Toland touts Lawrence lofts opening, urges more downtown housing

Downtown Lawrence added a new affordable housing building at 1000 New Hampshire St., but Lt. Gov. David Toland used the opening of New Hampshire Lofts to make a larger point: the city has to keep building if it wants to stay livable for workers, older residents and anyone who wants to live close to services.

Toland, who visited Lawrence on May 1, 2026, treated the opening as a signal of what downtown can become, not as the end of the story. He argued that the city needs to keep adding housing in the urban core if it wants to match its growth, support businesses after dark and make room for people who do not want to depend on a car for every trip.

The four-story project stands on a vacant lot on the east side of New Hampshire Street just north of the 11th and New Hampshire intersection, next door to a historic stone church that has been converted to offices. City plans described it as 48 affordable apartments for people age 55 and older, with six studio units, 35 one-bedroom units, six two-bedroom units and one three-bedroom unit, along with about 15,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

The building had been in the works for years. City materials said the project was structured to include at least 15% of its apartments for households at or below 30% of area median income, and listed public support that included $450,000 in City of Lawrence ARPA money, $100,000 from the city Affordable Housing Trust Fund, $890,000 in federal low-income housing tax credits, $890,000 in Kansas affordable housing tax credits and $1 million from the National Housing Trust Fund. The Lawrence school board approved its portion of the tax breaks on Nov. 13, 2023, by a 5-2 vote, clearing the last local hurdle.

The broader need is clear in Douglas County. City of Lawrence materials published in 2024 said nearly half of renters and nearly a quarter of homeowners experience housing insecurity, and said the housing wage for a two-bedroom apartment was $18.27 an hour, more than double the state minimum wage. Lawrence’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, approved by voters in 2017, began collecting sales tax revenue on April 1, 2019, and was in its sixth year in 2024.

Toland also tied the Lawrence project to Kansas’ larger economic picture. He pointed to his role in recruiting Panasonic’s $4 billion electric-vehicle battery plant in De Soto, expected to create 4,000 jobs, as evidence that major growth is still coming to the state. In Lawrence, the opening of New Hampshire Lofts turned that abstract promise into a visible downtown test, whether the city can add residents, keep housing attainable and build a center city that works beyond office hours.