Sprinkler contains apartment fire at Babcock Place, no injuries

A sprinkler and a fast emergency response kept a Wednesday fire at Babcock Place from turning into a larger displacement event in downtown Lawrence, and no one was injured.

Firefighters were sent around 11:30 a.m. to the seven-floor, 120-unit apartment building at 1700 Massachusetts St., where residents age 50 and older live in a tightly packed senior-housing setting. By the time reporters arrived after 1 p.m., most residents had already been allowed back into their apartments, and the building had largely returned to normal except for the unit where the fire started.

Division Chief Justin Temple said investigators were still working to determine the cause, but the early signs were encouraging. The fire began in a single apartment and was stopped by one sprinkler head before it could move farther through the building. Officials said no residents, staff members or emergency workers were injured, and some residents were only briefly evacuated while crews secured the scene. One occupant of the affected apartment may be displaced while the damage is assessed.

For a high-rise housing older adults in the middle of downtown Lawrence, that outcome mattered. A fire that starts in a single unit at Babcock Place, where neighbors live close together on multiple floors, can quickly become a public safety problem if suppression and response do not work together. In this case, they did. Jerrad Lewis, vice president of property operations with the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, praised staff and first responders for isolating the situation quickly.

Babcock Place is more than just an apartment building. The housing authority describes it as a senior and accessible property with balconies, common areas on each floor and first-floor amenities that include a library, hobby room, meal site, clinic, game room, computer stations and fitness equipment. The building also has on-site management and a 24-hour emergency call system. It includes 72 deluxe studio units, 42 one-bedroom units and 6 two-bedroom units, with rent based on 30% of a resident’s gross annual income and utilities included.

The fire also drew attention to the broader role of the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, which says it manages 369 public housing units, 591 Section 8 units and 62 HOME-assisted units, serving more than 1,300 households. LDCHA’s history dates to the merger of the Lawrence Housing Authority, created in 1968, and the Douglas County Housing Authority, created in 1983, with the merger becoming formal in 2001.

Babcock Place was built in 1973 and has had previous fire incidents, including a rooftop fire in 2021 that forced some temporary relocation and a 2009 apartment fire that caused water damage. Wednesday’s outcome was far less disruptive, and for a building built to shelter older adults in the heart of downtown, that difference was the point.