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The bidding battle for a pharmaceutical campus in western Lawrence ended Monday when a Topeka group agreed to cut a $4.6 million check.

JFM Limited Partnership I, of Topeka, outlasted a final $4.4 million bid from a competing Lawrence group to buy Oread Inc.'s 21 acres of laboratories, office space and undeveloped property southwest of 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive.

Monday's auction, conducted at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Topeka, pitted two groups against each other for a site owned and operated by Oread, which filed for Chapter 11 protection earlier this year.

The Lawrence group had a contract for Kansas University researchers to use the lab space for drug-delivery, pharmaceutical chemistry or other associated research, while the vacant land was to be redeveloped for accommodating the projects' commercial spinoffs. But those efforts now appear moot.

The Topeka partnership has a week to close its purchase, less than two weeks after it first entertained thoughts of buying the property.

Plans for the place are far from set.

"Suffice it to say that the limited partnership is seeking tenants for this facility," said Jim Parrish, a Topeka attorney representing JFM. "We were advised that the university research arm there was not interested in renting from us and we're not sure why but we're certainly willing to hear from anybody who is interested in the properties.

"They're excellent properties in an excellent location."

KU never was interested in renting the space, said Sam Campbell, whose CTECH group had secured a contract with the KU Center for Research Inc. to use some or all of the labs for research.

CTECH initially bid $3.2 million for the Oread properties, which became available when Oread filed for bankruptcy protection in February. A onetime contract pharmaceutical powerhouse, Oread once employed as many as 300 people in Lawrence and generated annual sales of $83 million.

Paying $4.6 million would have been too much to keep the CTECH partnership's vision alive at least for the Oread site. Campbell will continue his search for space to grow and nurture the research efforts and their commercial offshoots.

"Obviously, we'll have to grow them someplace else in Lawrence," said Campbell, founder of Campbell-Becker Inc., which invests in early-stage technology companies. "We'll just keep moving forward and see what develops."

Campbell said that JFM must be entertaining pharmaceutical uses for the Oread site, given the high redevelopment costs for converting the buildings to office use.

"Otherwise, I don't think they can make it economically," Campbell said.

Parrish said he didn't expect it to take long to find tenants for the complex, which excludes an adjacent bulk actives pilot plant. JFM is led by Mark McGivern, a Topeka attorney and president of McGivern Realty, a buyer and developer of commercial and residential real estate in Kansas, Texas, Colorado and other states.

The partnership has been talking to pharmaceutical companies and a handful of others, Parrish said, who could move into the spaces in a relatively short time frame.

"It's like an apartment building," Parrish said. "It's ready when the other tenant is out."