Downtown Lawrence sees restaurant closure, rooftop bar shutdown, gym relocation

A cluster of closures and relocations is reshaping daily life around downtown Lawrence, from a chain restaurant on Iowa Street to a rooftop venue at The Oread and a climbing gym on Vermont Street. The changes mean fewer places for lunch, workouts and private events, and they add to the vacant-space and foot-traffic worries already hanging over the city’s core.

Buffalo Wild Wings at 2624 Iowa St. closed at the end of business Sunday, May 4, after local rumors swirled over the weekend. By Monday, employees were seen loading a U-Haul and several vehicles with fixtures and other items from the restaurant. A manager declined to comment on the closure. It was the chain’s only Lawrence location, making the loss more noticeable for diners who had used it as a game-day stop and for workers tied to the site.

At The Oread, The Nest on Ninth is temporarily closed to the public while the hotel handles an extensive elevator repair that affects ADA accessibility. Logan Shinn, general manager of The Oread, said the rooftop space is expected to reopen in the next few months once the repair is finished. For now, the ninth-floor venue remains available for private rentals, and hotel guests can still bring food and drinks from Rock & Hawk, the lobby-level restaurant.

Climb Lawrence will shut down its 714 Vermont St. location on May 27 and move to St. Joseph, Missouri. The gym said monthly memberships will stay active through that date, annual passes will be prorated and refunded, and punch passes will not be reimbursed. Its last new set of routes will be installed May 15. The move leaves another gap in the downtown block that has already been under pressure from construction and access disruptions.

The Vermont Street building is also part of a separate development plan. Alarm.com wants to renovate 714 Vermont St. into office space after previously considering a project at 630 Massachusetts St. “Following further evaluation, the building at 630 Massachusetts Street was determined not to be a suitable fit for the proposed project,” according to a memo to the Lawrence City Commission. “During this time, a property at 714 Vermont Street became available, and the applicant has requested to relocate the project to that address.”

The company is seeking a neighborhood revitalization district and industrial revenue bonds to finance the work, but those incentives had not yet been approved. The changes land at a time when Lawrence has already tightened recreation services, with downtown’s Community Building now limited to enrollment-based programming and reservations, and city recreation centers no longer serving as warming or cooling sites. For downtown businesses and the people who use them, the latest shifts are another sign that the neighborhood is being redrawn in real time.