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The arch in downtown Conway was inspired by a similar structure in Carmel, Indiana.
LEARNING FROM THE BEST Conway tops many best-of lists, and its “secret sauce,” as one city official called it, is the benchmarking trips led by the chamber of commerce. Actually, it’s not a secret; it’s a specific strategy, said Brad Lacy, president and CEO of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and Conway Development Corporation. “Why would you try to reinvent the wheel if someone has already done it and done it well?” Lacy said. He said chamber executives are “unapologetic” that they have borrowed ideas from the best of other cities to incorporate into Conway. Benchmarking trips, typically one a year, have been made to cities such as Franklin, Tennessee; Greenville, South Carolina; Fort Collins, Colorado; and, the most recent, Carmel and Indianapolis, Indiana. Conway residents and visitors see the results of those trips, even if they don’t realize it. “The downtown arch is probably the most recognizable thing, and that is a direct steal from Carmel,” Lacy said. The full benchmarking trip was in 2018, but he had gone to Carmel to make sure it was worth their time. He brought
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the arch idea back to Conway, and it’s a landmark now. “Our philosophy is, in order for us to continue to improve and to be competitive in the world of economic development, we need to compare ourselves to the best places, because that’s honestly how you figure out where you are,” Lacy said. “What has always been the case,
“We need to compare ourselves to the best places.” as far as I’m concerned, is that we find out that we do some things really well.” Although Conway has a reputation for its prolific roundabouts — it has about 25 — Carmel, Indiana, has at least 100, Lacy said. “They’ve been doing it longer. We purposely pick places that are just further
ahead than we are; they’re aspirational in nature. That could be because they have seen more commercial development than we have … some are more affluent. Those places tend to have stronger design guidelines and have had them for a longer period of time. You kind of get to see the finished product, where we may be in the middle of doing those things.” The entourage on these benchmarking trips includes chamber and city employees, along with community and business leaders. The trips are packed full of meetings to pick the brains of every official available in those host cities on issues that Conway wants to learn more about, Lacy said. “I think sometimes what you get is more of an idea, maybe not something as specific as the arch, but what you will get is strong design standards are important and here’s why, because these people started 15 years before we did. “I guess often what these trips do is you visually understand that this place looks a certain way, but what you don’t understand is, what are the mechanisms by which it looks that way? Who’s taking care of it? How much does it cost to make it look this way?” That’s what Shelia Isby, a Conway city councilwoman, likes about the trips.
