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SPRING FEVER
Best of the best: Downtown patios
CASSIDY RITTER
@CassidyRitter
Colleen O'Toole/KANSAN
Downtown Lawrence is home to 48 restaurants, according to the Downtown Lawrence website. With warm weather approaching and summer just around the corner, restaurants are opening their patio seating Here are some of the best patios to check out this spring:
I. Genovese
Genovese, 941 Massachusetts St., offers Italian cuisine at an upscale environment with a two-level patio. The balcony has two to three tables, holding nine people, and the downstairs patio has three tables, holding about 12 people, said Alex Dominguez, general manager at Genovese
People love the balcony seating, Dominguez said.
The balcony offers customers a different perspective of Massachusetts St., and the downstairs patio creates an open-layout with four french doors that lead from the restaurant to the patio.
2. Merchants Pub and Plate
Merchants Pub and Plate, located at 746 Massachusetts St., has a split patio on both sides of the door. The patio has six small tables, holding about 20 people in total.
Wattresses move along the wall while guests sit in turquoise chairs under bright blue umbrellas. The color of the chairs and umbrellas make Merchants stand out among the crowd.
A manager from Merchants was unavailable for comment.
3. Dempsey's Burger Pub
A block west of Massachusetts Street, at 623 Vermont, is a rustic patio with six large, wooden tables. Because Dempsey's is tucked back from the busy downtown streets, the patio provides a quiet space.
At night, The Dempsey's patio lights up with string lights zigzagging above the tables and beer signs along the walls.
A manager from Dempsey's was unavailable for comment.
On the backside of Massachusetts Street at 815 New Hampshire St., you will find a large patio with bright blue umbrellas. This large patio is home to margaritas, Mexican food and Cielito Lindo.
4. Cielito Lindo
Dionicio Perez, owner of Cielito Lindo, said the patio is eight years old. He said on nice days the patio often reaches capacity — 100 people.
"The people love the big patio, and I think it's the only big patio we have in downtown Lawrence," Perez said.
He also added that people especially love the margaritas.
5. Jefferson's
Home of the dollar bill wall, Jefferson's, 743 Massachusetts St., is also known for its patio.
"We have a beautiful spot just looking across Mass. Street," Tim Barnes, general manager at Jefferson's, said. "I know it's not a large patio, but really on Mass Street there's not too many large patios. And I think it's just we are one of the more popular restaurants downtown, especially with the college-age students."
Below the red awning are three tables that hold about 12 people.
Edited by Sarah Kruger
Illustration by Gracie Williams
Staab: Students should pay more attention to campus recycling efforts
▶ ERICA STAAB
@EricamStaab
Since elementary school, most of us have been taught about the "three R's:" reduce, reuse, and recycle. These aren't hard concepts really, but through years of observation I've noticed that many students have a particularly hard time with the last R, recycling, while attending large university events.
I first noticed this phenomenon while tailgating in the fall of 2014 and again this past football season. The Rock Chalk Recycle initiative had placed specifically-marked recycling bins down the hill, but perhaps as a result of the crowd's drunken state, or maybe just because they didn't care, alumni and students alike had an extremely difficult time understanding what kind of waste went into each bin.
Not only were tailgaters opting out of throwing recyclable waste into the recycle bins, but they were
also not paying attention to which bin they were throwing things into. Non-recyclable waste was going into recycling bins, plastic was going with paper, and paper was being tossed in with the plastic. It was a mess, and I can only imagine how much of a mess it was for the Rock Chalk Recycle employees.
Thankfully, our university is blessed to have an active and extensive recycling program that continues to promote a sustainable campus. According to student employees at Rock Chalk Recycle, students seem to be pretty good about recycling in some buildings on campus, including Murphy Hall, the libraries and engineering buildings, while other buildings such as Wescoe and the Union aren't quite up to par.
The University released a sustainability plan in 2011 that outlines how it intends to embrace sustainable practices, including the recycling programs. This is definitely a huge step in a greener direction. Yet even with the University on board, and our great on-campus recycling program, it's still up to students and campus visitors to utilize the recycling bins appropriately, especially during large events such as football tailgates and graduation.
Use your eyes when disposing of waste on campus. Look for the blue bins scattered throughout every building, and actively think about if what you are about to throw away can instead be placed in a recycle bin. Recycling is easy, even if you've had a few drinks at a tailgate.
Erica Staab is a senior from Hays studying environmental studies and journalism.
- Eated by Matthew
Clough
Campus sustainability: where we are now
▶ CONNER MITCHELL
@ConnerMitchell0
As part of continuing sustainability efforts across campus, University officials and members of Student Senate have collaborated to introduce new initiatives for upcoming campus building projects.
In February, Student Senate passed a resolution which mandated all new University building construction projects be built to a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Standard by fall of 2016. The rating system was created by a nonprofit group, the U.S. Green Building Council. Buildings categorized with these standards are given a Certified Silver, Gold or Platinum classification using a point scale based on sustainability criteria.
Tomas Green, Student Senate policy and development director, authored the resolution, and said University buildings are currently built to the silver standard specifications, but are not officially certified due to high costs.
"Since we're at silver, and since we have a lot of building projects that are coming up soon, the thought was to push them to a gold standard, which is just the next level up," he said. "Not necessarily to get the certification, although
Green said buildings on campus are not officially LEED certified, as it costs anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 to verify each building's sustainability standards. He said University administration is in favor of campus sustainability; however, the allocation of how much money to spend on sustainability projects can be a point of contention.
that's still an option for the future. What we want to do is we want to push the University to have next-level criteria being met."
"They're on board with the idea of sustainability on campus. There's nobody here that [says] 'I'm not about the environment,'" he said. "Everybody is on board in terms of values. What breaks down is how we delegate our money to meet those values."
"We have existing standards, and we have discussed changing some of those standards. That's a process that's certainly not complete," he said. "We already have a lot of those standards in place, it's just
Barry Swanson, associate vice provost and chief procurement officer, has worked closely with Green to continue the development of sustainability standards. He said ensuring higher LEED standards for campus buildings is an ongoing process.
Another initiative Green has pursued is a University-wide net negative carbon expansion. He said ideally, with the numerous new building projects, a plan can be put in place to decrease the amount of carbon produced across campus. He said the initiative is dependent on who is named as the next provost of the University.
a matter of we need the people involved to have two seconds to breathe with the Central District [Project] going on."
"If the next provost is on board with this idea, it will be able to get accomplished. If not, then not," he said. "But the idea is that for all these expansions on campus, we would be finding reasonable offsets to the carbon that is already being generated so we're not expanding our carbon footprint."
Swanson said general sustainability efforts are an integral part of the University.
"Sustainability is in everything we do. It's deeply ingrained into everything they do in facilities and construction and procurement. It's just who we are as a University," he said. "It's just who we are and what we do and how we do it."
- Edited by Deanna Ambrose