Mayor Brad Finkeldei said he believes downtown Lawrence will be transformed, the city will expand west of Kansas Highway 10 and more development is coming in the next year or two.
Finkeldei, first elected to a four-year term in 2019 and reelected in 2023, previously served as mayor in 2021.
Traditionally, the person who receives the most votes in an election will serve as vice mayor for the first year of their term, then as mayor the following year. The candidate who received the second most votes in the election follows as the next vice mayor.
The new commission — which includes Finkeldei and Commissioners Mike Dever and Amber Sellers, plus newly sworn Vice Mayor Mike Courtney and Kristine Polian — stuck with tradition Tuesday evening.
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In his remarks, Finkeldei said he believes two projects that will be “the two largest single drivers of sales tax in this community in the past 50 years” will come online soon in the new convention center at KU’s Gateway District and in Costco on what is for now the far northwestern edge of Lawrence.
“Any one of those in any year would would be outstanding,” he said. “To have two of those come online in the same year really is going to be huge news for the city.”
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He said the area where Costco will be located — called the Mercato, near West Sixth Street and George Williams Way — will also be home to Braum’s Ice Cream and Dairy Store, Truity Credit Union and several other businesses.
“We have 12 more, or so, lots left to fill, and I’m told that the phone is ringing off the hook to fill those lots,” he said.
He mentioned development in downtown Lawrence and the “New Hampshire Street revival” underway. The former newspaper printing press building is being transformed to house Q39 barbecue, and the long-empty building next to Leroy’s will be redeveloped soon.
He said there is major redevelopment potential in the Turnhalle building, and the U.S. Bank building is for sale. The city is also seeking to redevelop some parking lots downtown.
“We also have the Farmers Market looking for a permanent location that could catalyze more activity somewhere in the downtown region,” Finkeldei said.
He shared the values of permits the city has issued in the past year.
Finkeldei said Lawrence developer Doug Compton and his company, First Management, are working on four housing projects around town: one under construction at the site of the former Oldfather Studios, and three in the planning stages: at the Bluffs, the former Ramada Inn property, and a high-density project proposed for the area of 14th and Ohio streets.
There’s also a subdivision in progress on West Sixth Street between Stoneridge Drive and George Williams Way, he said.
But “For those of you who think, like me, that we need to grow our commercial industrial base, which will help us lower our residential tax base — our new commercial tax base grew more than twice the rate of our residential tax base,” he said. “And that’s a trend we need to continue year after year after year to bring the commercial values higher than the residential values, or bring that into better balance.”
He thinks a lot of that has to do with the city’s new land development code, which aimed to loosen some restrictions that made it difficult to build in Lawrence.
Finkeldei said he thinks the city will likely see annexation and development requests to move west of K-10 starting in 2026.
The city also began the process to start annexing 63 acres of property on North Queens Road as part of the consent agenda Tuesday night, he said.
He did say that, as a caveat, he was not prejudging any of the projects he mentioned or saying the commission would surely approve them.
“Just the idea that these projects are being brought to us, that we’re going to be able to consider them, tells us something about what’s going to come before this commission in the coming years,” he said.
Finkeldei provided these numbers from Planning Director Jeff Crick:
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
Nathan Kramer (he/him), a multimedia student journalist for The Lawrence Times since August 2024, is a senior at Free State High School. He is also a news photo editor for Free State’s student publication, where he works as a videographer, photographer and motion designer. See more of his work for the Times here.
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