New Benderson Mall Compliments Fashion Outlets Major Expansion

Money attracts money, they say, and it would follow that poverty begets only more poverty.

Over in the Town of Niagara, where the owners of the Fashion Outlets mall are putting the finishing touches on a $71 million expansion expected to create 600 permanent new jobs, the Benderson Development Co. plans to build a 146,000-square-foot retail and restaurant space directly across from the mall.

Company spokesmen say a single store, which they declined to identify, will occupy 69,000 square feet, while restaurants and boutiques will fill the remainder of the space.

The project, already approved by the town and the county Planning Board, will be dubbed "Military Place," a company spokesman said.

Construction for the project will begin in two to three weeks and should be completed by the fall, to coincide with the grand unveiling of the Fashion Outlets mall expansion.

Combined, the projects will benefit the local economy in the form of nearly 2,000 construction jobs and more than 1,000 permanent positions in the Town of Niagara.

Meanwhile, in Mayor Paul Dyster's Niagara Falls, the poor keep getting poorer as the second highest property taxes in the nation continue to drive businesses and homeowners away.

Public ownership of property has worked out really well for Niagara Falls where the tax base keeps shrinking and fewer and fewer residents and businesses are left to pick up the tab of running a municipality set up for a population of more than 100,000. Currently, fewer than 50,000 residents remain.

Why not pile your family into the car tonight and take a drive down Main Street and Pine Avenue in Niagara Falls. Follow Pine until you get to the city limits, around where the street becomes Niagara Falls Boulevard in the Town of Niagara. Make the left onto Military Road.

The whole safari won't take you 15 minutes, and you'll get to see the desperate poverty that is Dystertown starkly contrasted with the prosperity of the next municipality over.