Douglas County commissioners unanimously approved a motion to set aside $4 million for a new trafficway proposed to run south and west of Lawrence, as well as $500,000 for a rail-served industrial park to be built somewhere in the county. Commissioners then had to await an opinion from the attorney general on whether the county could issue the new bonds without a public vote.

According to the president of the Reuter Organ Co., the company’s plant would be moved if a proposed riverfront shopping mall proved successful. The Reuter Co. had been operating at the 612 New Hampshire location since 1919. The company’s president said that no immediate relocation plans were in the works but that closing the company was not being considered. Two Crowns Inc. of Forth Worth, Texas, had obtained an option to buy Reuter’s buildings and land and was hoping to start construction in the fall on a $16 million mall. The mall project would involve rehabilitating the old Bowersock buildings on the riverfront and constructing a 60,000-foot department store.