Town Center Venture Corp., which was already negotiating to build a shopping mall in the 600 block of downtown Lawrence, announced that it had joined forces with Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs Co., hoping that the partnership would “accelerate” the project. JVJ was already familiar to some Lawrence residents, as the company had raised the possibility of a “cornfield mall” in southeast Lawrence, a proposed project which some officials had feared would “devastate” downtown.

County commissioners met with Kansas Secretary of Transportation John Kemp in Topeka to discuss the plan for a Lawrence bypass. Although commissioners said that they hoped to eventually get state and federal funds to help finance most of the project, KDOT was unable to promise anything at the meeting.