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University Daily Kansan, March 30, 1981
Page 3
Mayor impressed with proposal
By DALE WETZEL Staff Reporter
It's a simple oversized piece of paper etched with red-and-blue pencil, the lettering so informally drawn as to be barely readable.
Yet, according to Lawrence Mayor Ed Carter, it contains the most promising downtown retail proposal has received from a national retailer.
"However, it eliminates some of the most distasteful things about the original JVJ downtown mall proposal," Carter said.
Carter, just back from a Dallas meeting with officials from J.C. Penney Co. Inc., emphasized yesterday that the deal was 'rough and preliminary.'
THAT ORIGINAL PROPOSAL, put forth in September 1979 by the Cleveland developer Jacobs, Visconi and Jacobs, called for the tearing out and rebuilding of four square blocks of downtown Lawrence.
The area, bordered by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ninth and Seventh streets, would have then been a $35,000-square-foot enclosed mall.
"This new proposal reduces the size of that project considerably, by about one-third," Carter said. "It incorporates the existing buildings we have in that area, rather than tearing them down."
Carter mentioned Sgt. Preston's and the marketplace, two New Hampshire Street businesses, as possibilities for incorporation into the proposed mall.
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"The plan attempts to leave the basic integrity of the city, which is the downtown, intact," Carrier said. "It's progress at this point. It is progress."
CARTER SAID he "certainly hoped" that JVJ would be interested in developing the project.
"J.C. Penney that they would work only with a top-fight developer." Carter said. "This plan has the backing of us, and I certainly think it has possibilities."
Commissioner Barkley Clark, after a cursory review of the plans, agreed with Carter.
"It it's certainly worlds better than the original VJP plan," Clark said. "I really like the fact that it leaves Massachusetts totally intact. Buildings like the flea market and Sgt. Preston could be incorporated into the mail."
CLARK ALSO COMMENTED favorably on the mall's "broken-up" parking scheme, which incorporates a streetcar system in Rhode Island and Vermont streets.
"I think that broken-up parking is essential to any new downtown plan," Clark said, "nice to see some homes in the crop on earth. It definitely encourages us."
"However, I still prefer the free-
standing approach to downtown
department store development. The
company have to study this plan a lot more."
Carter, too, said he preferred the free-standing approach, which calls for in-place development of major retail stores, with little disruption of the surrounding retail district. However, he said, "we can't force the retailers and developers to go along with what we want."
"We can negotiate with them, try to reach a compromise, and that's what we've been doing." Carter said with a chuckle. "But, at this time, the major retailers don't seem to be interested in a free-standing approach.
"I would love a free-standing approach, and I think everyone would. But to the retailers, that's just not acceptable at this time. This plan is an attempt to bring together the different factions in city, to reconcile their differences."
CARTER SAID that he, City Manager Buford Watson and other city officials had been talking to J.C. Penney for some time now."
"They've gotten their own proposal together, and they called us at the first of last week," he said. "Buford and I spoke a little to meet with them last Thursday."
Carter said copies of the Penney proposal were being sent to JVJ and Robert Teska and Associates of Evanston, Il., the city's consultant.
"This proposal is definitely progress," he said. "I'm anxious to see what he have to say."
This ISC Penney's tentative proposal for a downtown enclosed Lawrence mall. The shaded portion represents shops that will be inside the enclosed mall. The "C" portions are possible sites for major department store "anchor's," with JIC Penney on the far right; "B" sections will be newly built retail shops, and "E" sections will consist of existing retail outlets that could be incorporated into the mall virtually intact. "A" sections represent current retail locations that would be unaffected by the mall; the "F" sections is a possible high-rise office site. The dotted lines indicate pedestrian access points from Massachusetts Street, which would remain open under the plan. Only Eighth and New Hampshire streets would be closed.
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