TWENTY YEARS IN, RIVER MARKET KEEPS ROLLIN’ ON THE RIVER
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BY DWAIN HEBDA PHOTOS COURTESY MOSES TUCKER REAL ESTATE
sked to describe downtown Little Rock’s pre-River Market era, real estate developer Jimmy Moses paused. Given the runaway success and rampant development that has transpired there over the past 20 years — inspiring projects from North Little Rock’s Argenta District to South Main Street Little Rock along the way — it’s a tall order.
“Well, if you kind of go back to the first half of the 1990s,” began the founder and chairman of Moses Tucker Real Estate, “before anything began, East Markham Street, now President Clinton Avenue, was mostly a boardedup and largely deserted old commercial district. There was a casket company on the corner, LaHarpe Office Furnishings and further down the street, what was called the Terminal Building.” That two out of three businesses Moses mentioned evoke images of death is fitting. Photos from that era reveal a streetscape right out of a zombie movie: stark, crumbling brick buildings and weedy, empty sidewalks perched hard against the searing Arkansas sky, utterly devoid of life or promise. Little Rock’s downtown had suffered the same fate as many cities during the 1970s and 1980s as
ON THE WATERFRONT — Downtown’s River Market lights up the neighborhood. A steady influx of new residential and hotel construction sidles next to bars and restaurants to make the district a 24/7 attraction.
economic meltdowns and the rise of ancillary neighborhoods drained the life from the city’s core like topsoil ferried away by a hundred-year flood. “Prior to 1995, I remember the east side of Main Street was pretty much a ghost town,” said Mayor Mark Stodola. “I remember walking down there and there were these old warehouse buildings, most of them boarded up or they were certainly underutilized, and there were a couple that were open where you could get some used furniture. That was it, basically.” Twenty years later, a stroll through the River Market on any given day is to see everything an urban neighborhood should be: a thriving corporate enclave, home to a growing horde of urban denizens and a showcase of activities for all ages. The sparkling new condominiums and apartments nestle against office space carved out of historic buildings or encased in steel and glass. The River Market is unquestionably a 24-hour operation; most evenings, music throbs out of local venues or wafts through
the twilight from the First Security Amphitheater, tinged with hundreds of aromas from $50 ribeyes to food truck tacos al pastor. “We’ve had communities like Jackson, Mississippi, come up and ask, ‘How did you all do this? And not only how did you get it started, but how have you been able to maintain it?’” said Bruce Moore, Little Rock city manager. “I think there’s a few reasons. One, we continue to focus on it. We know it’s an integral part of our city, so we’ve got to continue to ensure it’s a safe place and that it fosters and enhances the quality of life where people not only want to work down there, they want to live down there.” The River Market as an economic strategy was not a novel undertaking — lots of cities across the country took a shot at similar projects to help jump start their local economies — but Little Rock’s success makes the district a model for others to follow. If it’s not the best development the city’s ever seen, it’s certainly in the conversation. “When prospective customers come to see our headquarters, they are flabbergasted by what, sometimes, I think Little Rock takes for granted,” said Rush Harding, CEO of Crews & Associates. “When we have people from other state capitals in the South and they see the bustle and the energy and the activity, they’re incredulous that ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com www.arktimes.com
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GHOST TOWN — A series of economic hits, the exodus of retail and office vacancies combined to create a surreal downtown landscape. As developer Jimmy Moses put it, “The late 1980s, up to 1992 or 1993, downtown Little Rock had pretty much fallen about as far as it could fall.”
