LITTLE ROCK — When Scott Reed and a group of investors bought the building at Little Rock’s 315 Main St., which in another life was a turn-of-the-century mercantile store but had been vacant for decades, there was water pooled in the basement.
Some of that was due to a hole in the roof, which allowed rain (and pigeons) to flow in and all the way down through the building’s five floors. But not all the water came from above. Upon further inspection, Reed found a natural spring and artesian well in the back corner of the building, a site that once had great significance to the city, actually.
“This was where downtown used to get its fresh water from,” explained the 33-year-old developer, who made his way to Little Rock about two years ago from Portland, Ore., by way of New York and San Francisco.
It is perhaps fitting, then, that Reed's building may be the splash that a largely dry downtown — at least, in all parts other than the River Market and on Main Street in particular — has been looking for for quite some time. At a news conference unveiling details of the project earlier this month, it was certainly greeted that way.
“I believe this is an opportunity to provide some direction and vision on what our city can be in the future ... and what Main Street in the 21st century means to the people who love this city,” said Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola.
Something different
For the cynical observer, it might sound like a different verse of the same song. Out-of-towner buys prominent, vacant property. Ears perk up. Talk of revitalization ensues.
Except, in the past, that's the point where the music usually stops. The building continues to languish, the exterior graffiti remains, the windows stay boarded up and before long the building is back on the market again.
Already it seems clear that won't be the case at 315.
Though Reed hails from Oregon, he's been in town a couple years. His substantial investment in Little Rock has already begun; he’s renovating or building dozens of houses in midtown neighborhoods south of Interstate 630. Family members in the real estate business, including a brother and father, are following him here. His wife is in residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Soon enough, “out-of-towner” won't be an appropriate label.
But more importantly, there's more than just a vague idea of what “might be” at 315. There's a real plan, and it's already in motion.
“We've sort of been involved [in the talk of plans for Main Street],” said Reed, who was part of a symposium that included visitors from the Mayor's Institute on City Design who were invited to tour, make plans and consult with the city in August 2009. “But we knew that when you come in from out of town, it's easier to just buy the building and do it ... We'll put our heads down, finish the building and pop up after it's done.”
In this case that means a renovation of the building, historically known as the Gus Blass Wholesale Company Building, into the K-Lofts, for the Kumpuris family that had owned it since 1982. All told, the building will house 30 residential units as well as a jazz club called Porter's on the bottom floor.
To market, to market
To the naysayers, it probably sounds either too good to be true or an unnecessary addition. Everyone says more business and more residents downtown would be great, but pessimistic voices in the past have said it won't happen. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, they have argued.
Reed, of course, thinks otherwise — and he's got market research to back him up. In most larger cities with a significant commercial core downtown, some 5 percent of the workforce lives downtown as well. In Little Rock, it's around 2 percent. So there's potential for the right real estate, he said.
And other research may suggest the same. A recent survey by the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, open to anyone and conducted online, netted some 1,897 responses. Of those, only 119 said they currently live downtown while 749 said they commute from 10 or more miles away. Hundreds said they would live downtown, but found it lacking in some way, in aesthetics, amenities, parking or even safety.
The key to changing that, said Reed, is rent. While condos in the downtown area have gone unsold, Reed said, the market for small, affordable spaces is at nearly 100 percent capacity. In the case of 315 Main St., he said, the offerings will be units that measure 634 to 850 square feet, probably priced around $1 per square foot.
Additionally, two of the units will be “live-work” units with a mezzanine bedroom and space for a home office inside and with alleyway access. It's a concept that's very popular in larger urban centers for anyone who needs a commercial address in the heart of the city but doesn't want to pay two rents, said Reed.
To keep the pricing right, Reed uses a fairly simple approach. While the appointments of the apartments will be first class — granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, etc. — they will be identical throughout. It's the same technique he's using in his home renovations to the south. It also helps that, thanks to getting established in the market, he can be owner, developer and general contractor all in one. Fewer “mouths to feed” means fewer divisions of the revenue.
The first residential units will be ready in about a year; the jazz club significantly sooner.
Old is the new new
The 315 building is nearly 110 years old, which is both a blessing and something of a curse.
The blessing comes by way of tax credits from both the state and federal government, without which the project wouldn’t be possible.
But the building is not without its challenges, said project architect Tommy Jameson, who is known for his work restoring old homes and buildings throughout the state.
“In regards to Scott’s building,” he said, “the challenges are that it's [more than] 100 years old and has to be brought up to code so there are a lot of issues in terms of strengthening the building and in terms of all the new systems that have to be brought in. Some of the walls are 20 to 24 inches thick… [but] it’s not as strong as a new building because it was built 110 years ago. We have to reinforce it.”
To get the tax credits, that work has to be done in a way that retains the historical features of the building, even though its exterior has changed since it was finished in 1902. A mid-century makeover modernized the front — and by the way that's quarried stone, not concrete — but little can be done to alter anything now.
“It won’t change in appearance a whole lot,” Jameson said. “The owner is going for tax credit approval, so we’re pretty limited to what we can do outside.”
Still, by working through the state's historic preservation office as well as working with modern techniques, the building will be certified both historically and by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (or LEED). Having both, said Reed, is something of a national rarity. Because of that, he added, it's drawing attention from developers in bigger cities across the country who want to see it work.
That this green thinking comes right on the heels of Little Rock being named one of five state capitals in the country to get a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to have planners come study the city and devise environmentally friendly landscaping and infrastructure strategies for it — efforts that Stodola has said will be focused on Main Street — is even more fortuitous.
