The Little Rock Tech Park plans to close Friday on the purchase of downtown properties for the $100 million park’s first phase, Director Brent Birch said during a meeting Wednesday.
In a conference call board meeting, Birch said that “we should be able to close on Friday without any problem.” The park had originally planned to close on Monday.
“We were supposed to close Monday, but all the documentation that was required for this deal wasn’t quite ready — some things needed to be all lined up and ready to go,” Birch said. “So we decided to push it back to Friday.”
Birch said “there’s lots of collaboration” with the property owners to make the deal happen.
Phase 1 includes properties at 415-421 Main St. and 114 E. Capitol Ave.
The park’s official first tenants, once the property closes, will be the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, which occupies the building at 421 Main, and five attorneys who leased space from Little Rock lawyer Richard Mays, who is selling the 415 Main property to the park.
Birch has said the park will honor the leases of the Mays tenants, who are being offered the choice to stay until their leases are up or terminate the leases early without penalty. Renovation of the property will begin early this year and work around the existing tenants.
During the conference call, the board also selected a property insurance firm. The board voted to accept a bid from Stephens Property Insurance, which proposed a premium of $15,460 and liability of $2,776.
The board also approved a resolution to lower the loan it’s getting from Centennial Bank, from $17.5 million to $17.1 million.