Fort Smith, Little Rock Show Increases in Latest Arkansas Tech Business Index

Marc Fusaro.

Retail and construction are doing well in Little Rock and Fort Smith, giving the cities the two largest month-to-month increases from February to March in the Arkansas Tech Business Index.

Fort Smith’s March rating is 111.84, up 6.87 since February and keeping the city at the top of the list. Little Rock’s rating for March is 97.09, up 2.33 since February and putting them in the 14th spot.

The index is a snapshot of the state’s economic activity, including a labor, housing, construction and retail. Any rating above 100 indicates the city is performing better than the state average from 2009 to present.

Marc Fusaro, an associate professor of economics and the developer of the index, said Fort Smith’s performance continues to stand out.

“Fort Smith is just so resilient, and this month in particular they had some construction,” Fusaro said. “Usually the reason Fort Smith is doing well is because of retail sales, and that continues.”

Part of what gave Fort Smith such a strong index for March was the issuance of a permit for a $22 million construction project: the 8,000-SF Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

But Fusaro also pointed out other increases.

“Little Rock stood out to me this month with an increase of 2.33, which is very good,” Fusaro said. “Little Rock is a city I’ve been watching closely … Along with North Little Rock, it’s the only real urban core type of city that we have.”

Fusaro attributed the city’s score to the retail index, at 113 for the month, and the construction index, at 116. He said that in March, the city collected $6.9 million in sales taxes, which is near the range of holiday sales numbers.

ATU has produced the index for nearly 15 months. Fusaro has noticed some trends during that time.

“One of the things I’ve learned is that retail sales are in places you wouldn’t expect them,” Fusaro said. “We tend to focus more on the manufacturing side and that is a bias we have; we like to see manufacturing. But the retail sales in some places where the manufacturing is less strong have, to some degree, replaced that, like in Fort Smith.”

Here’s the study’s results for March compared to February: