Encouraging Signs and Portents on Little Rock's Main Street

Blass Building at 317 Main Street

Waiting for redevelopment to occur in an abandoned downtown sometimes feels like watching and waiting for a glacier to move at least one foot. Maybe it's global warming or just the summer heat that finally has melted Little Rock's block of ice. There's definitely a thaw in the works.

Before we move on, some of you doubtless are thinking, "Hey, the River Market has been going strong for years, and the Clinton library, too. What the h-e-double-hockey sticks is Ben Blogger talkin' about?" You're right. That area has done a lot for Little Rock, giving folks some interesting places to dine, shop and be entertained. However, much has been lacking just a few blocks south and west on Main Street and other nearby rues.

With a few exceptions between Markham and Ninth streets, vacancies abound. The closer one gets to Markham, Main Street gets deader. Whole blocks with one or two active stores. I'm happy to say two big projects might be the catalysts that reverse all that in the right direction.

Exchange Building at Main Street and Capitol Avenue

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Saturday that the developers — the Doyle Rogers Co. and Moses and Tucker firms — behind a plan to restore and renovate the Blass Building at 317 Main St. have secured financing. According to a March news release from the partners, when complete the $20 million project will provide space for "first class office, ground floor retail and loft-style multifamily residential." Stephens is restoring the old Exchange Building in the 500 block of Main, and crews are well into that $6.1 million endeavor.

Main Street has long since hit the wrong side of the tipping point. At a certain level of vacancy in a single block of store fronts, it becomes very tough for whomever is left behind to survive. People overlook it or just are interested in passing through. If there's more to draw their eye, then they often do stop. Plus, a bunch of empty buildings, especially big commercial ones, just feel weird and unsafe.

Top of the Main Street facade of the Fulk Building

Putting some people living on Main Street along with some new retail at 317 Main will help to change that dynamic. New commercial at the Exchange Building will help push things along, too. With some luck, it eventually will have a spillover effect that will benefit other buildings in need of TLC like the Fulk building at the other end of the same block as the Blass.

The Fulk is one of my favorites. It has Richardsonian Romanesque windows and beautiful late Victorian brickwork. (One document I found stated it was rebuilt in the early 20th century, but I have my doubts. It looks 1880ish to me.) If Little Rock lets itself lose architectural assets like the Fulk, then it's doing something seriously wrong. As architects and developers say sometimes about old buildings, it's got "good bones." Main Street Little Rock has good bones.

Last week, I wrote a little about a farmers market on Main Street south of Interstate 630. That area recently has seen some rejuvenation, but it hasn't been able to jump the pedestrian and traffic river that his I-630. The stretch to the north also is at another, more expensive scale-level that makes it more formidable to redevelopment. Wouldn't it be wonderful though if one half of Main could offer boutique shops and some funky alternatives while the other presents cocktail lounges, some upscale retail and loft apartments all with another stone's throw of the River Market. The River Market strikes me as the place where tourists and townies meet. Main Street could continue that vibe with a slightly more townie focus — a place for business people and locals to entertain and congregate after hours. Such an eventuality would might get us closer to a more 24/7 downtown cycle of activity instead of having so much hollow out after 5 p.m.

Kudos to the state of Arkansas for moving some agencies to the Blass and the Exchange when they are done. I also understand that the offices they are vacating in another part of downtown will be converted into living spaces. A good distribution of residential uses and space is only a good thing for the whole district in the long term

Anyway, the Exchange and Blass projects might be enough to awaken old Main. We shall see and we shall hope. Things are about to get interesting. Oh, I'm not doing my usual rating thing here, but an A+ to everyone involved anyway. You rock.