LITTLE ROCK — With the Metrocentre Mall a distant memory, a new generation of movers and shakers is contemplating the future of downtown Little Rock and the Metrocentre Improvement District No. 1 after its last debts are paid off in 2017.
Property owners in the 45-block improvement district should see special assessments on their tax bills go down possibly as early as next year as the district refinances loan debt initially issued to build parking decks on Main Street. The district’s board has not issued any new debt in more than a decade, and whether any new project will be undertaken after 2017 is at the center of a newly formed committee.
“The question is how do we go forward and the question is do we go forward in the form that we are,” said Hank Kelley, one of several downtown property owners serving on the district’s visionary committee.
More than 200 properties are in the 45-block area that is bounded by Broadway and Cumberland, Ninth and Markham streets.
During its 38-year history, the district buried electric lines, helped the Arkansas Repertory Theatre acquire the Galloway Building and oversaw the development of the Metrocentre Mall, the failed pedestrian mall that kept several downtown blocks closed to traffic until the mall closed in the early 1990s.
In recent years, the district has played a behindthe-scenes role in funding the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, a booster organization that also manages trash collection, security and beautification projects on Main Street on behalf of the district. The partnership most recently organized the Food Truck Festival that attracted hundreds of people to Main Street.
With $3.2 million in bond debt left from a previous $7 million bond refinancing in 1997 for a 20-year term, the district’s board last week approved refinancing the debt to secure a lower interest rate. The move will lower assessments possibly by up to 15 percent for some and save the district $845,919 by the time the debt is paid off by Dec. 1, 2017, said Sharon Priest, the partnership’s director who also manages the district.
The assessment, agreed to by property owners in 1973, raised $639,692 last year, with most of the money going toward the parking-deck debt.
No one is ready to say what will happen after that debt is paid off, but Chuck Spohn, president of the partnership’s board, believes there is still a role for the district years down the road.
“My vision would be to see that we are a thriving body that has even greater relevance to the success of downtown and maybe even a more active part as far as the financial perspective,” said Spohn, who is vice president and general manager of KLRT-TV, Fox 16.
Between now and 2017, Spohn said, the group will look at other cities to see what their districts are doing and work on a “value statement.”
“That’s part of the process, to prove our importance. If we weren’t here right now, what would you be missing,” he said.
Doug Meyer, whose wife’s family has long owned Bennett’s Military Supplies on Main Street, said he wants to see the district continue and possibly expand its boundaries.
Meyer, another of the district’s committee members, said he’s happy with the recent efforts to improve security in the area by persuading Little Rock to have an officer patrol Main Street on foot. The officer has helped make the area feel safer, he said.
Kelley, whose real estate company has ownership in the Metropolitan Tower, said he’s not sure yet what role the district should play in the future.
“Our view is the district needs to do what it was scheduled to do and designed to do, and either redefine a new district or create an environment where people revisit, refresh their commitment and reinvest in the district. To do that, it means you’ve got to have a business plan that the participants buy into. That buy-in is more than, ‘Yeah, I want to serve on a committee.’ That buy-in is a commitment to work with the city to get the services we’re entitled to as normal taxpayers and then decide and define what complementary services we need to make our district and our neighborhood,” Kelley said.
“It may not be a district in the future. It may be voluntary. I don’t know yet,” he said. “We’re trying to define what the district looks like.”
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 10/30/2011