we have what we have in Little Rock.” Harding, whose investment banking company has headquartered in downtown for more than a decade and whose First Security Bancorp funded renovation of the district’s amphitheater, said the neighborhood itself gives his company a distinct competitive advantage. “If people walk on the street and feel the energy downtown and then they come into your office and your employees are enthused about being at work, they’re energized by the fact they’re in a vibrant location,” he said. “That vibe is readily evident to a potential customer and they want
to be a part of that by doing business with you.” Of course, the discussion was very different a quartercentury ago. Though Moses, as then-head of the Little Rock Downtown Partnership, and his business partner, Rett Tucker, were consistently staunch supporters of downtown redevelopment, theirs was a lonely bandwagon. “The late 1980s, up to 1992 or 1993, downtown Little Rock had pretty much fallen about as far as it could fall,” Moses said. “Downtown Little Rock was about as dead as any downtown in the country for a city our size. We had no retail; we had lost all of our retail out to the sub-
urbs. The office market was declining rapidly because so many of the financial institutions were consolidating and downsizing and office vacancies were rising.” About the only positive one could point to in downtown then was the opening of the Excelsior Hotel and the convention center, but with so few attractions to support them, officials’ attempts to lure groups into town were crippled. “It was a trick to figure out, for the conventioneers who came here, where were they supposed to go in downtown because we really didn’t have anything at all,” Moses remembered. “In fact, most of the hotel doormen would send them to (North Little Rock’s) McCain Mall. We were pretty sick and tired and without much direction in those days.” Community, political and business leaders all recognized downtown’s problems, but few demonstrated the will or the ability to advance an agenda resulting in, or perhaps because of, a citizenry that seemed largely resigned to watching downtown implode. After voters drubbed an economic initiative in the early 1990s called Diamond Center Project 2000, Moses and fellow downtown advocates were left searching for a signature idea. A trip to Seattle and its Pike Place Market proved a spark of inspiration. “Quite literally, on the trip home from Seattle, I drew a little sketch on a napkin,” he said. “I said to my wife, ‘You know, this is what we oughta create in downtown Little Rock for our farmers market.’ That was kind of the impetus for triggering a serious planning process along East Markham that eventually became the River Market district.”
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DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH — The view down East Markham Street, what is today President Clinton Avenue. Before to the River Market, long-timers remember boarded-up warehouses and weedy sidewalks with just a few struggling businesses hanging on.
Perhaps not surprisingly given recent history and the economics of the time, Moses’ visionary doodling wasn’t universally admired, particularly when he and his confederates started soliciting funds. “It was a hard sell,” he said. “We had to go out and raise money for the River Market facility and we did it in $10,000, $25,000 and $50,000 increments from private companies, along with the city. And trying to convince people to ante up that money was not easy. They were saying, ‘You want us to write a check for you to go sell tomatoes in a nice shed somewhere
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on the river? Is that really gonna work?’ “Understandably, it was not something that people embraced readily, but the truth of the matter is, it was exactly what we thought would work because we had very few things that did work in downtown Little Rock, but one of ’em was our farmers market and we knew we could convert it.” Alongside Moses, the concept’s early ally at City Hall was Dr. Dean Kumpuris, then a city director and chairman of the East Markham Street Task Force. By 1995, they’d stitched together enough private and public support that the project was unveiled at a September press conference. The three-block development would snug up against Riverfront Park and the amphitheater, which the city had already created as part of cleaning up the riverfront. “[Public initiatives] were not totally unusual, there has been a resurgence of urban revitalization that has gone on in many cities around the country,” Stodola said. “But it takes developers in the private sector to have a vision that can be materialized. It’s great to have a plan, but plans sit on a shelf and if they don’t get executed, then that’s all they ever are. So the River Market became a great exercise in public-private partnership.” The level of cooperation between public and private entities went beyond funding — the city’s initial investment was $1.5 million of the $4.4 million spent on the market hall and pavilions. Equally important was attracting public entities into the neighborhood. “That’s the real key, I think,” Moore said. “It takes the city stepping up and saying we’re going to do this, this is going to be an anchor for the area and then the private investment comes. It really takes both.” In the River Market’s case, the anchors were the market hall to the north, the converted Terminal Building, and later the Museum of Discovery to the east and the Statehouse Convention Center to the west. Looming over a south quadrant in the heart of the neighborhood was the main library of the Central Arkansas Library System, an important get for the River Market. “[CALS director] Dr. Bobby Roberts was behind what became, ultimately, the decision to move the library here,” said Susan Gele, CALS assistant director for public relations. “It was at 700 Louisiana Street and it was a very small building. This location was available and he led the pie-in-the-sky approach to make the main library more available through a more institutional-type building.” The importance of the library entering the district is largely under-appreciated: Not only did the main library convert the Fones Building’s 156,000 square feet, but CALS steadily increased its campus
