From farmland to 'house after house': Lincoln's growth at 84th and Old Cheney

Often, those commutes during the 1980s were on his hay-eating, one-horsepower steed named Lisa.

Today, the hitching post to which Lockyer tied Lisa still sits at the edge of the school's parking lot at 84th Street and Old Cheney Road.

Longtime school staff members like Lockyer have borne witness to the intersection’s transformation from rural to suburban.

And that transformation seems far from over, area residents and commuters say.

“We knew this was coming,” said Lockyer, who’s worked at the school for the better part of 35 years.

On Feb. 9, the fast-casual restaurant Slim Chickens opened. A Dunkin’ Donuts is in the works.

In late January, road crews reopened a modernized stretch of Old Cheney between 70th and 82nd streets that the city spent $4.8 million to widen.

Neighbors and commuters celebrated the opening like a birthday. The road was closed for nearly a year while crews built two lanes in each direction, sidewalks, turn lanes and gutters.

“Now that it’s done, you have a lifetime of enjoyment out of that,” said Kerry Hartz, who lives in the Vintage Heights development east of the intersection.

When Hartz, 44, and his family moved into the neighborhood 14 years ago, his house marked the southern end of the development.

Now it’s the midway point.

Empty lots filled up quickly, and it just kept growing.

“It really seems that Vintage Heights was the place to be there for about 10 years,” Hartz said.

On the west side of the intersection, Lincoln Christian Superintendent Mark Wilson has seen his view change since 2001.

“It was just farm fields,” Wilson recalled. “I’m looking out my window right now, and it’s just house after house.

“Not one of those houses was here.”

Residential building slowed as neighborhoods began to fill up, but Hartz said the intersection still has room for commercial property.

Some of the area’s early needs were satisfied in the past few years.

“We were dying for a gas station,” said Hartz.

Then Roc’s Stop and Shop opened a convenience store and Shell station on the southeast corner about seven years ago.

“We’d thought we’d gone to heaven,” he said.

There’s now a dry cleaner, two banks and Vintage Heights Veterinary Hospital on the intersection.

“It’s like the old saying, ‘Location, location, location,’” said Amanda Lyons, office manager at the veterinary hospital.

Since opening on the northeast corner in 2009, the hospital has seen about 25 new clients a month, Lyons said.

Aided by the growth in the area’s neighborhoods, the veterinary hospital has added a couple of technician positions to help the always busy Dr. Jim Himmelberg, she said.

They’re hoping to add another part-time doctor soon, she said.

People who work in the neighborhood are excited for the prospects of a closer, quick-meal option in Slim Chickens, Lyons said.

Both she and Hartz are excited to see what’s in store for the area.

“It’s all worth the growing pains,” Hartz said.