Lancaster New Era from Lancaster, Pennsylvania • 9

LANCASTER, NEW ERA SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007 B1 Mew stores coming to lititz, lanheim pikes Lancaster Airport Bloomfield Village, The Shoppes at Manheim Pike will he nearly $18 million projects. ByTIMMEKEEL Airport Road tr Brethren 7 Village Manheim Twp Restaurant. Construction of the complex is due to begin by the end of this month. The site, eyed in the early 1990s as a supermarket location by an earlier developer, is opposite Brethren Village, which is planning to double in size with a $90 million expansion, and diagonally across from Lancaster Airport. A one-story building will have 18,100 square feet of space; a two-story building will have a first floor of 19,800 square feet and a second floor Please see STORES page B5 Theres a demand, due to the locations, said Deerin, who heads the leasing efforts for the new properties.

Both projects will complement existing businesses in the area, not compete with them, and will offer convenient services to the growing number of residents and workers in the area, said Deerin. As part of that convenience, he added, both sites are served by signalized intersections. According to Deerin, the two projects will help solve a shortage of available commercial space here. Retailers, he said, want to come here because its a growing, prosperous community. If there were vacancies all over Lancaster County, we wouldnt be developing (these projects), because someone could go there cheaper, he explained.

Deerin is president of LMS Commercial Real Estate, which is leasing space in the two projects. He also is president of Property Management Alternatives which will run them. Bloomfield Village will consist of a pair of buildings on Bloomfield Drive, immediately behind the Bloomfield Square Die Shoppes at Manheim Pike million neighborhood shopping center and office complex just off Lititz Pike, due to open this fall. The Shoppes at Manheim Pike, a $5.3 million retail building near Chelsea Square, also set to open this fall. The projects by Lancaster-based Blackford Development Ltd.

will fill two of the few remaining undeveloped parcels along those busy roadways in the steadily growing township. New Era Staff Writer Joe Deerins eyes and ears tell him why two new projects here will thrive. He sees few vacant stores in the Lancaster area. And he hears plenty of retailers say they want to move here. That evidence bodes well for the latest retail and office projects being developed in Manheim Township: Manlieim Twp.

Granite Run 5 Corporate Center fj Members of the Fulton Dramatists Platform discuss their work. They are (from left) Christina Beadouin, Herb Mc-Collom, John Grier and Chet Williamson. Penn Johns future as charter school? Following through on their pledge to try to keep Penn Johns School open, parents of students there want to make it a charter school. The parents plan to ask the Conestoga Valley school board next month for permission to change the status of the two-room school, effective this fall. The school board has indicated it favors closing the tiny school, because of the challenges of meeting tougher academic and teacher-certification standards there.

The schoolhouse at 205 Forest Hill Road, Bird-in-Hand, no longer has any Amish students, and about three-fourths of its 35 students are Old Order Mennonite the populations the grade one-through-eight school was built in the early 1950s to serve. Penn Johns is the last remaining public school attended by Plain children in those grades across Pennsylvanias 501 districts. In general, charter schools differ from regular public schools by specializing in certain subjects and serving smaller student populations. Parents of charter school students also tend to have more local control over curriculum and financial issues. As a charter school, Penn Johns would face less-stringent teacher-certification requirements, said Kathy Yoder, one of the parents working to keep it open.

Yoder said if the school board approves the application, enrollment would be limited to 48 students in grades one through eight. The school would be open to children living within a 10-mile radius of Penn Johns. Yoder estimated it would cost about $300,000 annually Dillerville bridge job to begin April 13 Road will be closed to motorists as work crews hustle to replace aging spans that link Harrisburg Avenue and Manheim Pike. By BERNARD HARRIS New Era Staff Writer In the next few days, motorists will see the first signs of the coming closure of Dillerville Road. Electronic message boards should soon appear alerting drivers that the road between Harrisburg Avenue and Manheim Pike will be closed beginning Friday, April 13.

