Lawrence keeps Community Building free through end of 2026

Lawrence will keep the Community Building free through the end of 2026, choosing to absorb about $39,000 in part-time staffing costs rather than start charging users at the downtown facility. City commissioners approved the move 3-1 on June 16, extending a free-access trial at 115 W. 11th St. that has become a test case for how Lawrence pays for recreation.

The decision keeps one of the city’s most central public spaces open without memberships, day passes or program registration, even as those charges remain in place at East Lawrence Recreation Center, Holcom Park Recreation Center and Sports Pavilion Lawrence. Interim Parks and Recreation Director Lindsay Hart told commissioners the Community Building had recorded 6,830 visits through the end of May, while East Lawrence and Holcom Park combined logged 7,246 visits over the same period. That makes the downtown site a major piece of the city’s recreation network, not a marginal holdout.

Commissioners said they wanted more data before making any broader move for 2027, when the city could revisit whether the Community Building stays free or whether the same model should be applied elsewhere. Mayor Brad Finkeldei backed keeping the building open through December, while Commissioner Amber Sellers said the city could not make another abrupt change until it understood how the current model was working. Commissioner Mike Dever voted against the measure, and Commissioner Kristine Polian was absent.

The budget tradeoff is direct. City officials said Lawrence will use fund balance to cover the cost of keeping the building open for the rest of the year. If the free-access policy continues into 2027, the city would need another funding source, a higher property tax rate or cuts elsewhere in the budget. That pressure comes after years in which the city used general-fund balance to help cover an expenditure gap and kept the mill levy flat.

The free-access question also reaches beyond recreation into daily life downtown. City materials said the Community Building was first slated for a three-month evaluation in 2026, then later extended to six months before commissioners acted again. The city had already said the new access model at other facilities would end their role as warming or cooling centers during extreme weather, raising the stakes for keeping the older downtown building open.

Built in 1940 and originally used as a National Guard armory, the Community Building has long been one of Lawrence’s oldest civic facilities. Its continued free use through December keeps that public function intact for now, while leaving the larger question unanswered: how much of Lawrence’s recreation system should be paid for at the door, and how much should be supported through the city budget.