Californians reveal plan for downtown makeover in LR
BY EDWARD KLUMP AND ANDREW DEMILLO ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
A California firm announced plans Monday to transform five buildings in downtown Little Rock into a mixed-use project known as Lafayette Square.
The heart of the development will be 94 condominiums in the Lafayette, Arkansas, M.M. Cohn, Kahn and Boyle buildings, all owned by Woodland, Calif.-based Tower Investments LLC. Some office and retail space also will be included in the project.
The buildings — all vacant except for the Lafayette, which has some tenants — are in an area whose boundaries are Sixth Street and Capitol Avenue, and Louisiana and Main streets.
The Main Street area has seen plans come and go over the years and has generally fallen into disuse.
This proposal will become reality even if others haven’t, said Alex Marks, a senior vice president with Tower.
"They didn’t have the vision that we do," he said, adding that "high risk equals high return."
Standing in the Lafayette, a former hotel, on Monday, Dickson Flake of Little Rock-based Colliers Dickson Flake Partners agreed that Tower’s proposal is different from past efforts in the area.
"It’s the concept of the whole block that’s made the difference," he said.
The Dickson firm is involved in the project’s leasing and management. Marks declined on Monday to put a price tag on the development, but Flake said Tower’s commitment of capital is significant.
"That’s the real validation of a market," Flake said.
Flake added that Tower brings a lot of enthusiasm as well as a new perspective to the area.
The first phase of Lafayette Square will involve putting 30 condominiums in the top five floors of the 10-story Lafayette building. That work is scheduled to start in November and be finished in May. The prices of the finished condominiums range from about $160,000 to about $325,000 for early commitments. The condominiums will range from about 1,000 square feet to 1,700 square feet. Office space will remain in floors one through five of the building.
Work on the second phase is to start next summer and end about a year later. It will involve 64 condominiums in the Arkansas, M.M. Cohn, Kahn and Boyle buildings.
The ground floors of those buildings will be reserved for commercial use, such as shops and restaurants.
Ross McCain with Wilcox Group-Architects of Little Rock said about two-thirds of the M.M. Cohn, Kahn and Arkansas buildings will be torn down to make room for more than 100 parking spaces.
The Lafayette and 12-story Boyle Building will remain intact, and parking also will be available at a parking lot near the Lafayette. The Wilcox firm is working on the project’s architecture. May Construction is the general contractor. More information is available at
www.lafayettesquare-lr.com.
Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey and City Manager Bruce Moore said they hoped the project would revitalize the Main Street corridor in the same way the River Market area was transformed several years ago. Though the corridor is lacking major city-funded anchors such as the River Market hall or the main branch of the Central Arkansas Library System, Moore said the city is investing in the surrounding neighborhood.
"I think you’ll continue to see a combination of the public and the private partnering for an investment in this area," Moore said, pointing to a proposal to use $250,000 in bond money to repave a portion of Capitol Avenue. The proposal to use the money, from a $69 million bond package, will go before the Little Rock Board of Directors tonight.
Moore also said the city would eventually like the River Rail trolley route expanded to run along Main Street, though there are no formal proposals for such an extension.
Though it was once a thriving center of commerce for the city, Little Rock’s Main Street has been littered in recent years with abandoned storefronts and vacant properties. Efforts to revive the flagging neighborhood, including a pedestrian mall, have failed.
Much of the city’s attention on redevelopment has focused on the River Market District, which is near attractions such as the Clinton presidential library and Heifer International’s planned global village and headquarters.
Developers are now looking farther south to areas such as the Main Street and Capitol Avenue areas, Dailey said.
"This is the next great frontier," he said.
Of the River Market District, Dailey observed: "There’s not a lot of other space to be developed in that area."
Becca Gardner, a spokesman for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, said the theater on Main at Sixth Street applied for a grant with the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation for a new building. Gardner would not say where the building would go, but said the theater would prefer to stay in the downtown area.
"We would love to stay downtown," she said. "Downtown has been good to us."
Marks said Monday that a lawsuit filed against Tower and three members of his family, including himself, would not derail plans for Lafayette Square.
Robert Berry Francis, a Little Rock businessman, filed the suit in August in the U.S. District Court in Little Rock over what the complaint described as the "Lafayette Plaza Project." The suit made several accusations — breach of contract, reneging on promises, violations of Arkansas common law for fraud and deceit, and unjust enrichment.
The defendants denied those allegations in a response, and they also accused Francis of fraud and deceit. Francis declined to comment Monday on the lawsuit as well as Tower’s announcement.
Jimmy Moses of Little Rockbased Moses Tucker Real Estate, which has worked on a number of downtown projects but is not involved in Lafayette Square, applauded Tower’s plans.
"Main Street needs to become a great street again," he said.
Moses Tucker, meanwhile, is working on the proposed 18-story 300 Third Tower, which is to have 98 condominiums and open in 2007 at Cumberland and Third streets in downtown Little Rock.
Some units in that project will cost more than $1 million, when the finishing of condominium shells is included in the price.