footprint where now it includes the 18,000-square-foot Cox Creative Center; the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies inside the Arkansas Studies Institute; and the Ron Robinson Theatre inside the new Arcade Building. Beyond occupancy, the library’s investment also sent a strong message to businesses reluctant to return to downtown. “The main library was really one of the first stimuli for that area, and with the public sector involvement in the River Market building itself, those two public investments helped to generate the activity up and down the street,” Stodola said. “It showed private business they could transform some of these old buildings into the vibrant facilities that they are now. Thankfully we didn’t tear most of them down, as we’ve seen happen in other cities around the country.” Even so, it took a while for development, corporations and especially residential growth to flower in the River Market District. Diana Long, director of River Market operations, has lived downtown on and off since 1997 and remembers the early days when the neighborhood was merely long on potential. “My first apartment was over here on Sixth Street and it was before it was really
cool to live in downtown,” she said. “The River Market had just opened and my car payment was a dollar more than my rent and I had a Honda Accord that wasn’t brand new when I got it. There were a lot of people like me hanging around all over who were interested in living in an unusual area where the rent was dirt cheap and the apartment was really cool, and I was crazy enough to not be afraid of the homeless people who were hanging around. “It’s great that the pendulum has swung back and people have realized how great it is to be in an urban core and how
wonderful the architecture is down here and you don’t have to be 30 minutes from everything just so you can have a house that you can pass the sugar through the window to your neighbor.” The scene wasn’t completely without a corporate presence. Though retail struggled initially due to the lack of permanent residents, several early River Market District bars and restaurants that took a flyer on the new area are still there, including Dallas-based Flying Saucer in 1998 and Stickyz (founded as Sticky Fingerz) in 2000. “At that point they were four years out
from the Clinton Presidential Library opening and we felt like it was a smart move to try and get in early as a lot of development was going to take place,” said Chris King, co-owner of Stickyz and the Rev Room. “Of course from an ego-driven perspective, we’d like to say, ‘Oh yeah we could go anywhere and make this happen, we could go anywhere and do what we wanted to do.’ But the reality of it is we couldn’t exist without the River Market district and the growth that has happened over the past 15 years. They’ve built four or five hotels up around us since we’ve
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RIVER MARKET @ 20 people involved and so many opened and there’s that constant traffic down here. It’s moving parts over the last 20 just a great place to be.” years, got the perfect balance “Jimmy Moses was kind of the guy down in the River of all these little things,” she Market area and he was very convincing,” said Shannon said. “I think it’s a nice blend of Wyatt, president of Flying Saucer (as well as Flying Fish, complementary things. Having which came to River Market in 2002). “There were big the convention center down plans underfoot between the Peabody [Hotel] coming here helps us a lot because you there and the River Market district being developed, and have that influx of the people an excitement that went hand in hand with that. And the TERMINAL VELOCITY —Terminal Building, which is now the Museum who are coming to visit. The rents were still pretty low. Center. Home to Sonny Williams’ Steak House and Damgoode Pies. hotels support the convention “That added up to an opportunity for us and probably center, so you’ve got a very a little naiveté because we were pretty young in our expanheavy tourist season in this area and that really helps all what you see today. We never would have gotten that sion at that point. It felt good, it just wasn’t easy the first of the businesses that are here year-round. kind of investment and that kind of large development year. I used to go down to the Peabody and hand out free “The park plays a huge role, too. It’s a very nice, very from any other source.” coupons for Flying Fish because it was hard to get people large park to be right in the downtown area where it is. The economic ripples from the Clinton Presidential to walk those last two blocks. We struggled along there And it’s a draw for people and families, and people who Center have only continued to build, most notably in for a year and half or so and then the [Clinton] museum don’t even live in the area drive over and participate in residential projects and new hotel spaces that have been opened and that was all she wrote.” the different events and just to enjoy the amenities and built anywhere developers can find a footprint large If there was ever any doubts of the viability of the the attractions that we have.” enough (of which there are now very few.) Some areas neighborhood, the 2004 opening of the Clinton Presidential It’s hard to think of an entertainment district as a might have come away from that frenzied pace with a Center at the far end of the neighborhood laid them neighborhood community, but