Plans filed for apartment-retail building across from KU’s Memorial Stadium

A new five-story apartment and retail building complete with a robotic-powered parking garage may be coming to a site across the street from Kansas University's Memorial Stadium.

Plans have been filed at Lawrence City Hall for a major mixed-used development on the existing site of the Berkeley Flats apartment complex at 1101 Indiana St.

"We think it is a very strategic site in the city that is being underutilized currently," said Jim Heffernan, a principal with Chicago-based student housing developer HERE LLC.

The site is directly east of the stadium and is along the Mississippi Street gateway to campus.

Details of the proposed development include:

156 apartments totaling about 600 bedrooms would be located on three of the building's five floors. Each apartment would include an 18-foot-high great room, designed to give the units the feel of an urban loft.

Retail and restaurant uses would be located along both the Mississippi Street and Indiana Street levels of the building. In total, the plans call for about 11,000 square feet of retail shops or restaurants.

The development would have a 592-space parking garage spread out over three levels, including an underground level. The garage would use an "automated, robotic parking garage system" to park and retrieve cars.

The system involves the motorist pulling into a large elevator-like box and exiting the vehicle. The garage then uses an elevator system to place the vehicle on the appropriate floor, and a lift-and-track system that moves the vehicle to the right space.

Cars are retrieved through a sort of electronic valet system. Heffernan estimated it takes about three to five minutes to retrieve a vehicle.

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Plans filed for apartment-retail building across from KU's Memorial Stadium