Each day, it appears The Crossing’s best days are behind it.

On June 30, a preliminary proposal was submitted to the Lawrence/Douglas County planning office for the redevelopment of the corner at 12th and Indiana streets where The Crossing, 618 W. 12th St., Yello Sub, 624 W. 12th St., and Head Rush, 622 W. 12th St., currently reside. The plan was submitted by Skyscapes of Lawrence LLC, a development company owned by Manhattan attorney Robert Pottroff, and Jeff and Kathy Morrow, Yello Sub and Head Rush property owners.

When asked if the Morrows and Pottroff were officially partners on the proposal, Jeff Morrow said he and his wife and Pottroff were “co-applicants.”

Pottroff said he and the Morrows were “business associates,” and added that there are very few partnerships in the world.

“It’s a term of art,” Pottroff said referring to the word partnership.

Terms of association aside, the Morrows and Pottroff own the property that occupies the space for the proposed building. The proposal, authored by Incite Design Studio of Lenexa, requires that The Crossing, Dingo’s and the parking lot behind Dingo’s be removed. Dingo’s is located behind The Crossing and has been closed for more than a year.

This artist's rendering shows the priliminary development plan for Indiana and 12th Streets, where The Crossing is located. A Manhattan attorney bought the building and plans to build a five-story commercial and residential development.

The building occupied by Yello Sub and Head Rush and the house behind Yello Sub at 1142 Indiana also need to be removed. A five story, “mixed use” structure could then be built at the corner.

“Mixed use” is a zoning term that means the proposed structure would have more than just one zoning use. The area at 12th and Indiana Streets is currently zoned for commercial use with The Crossing, Yello Sub and Head Rush and is zoned as residential dormitory for the apartment complexes that surround it. The proposed structure would combine the two and is called a planned commercial development district. It requires that the corner be rezoned to accommodate the proposal.

The plans indicated that the building would extend from the edge of the Hawks Pointe III apartment complex parking lot to Indiana and 12th Street to the edge of Oread Heights Apartments, 1140 Indiana.

The preliminary plans for the 34,000 square-foot building would include 15 condominiums of the two- and three-bedroom variety, space for a sit-down restaurant, a fast food restaurant and a specialty retail shop. Parking spaces would line Indiana and 12th streets for the retail shops and an underground two-story parking garage would give its residents off-street parking.

The plan indicates that the sit-down restaurant may be used for a coffee shop, the fast food restaurant as a deli and the specialty retail shop as a hair salon. The intended purposes were listed in parentheses. The intended uses for the commercial space were subject to change in the preliminary proposal.

The submission of the plan came before a city-wide zoning change was adopted. The change was implemented because the old city code was outdated, Holly Krebs, chairwoman of the planning commission said. She added that it had been in use for the past 40 years and it needed a “sweeping revision.”

“It was a hodgepodge of additions and amendments,” she said.

“The code just needed to be changed,” Mike Goans, chairman of the Lawrence Board of Zoning appeals, said.

The zoning change doesn’t affect this plan. The owners would have had to apply for a zoning change to accommodate their “mixed use” structure regardless.

The proposal has been submitted, but before this plan could come to fruition, several things must happen with the city.

The first step in the approval process starts with the planning office, the day-to-day city planning staff. The planning office would make a recommendation — it does not approve or deny a proposal — to the planning commission, a board of 10 appointed officials and to the Lawrence City Commission.

This case was different. The Hancock District, Oread Avenue to Mississippi Street on west 12th Street, and the Snow House, 706 W. 12th St., were listed on the National Register for historic places in Douglas County. Because the corner at 12th and Indiana streets was within 500 feet of those historic landmarks, the Historic Resources Commission would have to approve the proposal first. State law requires that planned proposals near historic sites be reviewed.

If approved by the Historic Resources Commission, the proposal would go before the planning commission. If it is approved there, the city commission would then have to approve it.

If it was approved by those three departments, that would conclude the governmental process, allowing the property owners to develop.

This would not happen overnight. Michelle Leininger, an Area/Neighborhood planner with the Lawrence/Douglas County planning office, said that proposals often change before they’re approved.

Krebs added that sometimes the steps of getting a proposal passed go smoothly and changes take a short amount of time, but it doesn’t always work like that.

This proposal was no different. The redevelopment won’t happen tomorrow.

“The project will unfold in the coming months,” Brian Foxworthy, an architect with Incite Design Studio, the firm that submitted the proposal, said.

Goans said it’s a slow process.

“It may take six months,” he said.

Krebs agreed with the six-month estimate.

“It may be a long time before there’s any construction,” she said.

One group that had little control over any aspect of the process was the Oread Neighborhood Association. It was not a voting body, Leininger said. She added that the Neighborhood Association could not like a proposal, fight a proposal with the planning commission and city commission, but had no voting power to approve its addition to the neighborhood.