To the editor:

Which way are we going? If the number of stores in Lawrence doubled tomorrow there would not be a doubling of sales or sales taxes going to the city. There are only so many people living here and they only have a set amount of money to spend, no matter how many stores we have.

In addition to vacant stores ready to rent, Lawrence already has dozens of acres zoned for retail and mixed uses at the northeast corner of West Sixth Street and Kansas Highway 10 in the “Mercado” development. On top of that, KU is moving ahead with their own mixed-use development on the vacant land west of Iowa Street known as the West Campus. And, I’ve heard a strip mall might be going in at the east end of 23rd Street.

Some promoters want to make big profits by establishing yet another development (with attendant additions of traffic lights and congestion) just south of the junction of Iowa Street/U.S. Highway 59 and K-10, to be known as Boston Crossing. We don’t need yet another project like this. We especially don’t need it in the Wakarusa River floodplain and wetlands that will need to be filled in and lost forever!

It may now be legal and it may be technologically feasible, but it should never happen.

Graham Kreicker,

Lawrence