Featured
Downtown Little Rock aims to redefine itself in a post-COVID world. Over the last decade, downtown has seen marginal job growth when compared to the rest of Central Arkansas and has seen employers leave for suburban locations.
We built homes with front porches on them and hid the parking. We dropped the fence height so people could see over them. Our Bill of Assurance was written in the late 1800s so we were not bound to building 1,800-square-foot ranch-style homes over and over again. We get to turn our imaginations loose, which results in some really interesting architecture.
Culinary gems that offer an experience from plate to palette to atmosphere often are destinations in and of themselves. The capacity these restaurants have to attract locals and out-of-town visitors alike makes them an important part of the local culture.
This community cares. Sidewalks are free of litter. Bright murals invite selfies. Tidy landscaping is in bloom. Lovingly restored storefronts tempt passersby to treat themselves, shop for gifts, dine, tune their bikes for the trails or pick a book to enjoy in the pocket park. Fresh paint and the percussion of construction hint at what’s to come. There’s momentum.
In the early 1980s, El Dorado’s downtown occupancy was less than 15%. It was a near slum. My office building, which I bought and renovated at the time, was the only new construction since the ill-conceived Union Square Mall was removed in the mid-1970s.
The small East Arkansas town of Trumann (population 7,332 in the last census), which like so many Delta communities has watched its downtown die, is about to be reinvented — and perhaps serve as a guide to other rural areas — thanks to the 140-acre mixed-use development Steel Creek.
How best can we transform our cities and towns with 21st century design ideals that put community and lifestyle first and cars second? Block, Street & Building put that question to city planners via the Arkansas Times Blog and the Arkansas Municipal League, initiating a competition of ideas to create walkable, livable spaces where commercial and residential needs co-exist, and dozens responded with their ideas.
It takes a village to save a downtown. But first a village needs a generator, a spark. What impact can one person have on the resurrection of a struggling part of a city? Consider the case of Jimmy Moses and the success of Little Rock’s River Market and the entire central business district.
In 2021, local developer Roger Coburn Jr. and co-developer Fletcher Hanson — real estate adviser and principal at Moses Tucker Partners — ushered in a new phase of development in North Little Rock. Their three high-end residential neighborhood projects set into motion a revitalization of a long dormant section northeast of Argenta.
Crow Group Inc. purchased the building long known as the Coca-Cola Building from the city of Morrilton in 2018. The building was originally constructed in 1929 as a Coca-Cola bottling plant and was also the site of the original Morrilton Walmart Number 8 Store in the 1960s. More recently, the building served as Morrilton City Hall and the Morrilton Police Department for 40 years. When the city purchased it in 1978, they installed acoustic tile drop ceilings, golden wood paneling for walls, and linoleum and carpet for the floors. Many areas were divided into smaller office spaces to suit the needs of the city at that time, which also included installing more than 20 jail cells made of concrete and steel.