LITTLE ROCK — The 14 adults stopped at the corner of Third and Main Street to get a good view of the blocks of mostly vacant buildings ahead and behind them.
"This feels like the place where people really shopped," said William Gilchrist, an Atlanta urban designer and architect in Little Rock this week as part of a three-day Mayors' Institute on City Design study of the Main Street corridor.
On the walking tour Wednesday afternoon with city officials, Gilchrist could see past the empty storefronts and parking lots to when Main Street was alive with people. He saw the older facades as contributing to Main Street's historic character that's hard to replicate.
But there lies part of the problem. Main Street is seen as a fossil by some developers whosay the once-bustling buildings are too expensive to upgrade to today's technology standards or building codes. There's no easy parking for modern shoppers or for office workers.
But when Little Rock developer Jimmy Moses walked down Main Street on Wednesday, he saw "a whole lot of opportunity." Although his grandfather, and later his father, had owned a music store in the 300 block of Main, Moses today doesn't own any of the buildings.
He's spent a lot of time dreaming of a vibrant Main Street and has found either a property owner has money and no vision or vision and no money.
Moses, who has developed two condominium towers in the expanding River Market entertainment district, said it took about a decade and at least a half a billion dollars in public and private money to revivethe derelict riverside and turn it into the destination point it is today.
Moses and many other downtown boosters and city officials hope the bustling River Market District will eventually merge with Main Street.
He joined Bobby Roberts of the Central Arkansas Library System and Ryan Lasiter of the Doyle Rogers Co., which owns several buildings on Main Street, and local urban planner George Wittenberg among others Thursday who gave the institute's team some background about downtown developments.
The group of architects and urban planners asked dozens of questions Thursday, from what time people go to lunch downtown to the number of surrounding parking spaces.
They are using the information from the walking tour and meetings Wednesday and Thursday to sketch strategies they'll present at 3 p.m. today at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Mayor Mark Stodola, who presented Main Street's challenges to the institute at a conference two years ago, said he hopes the suggestions offered Friday afternoon will provide a fresh perspective as well as ideas on how to balance the new and the old.
"You're a very blessed community because you have enormous assets," said Maurice Cox, director of design for the National Endowment for the Arts, at a discussion Thursday night about the team's background and experiences in other cities.
Little Rock is a capital city, a hub for state employment, along a river with a good amount of older buildings remaining along Main Street, he said.
Other cities where membersof the team worked have put highways underground, using the new open space to "suture and connect" downtowns and create new gathering places. Cities such as Birmingham, Ala., where Gilchrist once worked as a city planner, have turned to strong urban-forestry programs and design guidelines to protect investments.
Design team members said a revitalized Main Street in Little Rock will require a collaboration not only of city officials and property owners but also the community at large.
Demolition should be a last resort, said Betsy Jackson, president of a Michigan-based urbandevelopment consulting firm. Jackson said cities with far more dire circumstances than Little Rock have been able to turn around their downtowns and reuse older buildings in a way that is economically feasible.
While the older buildings can't compete pricewise with suburban strip malls, downtown creates an experience that a strip mall can't, Jackson said.
"When you ask your neighbors where they went on vacation, they will never say they went to the Arby's in St. Louis," she said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 08/28/2009