Workers for J.D. Eckman, an Atglen-based construction company, will be ready at the stroke of midnight to start tearing down a three-span bridge over the Amtrak rails. The road itself is actually a series of bridges. There are three other bridges to the south of the 70-year-old bridge that is being replaced. Eckman, under the $7.6 million contract with the state TVansportation Department, will be rehabilitating the other bridges and widening and repaving the road.

The company has 120 days to do the work. The road is due to be reopened to traffic by mid-September. The north-south connector road carries 18,239 vehicles a day, PennDOT officials report. Mike Sisson, a former PennDOT staffer who is now technical manager with the Michael Baker Jr. Inc.

engineering firm, said Eckman Fulton Dramatists take stage next week Will present own works in New Play Festival, running Wednesday through Saturday. Included are one-act and full-length plays, monologues, short scenes. Eric ForbergerNew Era By JANE HOLAHAN New Era Staff Writer A ghost story, a tufted titmouse with a bad attitude and a city cop trying to communicate with the community are all part of the Fulton Opera Houses New Play Festival. The festival will run from Wednesday through Saturday in the Studio Theatre on the fourth floor of the North Prince Street theater. The work that will be presented over the course of four evenings includes short scenes, full-length plays, one-acts and monologues.

They will be presented as staged readings, with full casts. The pieces were all written by members of the Fulton Dramatists Platform, which meets at the Fulton every other Monday to read their work and offer support and commentary. It makes writing less isolating, says David Nice, who will be offering two scenes from a new play he is working on about marriage, morality and parents. Its completely different when you hear someone else reading your words, adds Christina Beadouin, who will be presenting a short scene during the first night of the festival. It helps you edit, to realize when something works and when something sounds off.

And now, they will have that most elusive thing every playwright seeks: Eric Selk (center) discusses schedules for the festival with Chet Williamson and Jahne Bell. an audience. The play festival is an expansion of last years Ten-Minute Play Festival, which brought a packed house to the Fulton despite little advertising. Please see FULTON page B5 Please see SCHOOL page B5 Please see BRIDGE page B5 A boost for Mount Joy from the Steinman Foundation, and Rutherford expects to see the planters out year-round. Maybe youll even see a red bow on them come Christmastime, she predicts.

The effort is the most ambitious yet to bixist and beautify the northwestern Iancaster County borough since Rutherford became Mam Street Mount Joy manager 18 months ago. But its not the last. Rutherford also is announcing the new Fourth Friday activities to start May 25. The Mam Street manager hopes it's a good economic Please see PROGRAM page B5 4 Street starting late this spring. As in a new Fourth Friday night out, starting in May, to feature a variety of family-friendly special events and later business hours among merchants.

These two efforts, in conjunction with the fifth year of the Mount Joy Farmers Market which itself will kick off at the start of May are part of a special effort to bixist downtown Mount Joy, its Main Street Manager Rutherford says. The new planters, to be about 30-by-30 inches and filled with flowers, will be an exciting way to add color and freshness to the Main Street dor, Rutherford says. We want to brighten the town, and to let people know theyre in downtown Mount Joy. The 50 planters will line Main Street (Route 230) from New Haven to Jacob streets, and also will extend to the first block of Market Street Borough merchants had expressed an interest in flowers as a beautification step, and Rutherford met with top officials at Mount Joys Wilton Armetale, the internationally known maker of metalware, to ask them about designing the planters. The effort is almost completely funded by a $9,000 grant Decorative planters, Fourth Friday night out latest efforts in Main Street program.

By DAVID OCONNOR New Era Staff Writer Forget about that snow you see sitting today in sandpilesized mounds along the road. Stacy Rutherford and others in Mount Joy already are thinking spring. As in more than 50 new, decorative planters lining and brightening the towns Main Eric ForbergerNew Era Main Street Mount Joy Manager Stacy Rutherford discusses the Fourth Friday and other events planned for the borough this spring and summer. 1.