City Refresh: Little Rock, North Little Rock Downtowns See Redevelopment Momentum

The Resort at Rockwater at 1120 Rockwater Blvd. in North Little Rock is a 365-unit, resort-style apartment complex now under construction. (Photo provided)

Redevelopment activity is gaining momentum across the downtowns of Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Dormant home sites and old houses are giving way to townhomes and new residential construction. Old commercial projects are making way for new ventures with historic makeovers mixed in.

Question marks remain six months after a long-running proposed deal fell apart for OneHealth Education Group to bring Lyon College’s veterinary and dental schools to 1 World Ave. in Little Rock’s East Village area.

That sale-leaseback of the headquarters of Heifer International and its fundraising, asset-managing affiliate, Heifer Foundation, may be dead, but the effort to bring new faces to the nonprofit campus continues.

Redeveloping portions of the Heifer property remains in play, and more details on what that could look like are expected in the coming weeks.

Two local veteran commercial developers are working with the Heifer management team to formulate a battle plan to market the nonprofit’s property.

Hank Kelley, CEO of Kelley Commercial Partners, and Ed Willis, president of Financial Centre Corp., are helping put together a menu of options to lease or sell parts or all of Heifer’s more than 24 acres and its 94,000-SF headquarters.

“We’re still in the mode of finalizing everything with Heifer,” Kelley said.

Real estate records indicate that the hunger-poverty fighting charity owns more than 16 acres bordering the Clinton Presidential Library grounds. The remainder of Heifer’s footprint is leased land owned by the city of Little Rock.

The first redevelopment of a piece of the nonprofit campus is moving toward completion at the southeast corner of Third Street and World Avenue.

“We subleased the land from Heifer, which has a long-term lease with the city,” said Christina Littlejohn, CEO of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.

The 20,000-SF Stella Boyle Smith Music Center at 1101 E. Third St. will become the new home of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. The $11.7 million facility is scheduled to open in September.

“We’re planning on a public grand opening in the fall,” Littlejohn said. “Big shout-out to Witsell Evans Rasco Architects and Bailey Construction [& Consulting]. The project is on budget and on time.”

ASO’s new quarters will expand its capacity for programming, rehearsals, performance, broadcasting and music instruction.

Across the Arkansas River, a former nonprofit property in North Little Rock is undergoing redevelopment as The Resort at Rockwater at 1120 Rockwater Blvd.

Construction of the 365-unit, resort-style apartment complex is in full swing, backed by a $49 million loan from Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff.

The first phase of 180 units will begin coming online later this year with the overall project completed in 2025.

The heart of the 8.7-acre site was acquired for $1.7 million in July 2021 from a trio of related charities: North Pulaski County Alcoholism Services, Recovery Centers of Arkansas and Riverbend Recovery.

The Resort at Rockwater is a local joint venture of Moses Tucker Partners, led by Chris Moses; Terraforma LLC, led by Doug Meyer and David Bruning; and Jim Jackson and Lisa Ferrell, the husband-wife developers of the adjoining Rockwater neighborhood.

Townhomes Talk

Riverwalk Properties is continuing to roll out new townhomes in North Little Rock and is about to start construction of a downtown Little Rock project.

Partners Cope Gracy and Ryan Newcomb have launched construction of a 42-unit project in the Rockwater area of North Little Rock. Dubbed The Parker, the 1.3-acre development is their biggest townhome property in the market.

The project will build out during the next 12 months on the east side of Parker Street, between Fourth and Seventh streets. Backed by a nearly $4.9 million construction loan from Little Rock’s Central Bank, the development will feature one-bedroom floor plans exclusively.

South of the Arkansas River, Riverwalk Properties is about to start construction of a nearly 0.8-acre development that will host 24 townhomes on the south side of 17th Street, between Scott and Cumberland streets. The Riverwalk Properties partners have a year to mull over names for the project before its expected finish in 2025.

Newcomb expects to break ground in June on a 0.43-acre development in the East Argenta area of downtown North Little Rock. The mix of one- and two-bedroom townhomes will take shape at the southeast corner of Olive and Eighth streets.

“We’ve just closed on some other stuff,” Newcomb said. “We purchased two half-blocks. We’re looking at all the options now and working with two architects who are playing around with designs.”

Riverwalk Properties bought its latest property on the west side of Olive Street between S.A. Jones Drive and Seventh Street in two transactions this year for $425,000 in January and $475,000 in May.

The mix of vacant and former single-family home sites was acquired from East Argenta Land Holdings, led by Roger Coburn Jr. Since August, Coburn also sold other lots in the area to four buyers in deals totaling nearly $460,000.

“We’ve got some momentum in East Argenta,” he said.

Beginning in 2020, Coburn began assembling more than 40 lots in parts of nine blocks west of Interstate 30 and east of Main Street between Sixth and 10th streets.

The property northeast of the historic downtown Argenta area covered nearly 7.5 acres in a string of deals that totaled more than $2.3 million.

Boyle Building Renovation Set for December Completion

Backed with a $17 million construction loan from Fayetteville’s Arvest Bank, renovation of the historic Boyle Building in downtown Little Rock is headed toward completion in December.

The public-private venture between the Arkansas attorney general’s office and Moses Tucker Partners will return the long-vacant 12-story building to office use. The property will be renamed the Bob R. Brooks Jr. Justice Building.

Plans call for 160 AG staffers to occupy floors 2-12. The timetable for the migration of state employees into the 91,000-SF building at 103 W. Capitol Ave. isn’t firm yet.

“As soon as we can get that certificate of occupancy, we can get it on a floor-by-floor basis, but it could be the whole building,” said Chris Moses, president and CEO of Moses Tucker Partners.

Recruiting a couple of restaurants, a speakeasy retro bar and coffee shop for the ground floor space continues.

“We haven’t made any deals yet,” Moses said.