the growth of residential hodgepodge aesthetic, but as Long points out, even as the all to rest. Not only did the grounds provide a defined units in the River Market paint a compelling picture. pace of design and construction continues to accelerate, bookend for the neighborhood, the library would attract Andrew Meadors of Meadors Adams & Lee Insurance everything somehow fits. millions of visitors every year who drop untold amounts with his wife, Susan, moved downtown in 2013 and now “Whoever came up with this, and there’s been so many of discretionary dollars into the local economy. reside just a short distance from his firm’s front door. “I think [the presidential “I never in my wildest dreams growing up a boy in the library] was the most imporHeights in the ’60s and ’70s thought that I would live in tant factor in the long-term downtown Little Rock,” he said. “When I was in college viability of the neighborhood, at SMU in Dallas from 1981 to 1985, coming back here because it validated at the very and driving to the airport or even coming down to the highest level that the commuarena, you kinda wanted to not stop the car. Kinda keep nity’s decision to invest in its it movin’, you know? downtown was a good move “But now we’re just amazed at the people and energy to make,” Moses said. here on the weekends and the farmers market and dif“And then furthermore, ferent events that go on down here. And to think about having the Clinton center how far it’s come in a relatively short period of time has come into the neighborhood been remarkable.” was not only a validation philoDRAB TO FAB — Buildings razed to make way for the centerpiece Meadors doesn’t fit the national profile of the typical sophically, but they bought of the original development, the 10,000-square-foot Ottenheimer urban dweller who trends more toward the millennial 25 acres of old industrial Market Hall. generation. But then neither does Moses, who also calls ground and turned it into
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AS THE RIVER MARKET NEIGHBORHOOD HAS GROWN, SO HAS ITS ROSTER OF EVENTS. A FEW HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: 2nd Friday Art Night MONTHLY Little Rock Marathon MARCH Arkansas Literary Festival APRMAY
Movies in the Park JUNE-AUG Pops on the River JULY Arkansas Sounds THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
Jazz in the Park APR & SEP MacArthur Park 5K MAY Little Rock Film Festival MAY Riverfest MAY Jewish Food Festival MAY Little Rock Farmers Market — MAY-OCT
Legends of Arkansas Music & Craft Festival SEPTEMBER Main Street Food Truck festival OCT
Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure OCT Arkansas Cornbread Festival NOV
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RIVER MARKET @ 20 the neighborhood home, or Wynne, who owns a condo in the district. Here, 50-something professionals are just another of the many demographics gravitating to the River Market district and surrounding downtown neighborhoods. “It’s hard to put the downtown resident in a box,” said Gabe Holmstrom, executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership. “You definitely see folks who are empty nesters, whose kids have gone off and they’re looking to downsize and simplify and want a walkable lifestyle. In some other areas, you see millennials who
don’t necessarily want to have a car; they want to be able to walk to work, walk to where they’re going for entertainment and then walk home. “Then you have the historic preservation movement; a lot of people who want to live in and restore these historic homes that we have an inventory of. Then, you see a lot of young couples moving into those areas and buying some of these homes and starting families there.” The influx of people is both homegrown migration and, not unlike attracting new companies, the result of recruitment of people from other areas, both formally and informally. To this end, the River Market has proven the city’s ultimate calling card. “When you’re crossing the river and you see that River Market sign, it is now a landmark,” Holmstrom said. “It’s almost like the Hollywood sign for downtown Little Rock. Having the River Market as an anchor has been immensely important and really been a catalyst for a lot of the good that you are seeing now through other parts of downtown.” Those other projects, redevelopment of Main Street downtown and the continuing revival of South Main across I-630, have borrowed more than marketing punch from the River Market. As Stodola pointed out, the riverside entertainment district provided a living blueprint that to one degree or another has shaped subsequent developments. “When I first became mayor, I took Main Street as a project for downtown and I took the River Market as an example of all the thriving activity that was happening downtown east and west but unfortunately didn’t make a turn south.” he said. “We used that as a challenge for ideas for revitalizing that area. You want 24/7, you want activity on the streets, you want that collision of people which provides for the collision of ideas and it stimulates all kinds of wonderful things happening, which is what the River Market has done over the last 20 years.” Working off of this example, Stodola said, several foundational priorities for Main Street quickly emerged, starting with emphasizing designs that feature mixed-use spaces and elements that promote the sense of community so prevalent by the river. “The park is integral to the River Market district; you’ve got great areas for people to meet and talk and congregate,” he said. “That experience has led to us try to create that in some of the broader spaces on Main Street, which is actually a little wider street than Clinton Avenue. And so we have a little greater opportunity for streetscape development where there’s going to be a lot more sidewalk cafes and things of that nature.”
