When the South Lawrence Trafficway is completed next year, shoppers certainly will be among the motorists it carries. That part is easy to predict. What’s harder to know is whether the road will be full of shoppers looking to spend more money in Lawrence, or simply looking for a faster route to take their wallets to their favorite out-of-town shopping center.

Lawrence city commissioners can help shape the answer.

Plans have been filed to build an approximately 250,000-square-foot shopping center at the southeast corner of the future South Lawrence Trafficway and U.S. Highway 59 interchange. Developers haven’t yet announced tenants for this particular project, but the project is being led by a development group that previously announced it had Academy Sports, Old Navy, Designer Shoe Warehouse, Marshalls/Home Goods and other large retailers interested in coming to Lawrence.

Those retailers were interested in a much larger proposal for the same site at the SLT and Iowa Street interchange. That project last year never even made it to the Lawrence City Commission for a vote because it became clear that it did not have the needed support from commissioners. Three of the five city commissioners, however, are new since April’s elections. This scaled-down project deserves a new, more positive response from commissioners.

Never has it been more important for Lawrence to stem the flow of shoppers leaving town to make purchases. The state of Kansas has sent a clear message that cities will need to be more reliant on sales tax collections in the future. Starting in 2018, a new law will begin that will make it cumbersome for cities to approve property tax increases that are greater than the rate of inflation. One likely result is that communities — if they are blessed enough to have a retail base — will become more reliant on sales tax collections.

Having a strong retail base, though, is a key ingredient for future success. This project — dubbed Southpoint — will strengthen Lawrence’s retail offerings. Many opponents of the project will note that there are already retailers in the community that sell sporting goods, or clothing, or shoes, or the other items that may be staples of the companies mentioned above. That is true, but it also is true that community leaders have expressed concern about the amount of retail spending that leaves the city. You can tell Lawrence shoppers they have enough selection and choices today, but you may go broke doing it.

Communities that seek to rely more heavily on sales tax collections also must think of how they can attract more shoppers from outside the community. No, this development may not attract many shoppers from Kansas City or Topeka where such brands already exist. But with the recently completed, four-lane expansion of U.S. Highway 59, the site is very convenient for shoppers in Ottawa and other points to the south. It is realistic to think that shoppers in Ottawa would rather make the quicker drive to Lawrence than deal with the bigger city hassles of Kansas City.

Lawrence city commissioners need to determine whether this development firm can deliver the type of desirable retailers in demand by Lawrence shoppers, whether this project can be accomplished without expensive public incentives — thus far, none have been requested — and whether this piece of property is suited for retail development.

There are good reasons to believe those questions can be answered positively. There are even better reasons to believe Lawrence will need developments like this to keep our community’s finances healthy well into the future.