Press and Sun-Bulletin from Binghamton, New York • 7

RESSf Binghamton, N. Y. 5-A First of 100 Stores 1 "gi- JC Plaza Start Set for Spring 0cti5, 197 'A several houses within the site making a total of 57 acres. In readying the site for the center, Johnson City altered now has an option to buy 40 acres of the mall site from Mr. Vashina, 8 acres from Mrs.

Ernestine Kunkel and gether to make the whole concept possible." ROTH SAID that Interstate Kro Hi ts On Oakdale gmtmy ymwfwmmm.tiimm jisW'r ww'a 1 mm )inu h.ii, 1.1 A' ww fi i 1 1 iPar jC.Vv't HI Its I svsss.sssssss- 1 I i 1 hi ll? 5 nil I I sssss 1, IIH' MMi Will Ml mill WWi styvM ssJMOMgA A ping Center in Westover. "AFTER SPENDING many hours with the DOT personnel, the entrance was designed at the western end of the plaza, to relieve the traffic on End-well street," Kropp said. "At the last moment when the contractor applied for the permit, it was denied. The state DOT changed their policy and required the developer to construct the entrance directly across from Endwell Street," Kropp said. "This will create untold traf- By PATRICK McGUIRE Construction on the first of 100 stores in the massive Tri-City Shopping Mall in Johnson City will begin next spring, with eventual completion of the enclosed, air conditioned shopping center slated for 1975.

Phase One of the $15 million Mall's construction, as revealed in an announcement by the developers in Johnson City today, will include the building of the 138,000 square foot Montgomery Ward Co. building. Montgomery Ward will take title to the land on Nov. 15 and will be open for Christmas next year, officials said. The 60 acre Mall, at the corner of Reynolds Road and Harry L.

Drive in Johnson City will have three major department stores and with room for 3,500 cars. It will be the largest parking lot in Broome County. Twenty acres of the mall will be enclosed under one roof in an air-conditioned promenade complete with pedestrian streets that will be decorated with flowers and several fountains. THIS ENCLOSED promenade will be approximately 1,500 feet long and will be built on three levels. Stephen Roth, president of Interstate Properties of Clifton, N.

J. declined today to announce any of the other tenants in the mall. Roth said he was holding today's news conference to answer several rumors that had sprung up about the project. However, when asked to confirm or deny the rumor that a particular firm would be a tenant he said he would do neither. He said he would be announcing the names of the other 99 stores within thre or four months.

The Mall, has been in the planning for at least two years. Johnson City Mayor James W. McCabe said at the conference that Stanley Vashina had spent several years "quietly putting this land package to- the course of a creek. Developers of the Mall will move the creek even farther west from its present location during construction. The rebuilt creek channel which runs west of Reynolds Road will be piped beneath the mall's parking lot.

Roth said that Harry L. Drive, as it passes in front of one of the mall's two entrances, will be widened to four lanes by Broome County. He said a traffic light would also be installed at that entrance. He said that the eastern border of the mall as it runs along Reynolds Road will be left untouched by construction in case that street should also need widening to four lanes in the future. Roth said he chose the Reynolds Road site, "100 per cent because of its location." He said the mall was designed as a regional shopping complex -to service an area between Scranton and Syracuse.

THE REYNOLDS ROAD corner, sitting at the opening of the Harry L. Drive exit to the Route 17 Expressway, is considered by some the most desirable site in the entire county for a shopping center. The mall was originally scheduled to have four giant department stores, but the plan was cut to three for lack of space. The development of the Mall is seen as a financial salvation by Mayor McCabe who hopes the village can reap the benefits from the expected $5 million increase in assessment valuation. The village board last night approved a change in parking requirements for the Mall and rezoned a section of land at the northern end of the site to be used for parking.

The Tri-City Mall shouldn't be confused with the Triple Cities Shopping Center in Westover, where a W. T. Grant department store is near completion as the first of several outlets there. The land surrounding the site has already been zoned as a special Highway Development District, which affords the village control over the Sta te Road fic problems on Endwell Street and now that Oakdale will not be widened the condition will grow worse," he said. HE TOLD McCABE he and Public Works Commissioner Richard Blessing would attend the Oct.

16 meeting in the village hall. Last night McCabe said State Senator Warren Anderson had also promised he would attend the meeting. McCabe has invited county, village and town officials, as well as school and chamber of commerce representatives. the operation. "We'd been struggling with it for some time," he said today.

