For nearly 18 years, the shopping center at Jefferson Pointe has been a beautiful outdoor outlet mall. The walkways in the center of the shopping center are handicap and stroller friendly. The large center fountain has been the scene of countless Friday Night Live Concerts and Christmas Tree light shows. It is a social and lovely place to walk around and shop, eat, sit and visit.

Now there are big plans for a roadway through the walkways that people so enjoy. The central fountain will become a roundabout. There will be traffic instead of a lovely, quiet area filled with landscaping that you could sit down and enjoy while eating your Ben’s Pretzels, Poptique popcorn or Cold Stone ice cream. Instead of walking out of Starbucks and strolling around enjoying your coffee, you’ll have to navigate traffic to reach any other stores. Kids will no longer have a fountain to run around and grassy areas to play while parents sit and visit on the benches.

The entire point to an outdoor mall such as Jefferson Pointe is to walk from store to store. A roadway won’t change the fact that it’s an outdoor shopping center. In fact, a roadway will remove most of what attracts most people to Jefferson Pointe in the first place. If you want the convenience of parking by the store you desire to shop at, the chances of one of the few new spaces that may be put in place along the planned road being availableare slim. If you need someone to drop you off because you “don’t like to walk around,” then Jefferson Pointe probably isn’t the best shopping area for you in the first place.

Jefferson Pointe is beautiful. Let’s keep it that way.