Future of building at 900 Pennsylvania St. is still unclear
A group of neighbors have dropped a lawsuit that a Lawrence developer had said left him with no choice but to demolish an old East Lawrence building.
The city’s new land development code has made plaintiffs’ concerns about parking moot.
Brad Ziegler owns 900 Pennsylvania St. and originally planned to rehabilitate and build onto the existing stone structure for a small neighborhood restaurant. The building has sat vacant since Charlie’s East Side Grill & Bar occupied it from 1980 to 2014.
Ziegler obtained several variances, including for parking, to develop the small property. The Lawrence Board of Zoning Appeals in January 2023 approved his request to deviate from the standard zoning requirement and provide four onsite parking spaces instead of 21 as he cited inadequate space on the 0.13-acre property.
But Penn Street Line, a nine-member LLC that owns a rental house at 901 Pennsylvania St. and a community garden at 905 Pennsylvania St., didn’t agree with the board’s decision.
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The group sued the BZA in February 2023, arguing it didn’t provide sufficient reasoning to approve the variance nor sufficient record of the meeting minutes.
Marci Francisco — who is also the senator who represents Lawrence in the Kansas Legislature — was the most vocal Penn Street Line member. She told the BZA during the January meeting that shared street parking would burden her tenants and that the block should be residential.
After the Douglas County court sided with the BZA in March 2024, Penn Street Line elevated the issue to the Kansas Court of Appeals in December 2024.
Ziegler had said he could no longer wait to save the building while the litigation played out, but Francisco had said she was not tying his hands.
The appeal was ongoing until a stipulation of dismissal was filed on May 21 in which all parties agreed to dismiss the matter in its entirety.
Francisco said the lawsuit became moot after the new Lawrence Land Development Code took effect on April 1 and eliminated Ziegler’s need for a parking variance. She said she “would like it to be clear that there is not a lawsuit standing in the way” and that “the opportunity for development without parking has been the case since April 1.”
Ziegler had applied for the demolition permit on March 31. Despite its age, the building is not on any known historic registry.
Patrick Watkins, Ziegler’s attorney, said he did not have any comments on the lawsuit dismissal or whether Ziegler will resume his original plans for a restaurant.
Jeff Crick, director of planning and development services for the city, said the 900 Pennsylvania St. property is currently zoned as light industrial. For that zoning district, the new land development code sets maximum parking requirements, unlike the previous version of the code that set minimums depending on a building’s size.
The change is supposed to help lower costs to develop in town, Crick said, and to limit impervious surfaces so that stormwater runoff decreases.
The land development code doesn’t provide standards for street parking.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
More coverage: Land Development Code
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