Chapman said that there was not enough money to start with to enable the restaurant to "keep ahead" financially. Benjamin, a student in the special admissions program at the State University at Binghamton, said today thai some students were working on an effort there to seek business for the restaurant. Benjamin said, however, that it would be impossible to keep the restaurant open. He said the restaurant was started with $3,000 in contributions from the Unitarian Uni-versalist Church in Financial Troubles Restaurant Helping Parolees Is Closed The Community House a drive-in restaurant set up to help parolees, probationers and ex-convicts in Broome County has closed because of financial troubles. Union Supervisor Robert M.

Kropp has joined Johnson City Mayor James W. McCabe in criticizing the state Department of Transportation for "abandoning" the Oakdale Road reconstruction project. Kropp was one of several lo-c a 1 i i a 1 invited by McCabe to a session next week to plan strategy for getting the Oakdale Road project reinstated. Transportation officials in Albany have declared the $2,250,000 project out of the money now, and not likely to be in the money for at least two or three years. "I WAS SURPRISED to hear that the state has abandoned the project," Kropp said in reply to McCabe's invitation.

"It seems incredible that the state Department of Transportation (DOT) would regard their promises so lightly, especially since they went to great lengths to make them," he said. He noted that Oakdale Road was to be widened to take care of a heavy traffic load caused by the closing of a rail underpass at Watson Boulevard. "Obviously the time we public officials spend going over plans and recommendations with the DOT means nothing to them," Kropp said. "I FOR ONE am tired of being consulted for recommendations, attending numerous public information meetings, receiving numerous calls from concerned citizens who are involved on state projects and then have the rug pulled out from under," he said. "The lack of dignity and regard for people seem to be the theme for the NYS Department of Transportation," he added.

Kropp told McCabe that he had his own gripe with the DOT, concerning the entrance- way to the Triple -Cities Shop PRESS PHOTO BY PAUL KONECNY. FUTURE MALL This is a bird's eye view of a model of the Tri-City Shopping Mali that will be built at the northwest corner of Reynolds Road and Harry L. Drive in Johnson City. The rectangles represent several large stores that will be included in the $15 million mall. At the bottom of the model running left to right is Harry L.

Drive. The restaurant was opened in June by Probe, an organization designed to aid persons who have had troubles with the law. Ronald Benjamin, executive director of Probe and a parolee himself, said that he was forced to close the restaurant last night. The operation was at 3646 George F. Highway, Endwell.

Benjamin said that the oper-a i was not financially stable and could not continue. Frank Chapman, a former dining manager at the State University at Binghamton who had been running the operation on a volunteer basis until last Friday, said that there were several problems facing cCabe Lashes At Tax Opponents Johnson City Mayor James W. McCabe said today that if his opponents "insist on bringing up taxes" as a campaign issue, they should compare the rise in village taxes while he was mayor to that in school taxes while Ralph Lashier was president of the Board of Education. OUR CHECKinC Accoum OFFER YOU flCHOICG. many facets of construction.

MIGHTS LIFT SHAMROCK AT POCONO DOWNS Apalachin the difference Boys Club Only 'Bidder' For School Press Bureau OWEGO Only one organization so far has indicated any interest in acquiring the Owego Junior High School building in the village's Main Street, according to John May-berry, chairman of the build-ing committee of Owego-Apalachin Central School District. The building will become vacant with the completion of the district's new high school, scheduled for next February. Students now in the junior high building will be shifted into the present Owego Free Academy when students now attending classes there are transferred into the new building. It is not known at this point whether the O-A Board will decide to dispose of the building when it moves the pupils out, but Mayberry's committee is interested in persons or organizations who may wish to acquire the building if the board decides to dispose of it. The Owego Boys Club has been the only organization to date to indicate such an interest.

The transportation committee will make a progress report to the Board of Education regarding requests that have been received and recommendations for use of the building at the board's Oct. 28 meeting. Persons or organizations interested in the building are requested to contact the clerk of the Owego-Apalachin Central School District Board of Education at 36 Talcott Street, Owego. IBM Gets 2 Contracts IBM Corp. at Owego has been awarded two contracts valued at more than $2 million.

The largest of the contracts, worth $1,900,000, comes from McDonnell Douglas' Astronautics Co. to develop a guidance system for the U. S. Navy's harpoon missile. A second job, valued at $250,000 and awarded by the Space Missile Systems Organization of the U.