The right direction
Locally, leaders want to see Reed succeed for reasons besides historic preservation and environmental friendliness.
“The 300 block is a pivotal block,” said architect Jameson. “Everyone wants to take the success of the River Market and turn it toward Main Street. The 300 block is ultra important. There’s nothing on the 200 block, but the 100 block is doing okay. It’s quite important and this project could be a lot to do with it. This is a major first step.”
As much was echoed by Bob East, a long-time downtown developer and chairman of the Downtown Partnership's Main Street Revitalization Committee. The co-founder and chief executive of East-Harding Construction said he hoped to see Reed’s be “the first of many” future announcements about Main Street.
“To me, that's a huge hole in the city. It's an absolute travesty for Little Rock to have a Main Street and for it to look like it did,” he said earlier this year, being interviewed about the formation of the committee. “It's important to the city and important to the whole state. When people come in from out of town, they need to see that Little Rock is doing well.”
A champion of revitalization throughout his tenure as mayor, Stodola also agreed.
“These buildings, while they may be old, can have a contemporary use to them,” said the mayor, who is a former president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas.
And they don't necessarily have to be in the shape Reed's was in — “the worst” on the block, in the owner's words — and filled with 50 tons of trash from decades of neglect.
Across the street, the Fulk building, for years home to Bennett’s Military Supply, is getting some love from owners Doug and Sheree Meyer.
“We are working toward making the building as beautiful as it was at the turn of the century — the other century,” said Sheree Meyer of the structure, which was built in 1895.
With Jameson as architect, the couple plans to renovate the building over the next year with the first floor remaining a retail space, perhaps for a restaurant or entertainment outlet, and the currently vacant, 7,000-square-foot second and third floors being made into office space and seven apartment units, respectively.
Bennett’s, which has been in Sheree Meyer’s family for its 140-year history, could remain on site, but may move. If that happens, the couple said, it will without a doubt remain downtown with a “95 percent” certainty of staying on Main Street, as it has been for at least 50 years.
“I've just been so excited about this since the beginning,” said Sheree Meyer. “I've just wanted to jump for joy, because my father was such a big proponent of downtown and Main Street … and I know he would be really happy about it.”
Offshoots of growth
Elsewhere in downtown, the story is also starting to sound more like that of 315 than of unfulfilled projects of the past. Consider the former YMCA building at 524 Broadway, purchased by a California company in 2004 only to be sold again in August. It also seems to be on the verge of new life. Maybe for real this time.
Abandoned for some 15 years, the Spanish Revival style building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is now in the hands of Brad and Shellie Barnett, who moved to Little Rock from Jonesboro three years ago.
There, Shellie Barnett said, both Arkansas State University graduates had been heavily invested in the community, both in the sense of helping revitalize downtown, as well as being involved in things like leading a Boy Scout troop for years and teaching English to Spanish-speaking children.
Given that background, once in Little Rock, the Barnetts “looked for something with soul and the flavor we had loved being a part of in the now thriving downtown we left in Jonesboro,” Shellie Barnett wrote in an e-mail. “During our search, we immediately fell in love with the incredible architecture and history of the abandoned YMCA building and had no idea at that time three years ago we would be the ones to make a difference.
“Solidifying roots in Little Rock, we too watched several of the city’s downtown monuments come to decay and destruction and again felt motivated to do what is within our possible means to change that. We decided to begin researching the YMCA building in particular and personally try to make the difference we so desire to see in our new community.”
Of course, the multimillion-dollar question now that the purchase has been made is what the couple plans to do with it.
“We intend to first and foremost preserve the building. We would like to restore the first floor and exterior courtyard and hopefully with some community support, open those main areas up to public retail so everyone can have a chance to enjoy it,” she wrote. “Can you imagine a great coffee bar down there, or true barber shop, a cigar salon or other retail environment with an open-air courtyard – what a refuge and immense addition to our downtown!”
Of course, the redevelopment will take time, effort and, yes, money, but Barnett wrote that the couple is “not just willing, but fulfilled through putting our hard work into something that is truly worth it.”
Coming down
Not all the old buildings recently purchased in downtown are getting the same new lease on life.
Recent years have seen the demolition of several properties along Main Street, and this year will see the same one block over at Third and Louisiana streets. There, the former KARK TV and First National Bank Building, which sold in August after seven years on the market and a decade of vacancy, will be torn down and replaced by a parking lot and eventually a new office building, said co-owner Greg Hatcher.
“I bought 310 and 308 Louisiana…. We have been working on those for the past year and there was no parking, so we were looking for parking,” he said. “We will really make it a nice parking lot like the one at the Capital Hotel. We will pretty the corner up.”
Hatcher didn’t offer details on when the new construction would begin, but he sounds excited about the changes that seem to be coming, finally, to downtown.
“I love downtown. I’ve been in downtown for 20 years. I just wanted another downtown office. We were out of space in the one we’re in. The [e-Stem] charter school across the street is great. I’m fired up that downtown is starting to look nice again.”
On that note, Reed may have more to say. With prospects of the trolley line being extended down Main to the interstate or even just to Capitol Avenue, all he sees is more opportunity.
“I hope this isn't the only Main Street groundbreaking where you'll see me in front of a mic,” he said at the news conference, adding afterward: “If this building works, when this building opens up, I think it will open a lot of eyes.
“Hopefully we'll be having the same conversation a year from now, hopefully about another building.”
— caroline zilk contributed to this story