With this work comes the opportunity to examine infrastructure that, at least as far as the city’s ISO Grade 1 water system is concerned, has proven more than adequate to handle the growing needs of the downtown corridor. “For what’s been going on so far, they haven’t been needing water demands beyond what we could already provide,” said Jim Ferguson, director of engineering for Central Arkansas Water, which is itself headquartered downtown. He said the downtown grid is the oldest of the city’s water systems, with cast-iron pipe that’s
between 100 and 120 years old. Such pipes are generally expected to deliver a 100-year lifespan; so, while aging city pipe isn’t quite as alarming as it sounds, CAW is taking advantage of the downtown development to address the future where needed. “We have pipes that are at or beyond their rated life expectancy, but there are plenty of cast-iron pipes around the country and around the world that are 300 years old and still in service,” he said. “So as to whether or not all of our pipes are going to cascadingly fail tomorrow is doubtful. “On the other hand, we do need to start Lucas Strack of Strack Studio Furniture, Conway, AR
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OUT WITH THE OLD — Demolition at what is now 400 President Clinton Ave. Announced in the fall of 1995, the public-private development cost $4.4 million to build.
planning to replace and we have started replacing areas that are giving us problems, and we will continue to do that in the future. We want to get into some preventative replacement versus emergency replacement.” One prime example of taking advantage of community improvements to upgrade infrastructure surrounds work being done on the Broadway Bridge. Like all vehicular bridges linking Little Rock and North Little Rock, the Broadway Bridge has water pipe attached below deck, and as the old bridge yields to a new structure, the 1925-era, 16-inch pipe will be upgraded to 20-inch diameter pipe. “That’s costing us about $1.5 million,” Ferguson said. “And then here in the near future if they do widen I-30, which they’re talking about right now, and replacing the old I-30 bridge, we’ve got a 24-inch pipeline underneath that bridge. That will cost us probably $4 to $5 million.” Moore also noted the potential changes to Interstate 30 as being among the city’s highest priorities to help ensure forthcoming modifications are done in such a way as to not adversely affect what’s been created downtown. “There are some cities that have done this wrong when they are building an interstate or rehabbing an existing one; if it’s not done right it could kill your downtown,” he said. “The highway department has given us their assurance that they’re going to work very closely with us so that doesn’t happen, and so we have regular meetings with them and the local development community. I feel very positive about that.” City Manager Moore said another ongoing focus for the district is the issue of safety, headlined by improved lighting in the River Market, beefed up cameras, efforts to cut down on panhandling and a consistent police presence. According to CALS’ Gele, who’s worked downtown for 54 54
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ater stage. And it may be like 1:30 on a weekday workday afternoon,” he said. “One time we were in the middle of a meeting and Sheryl Crow is out there singin’ warm-up songs, so we just kind of broke the meeting up, everybody came out on the balcony and checked out Sheryl.” “Really, at first, there was some fear that it would kind of be like a New Orleans atmosphere with the bars and the restaurants, but it’s actually a nice mix of office and retail and the bars and restaurants and the fun stuff. It fits our agency culture very well because we’re not the real serious blue-suits-and-ties-type operation, you know; it’s more ‘Hey man, come by and hang out.’ We work hard but we’re also really laid back.” In fact, few who live or headquarter in the River Market confessed drawbacks any more acute than the occasional free concert interrupting a staff meeting. What few things are lacking are seen either as a byproduct “We’re doing things right here in Little Rock and the River of, or can be cured by, the neighborMarket is proof of that. It’s always vibrant, it’s always hood’s continued prosperity. bustling, there’s always something exciting going on.” “We’re doing things right here in Little Rock, and the River Market is proof of that,” Crews’ Harding said. “It’s always vibrant, it’s always bustling, there’s always that has been consistent and why I like it so much, and I’m something exciting going on. As more restaurants come, comfortable