ATBI: Fort Smith, North Little Rock Show Construction Growth

Marc Fusaro.

Fort Smith and North Little Rock made significant moves forward in October, an otherwise sluggish month for the 18 municipalities tracked by the Arkansas Tech Business Index.

The ATBI is a project created by the Arkansas Tech University College of Business and sponsored by Arvest Bank. It encompasses a labor index, housing market index, construction index and retail sales index. 

The index is based around 100. A city rating above 100 indicates that the city is doing better than the state average from 2009 to the present.

Fort Smith’s ATBI rating increased by 3.75 points during October to 104.2, while North Little Rock saw its ATBI rating advance 1.92 points to 98.28.

The construction and retail sales indexes showed the most growth in Fort Smith, while construction saw a more than 25-point jump in North Little Rock.

Springdale (+0.87 points), Jonesboro (+0.58 points) Searcy (+0.50 points) and Fayetteville (+0.36 points) were the other towns that increased their ATBI rating in October 2015.           

Bentonville is No. 1 on the ATBI ranking for the fifth time in the last six months and the seventh time in the 22-month history of the index. It finished October with a rating of 106.36.

Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech, is the developer of the Arkansas Tech Business Index.