Renovation work on the first phase of the Little Rock Technology Park on the 400 block of Main Street is scheduled to begin on April 1, board members said Wednesday.
The board met in special session via conference call to finalize amended lease agreements for the tenants at 415 Main. The tenants' leases were assigned to the park when the board bought the property from attorney Richard Mays for just over $1 million late last year.
Mays leased space to four individual lawyers and a nonprofit organization, the Arkansas Mississippi Minority Supplier Development Council. That group moved out in February with Mays, but the remaining attorneys — Sylvester Smith, Kenya Davenport, Max Sprinkle and Rickey Hicks — will remain at the property though May.
In exchange for agreeing to amend the leases and for taking on the expense of supplying their own reception and janitorial services, previously supplied by Mays, the tenants' leases under the amdened agreement were cut in half. (View the lease agreement (PDF).)
The tech park board is converting 38,000-SF of space at 415-417 Main for use as the project's anchor building. Ultimately, the planned $100 million project will entail more than 600,000 SF spread over five phases. Phase 1 is expected to complete by early next year.
Earlier this month, the board closed on the purchase of the Phase 1 properties.
The target date for work to begin is April 1. East Harding of Little Rock is the contractor and Wittenberg Delony & Davidson of Little Rock working with Gaudreau Inc. of Baltimore is the architect.