down here. I know there are people around as more hotels come, as more condominium developments who are watching what’s going on and making sure that come, more people come.” bad things don’t happen.” “I think the continual thread as we march toward where While Gele’s comments were echoed by merchants, we want to be, whether that’s five years down the road or corporations and people who call downtown home, 10 years down the road, is people. As more people come, insurance man Meadors did confess good-naturedly that all the services that support the populace will come with there are elements of the neighborhood to which one it, be it bookstores, coffee shops or more grocery spots.” must learn to adjust. The next major chapter in the neighborhood would likely “Sometimes when there’s bands that are gonna perform, focus on expansion of the Statehouse Convention Center, they’ll do warm ups and sound checks on the amphithe20 years, the neighborhood’s safety record is one that’s often misunderstood. “Not everybody feels that same sense of comfort, especially people who are coming in from out of town. Sometimes even people in Little Rock are hesitant to come downtown because they don’t know the area as well,” she said. “The Little Rock Police Department is excellent at being around and helping to make sure that it is a safe environment. “I have two daughters who are grown now, but they would come down here to go to a restaurant or go to Riverfest or do whatever and I felt completely comfortable having them down here. I knew what the area was like and I knew what the police were like and if something happened I knew that they would be OK. That’s one thing
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RIVER MARKET @ 20 at least if city leaders work off of Gretchen Hall’s wish list. The Little Rock Convention and Visitor’s Bureau executive director said that while current facilities suffice the in-state convention business, continued investment and development will be required to become a regional or national player. “Facilities are always key,” she said. “While we’ve been blessed with updating and renovating the Statehouse Convention Center over the last few years, I think it’s not going to be the too-distant future before we have to start talking about ‘do we want to take that next big leap and expand the convention center?’ ” She also noted such expansion alone cannot be effective without a commensurate increase in services. “In order to attract larger groups, you also need to expand your hotel product that’s attached or adjacent to the center to be very successful,” she said. “If you have multiple properties that are all detached, that’s a harder sell.” Hall also pointed out that, for all Little Rock and North Little Rock have brought online, there remains one glaring deficiency in its arsenal to attract groups and events. “We produced a study earlier this year talking about our sports facilities,” she said. “Sport is a huge market for us, but we’re lacking a really great multipurpose indoor facility. So that’s a key component for future growth and development for us as a destination.” Arkansas’s famous change of seasons is nearly upon its capital city, but amid the cooler climes and soon-to-be-brilliant colors, it’s business as usual in the River Market. Beyond a few more office windows popped open during the day or the switch from free movies to free Jazz in the Park, the neighborhood continues to delight visitors and citizenry alike. Pondering the 20-year journey to get here, Jimmy Moses again pauses to find suitable words to sum up what the crowning achievement of his professional life represents to him and the city he loves. “The best thing I can say about what the River Market district has done for Little Rock, it’s given people in our community, I think, a new sense of pride about their city,” he said. “I think it kind of replaced some negativity that was going on 25 years ago. We needed a good shot in the arm, and seeing a rejuvenated and exciting urban core again has made us all feel better about ourselves and our community.” ■
IN WITH THE NEW — The River Market neighborhood today thrives with a diverse mix of corporate, tourist, special event and residential traffic year-round.
AMERICAN BAR & GRILL BIGWHISKEYSLITTLEROCK.COM
All American Food & Great Place to Party On The Patio!
“To traditions being just as important as trend.” Opens daily at 11:00 AM 225 E Markham Little Rock, Arkansas 72201 (501) 324-2449
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AUGUST 27, 2015 AUGUST 27, 2015
ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES
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