walk to basketball,” Compton said of frequent activities for students.

But if even half of the tenants do have a vehicle, the project would be several dozen places short of meeting the new parking demand. As has been the case forever in the Oread neighborhood, there is free public parking along the streets of the neighborhood. Those spaces, however, already are in high demand, and the new project would increase the competition for those spots.

Compton said he also is exploring the feasibility of building more underground parking on the site. The current plans call for 77-spaces below ground. However, it might be feasible to expand the size of that underground parking garage. Compton said his team is studying that option currently. Engineers recently took boring samples from the site, and more details on whether an expanded parking garage is feasible likely will be known in a couple of weeks.

Either way, Compton sounded committed to building the new apartment project. He said he hopes to have demolition permits in place so that crews can begin tearing down the existing, aged buildings as soon as tenants move out on Aug. 1.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The building at 1423 Ohio St in the Oread neighborhood in Lawrence, shown in October 2025. The Lawrence City Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to rezone this and three other adjacent properties from R-4 to R-5, making it the first parcel in the city zoned for “very high density” housing.

The project almost is too unique not to move forward. It is the first property in the city to be rezoned to the city’s new “very high density” residential zoning district. The property currently is developed with four buildings and associated parking lots. By Lawrence standards it is developed pretty densely, with 48 apartments on a site that is just larger than one acre.

But with the new zoning category, the same 1.34 acre site will accommodate 75 apartments, according to plans filed with City Hall. The significant reduction in the parking requirements — plus the fact that the code allows all of the buildings to be five stories tall — largely make the increased density possible.

Compton, whose company is based in Lawrence but builds apartments across the country, said Lawrence is simply following a national trend in allowing such dense developments.

“Lawrence isn’t on the cutting edge of this,” Compton said of the new standards. “Lots of cities around the country are doing this because they want residents to use public transportation.”

But Compton also said apartment developers still have to make business decisions — regardless of code requirements — about how much parking is needed for a complex to be financially successful. If too little parking is provided, for instance, an apartment complex may struggle to gain tenants.

Compton said he has other projects in Lawrence where he will build significantly more parking spaces than the city code requires. For example, Compton is building a 177-unit apartment complex at the site of the former Sallie Mae offices, just northeast of the intersection of Sixth and Iowa streets.

That complex — which is slated to start construction in June — will have 343 bedrooms, and Compton said the project likely will provide a parking space for each bedroom. He said the complex isn’t within walking distance of KU, and its location — it is just a few blocks from I-70 — makes it likely to attract a lot of young commuters.

Lawrence-based architect Lance Adams — who is partnering with Lawrence-based Hernly Architects to design The Place @ KU — said he thinks developers will be choosy about where they decide to use the lesser parking requirements. He said the apartment developers he works with are continuing to use their own, internal metrics to determine how many parking spaces are needed to make a project successful.

But the new “very dense” zoning district does create new opportunities for developers to consider projects that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

“I believe there is great potential, if the right areas are located,” said Adams, who said the Oread site right next to campus is a “bullseye” site for such a project.

photo by: City of Lawrence

A rendering submitted to Lawrence City Hall shows the basic layout of a proposed apartment complex in the Oread neighborhood.

As for the specific design submitted by Adams and Hernly, here’s a look at some of the details for The Place @ KU:

• The project would construct two new buildings — a large ‘U’ shaped building on the east half of the site, and a smaller, multi-story building on the western end of the property.

• The ‘U’ shaped building would have an interior courtyard, and the space between the two buildings also would feature a courtyard, a “cocktail pool” and barbecue zone.

• The western building would include a yoga and spin studio, nearly a half-dozen sauna rooms, and a full set of locker rooms.

• Both buildings would include rooftop decks and numerous terraces, with some of the terraces connected to individual living units, but others serving as common areas for the entire complex.

• Both buildings, depending on from which side you measure, would have a maximum height of approximately 60 feet.

The project already has received its necessary zoning approvals, but the design of the project still needs additional city approvals before it can move forward. The latest plans were submitted for review by the Historic Resources Commission, which reviews the project due to the historic designation for the Oread neighborhood.