S. Air Force, is for study and design of a navigation system for Robison Explains Raise Vote Rep. Howard W. Robison yesterday voted to uphold President Nixon's recommendation, as an integral part of his latest anti-inflation policy, to defer scheduled pay raises for federal employes for six months. Commenting on this issue, the Owego Republican said, "At stake here is not the question of whether federal employes were underpaid or overpaid or whether statistics now justify their receiving the increases previously scheduled for next Jan.

House Vote 15A "At stake, instead, was the question of our voting to maintain the economic and psychological momentum generated against a disasterous inflationary wave by the President's new economic policy. "Though we know Mr. Nixon intends to let the current freeze expire at the end of its 90 days, we all anticipate that 'Phase as it is being called, will involve some sort of an income policy with teeth in it. "This means that the feder al government will continue for perhaps a year or two to take a hard-line against wage and price increases. "Any such program hasn't a chance of succeeding unless all share equally in the sacrifice demanded of the nation.

If Uncle Sam, as the nation's largest employer, did not ask his own people to join in this cause then the ultimate inflationary consequences for every American would seem inevitable. "I do hope, however, that the thousands of federal employes in the Southern Tier area recognize that this is a deferral for six months only of their deserved pay raises and that the administration and I both remain committed to the so-called 'comparability concept" on which the same were originally based." The vote in the House yesterday upholding the President's position was 207 to 147. Nixon to W. Va. KEY BISCAYNE, Fla.

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Come in and check with us. McCabe admitted the village tax rate rose by $16.95 per $1,000 from 1965 to 1970. But he added the school tax rate, while Lashier, his Republican opponent, was president, rose $36.42 in the same period. "Now, which tax burden bore down more heavily on the shoulders of the homeowners that the opposition professes so much concern for?" he asked. HE ALSO NOTED that the village board "was the first in the county" to raise the maximum exemption for senior citizens to $5,000, while the school board set its figure at $3,800.

"The village board will stand on its record of concern, for the homeowner and especially for the senior citizen on a fixed income," McCabe said. "I have been very reluctant to make tax rate comparisons, because, as I have said taxes are very complex and rates do not tell the story." BUT, HE SAID, "Since the opposition keeps bringing the matter up, I have no choice except to defend the village tax rate." He said if Lashier had resigned his post on the school board during this campaign as he had asked. "This discussion of tax rates would be much less awkward. "But he and his team insist on comparisons, and so we will oblige. This is the unfortunate thing that has happened because Mr.

Lashier continues to hide or try to hide behind the 'non partisan' school board image," McCabe said. "I am afraid the image has been tarnished beyond repair because of Mr. Lashier's lack of good judgment," he said. HE ALSO answered two questions put to him recently by Republican trustee nominee Louis P. Augostini, regarding the odor in the Bing-h a n-Johnson City joint sewage treatment plant and the larger sewer rents paid by Johnson City.

He repeated the explanation offered earlier this year when the sewer rents were increased that the village had experienced a sharp drop in industrial flow. Because of this, less revenue was He said there were two ways to raise the money: by an increase in property taxes of $8 to $10 per thousand or an increase in the rents. "Let Binghamton take care of their own problems. Where they get the money for sewage treatment costs is not our problem" he said of criticism that the city paid less in rents than the village. He further noted that if the taxes had been raised, industries would have paid much less than homeowners.

HE ALSO SAID that Johnson City did not pay more than Binghamton in overall operating costs. "To insinuate this is shoddy campaigning" he said. On the odor question, he noted: "It will persist at times at the plant until secondary treatment is operational." Secondary facilities are being constructed. "Mr. Augostini knew this or should have.

The reduction in odor is one of the benefits of secondary treatment. Our consulting engineers explained this in detail to Mr. Augostini several years ago," McCabe said. Vestal District Plans Reading Workshop An all day reading workshop entitled "Perception Its Effect in Your Classroom," will be held for all reading teachers, cadet teachers, building representatives and school psychologists in the Vestal School District Friday. The principal speaker will be Are-lene Sardo, primary supervisor at Baldwinsville Central School.

The program is being sponsored by the Vestal Central School District in cooperation with the State University Col-. lege at Oneonta. Coroner Rules Gun Death Accidental Broome County Coroner Melvin D. Jones has ruled that Lawrence Ferguson, 19, of 1212 Glenwood Road, Vestal, died accidentally early Saturday. Ferguson was found dead at his home Saturday with a bullet wound in his chest.

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