LITTLE ROCK — A long-awaited Little Rock police substation, the third and final major public building planned for phase one of the 12th Street corridor redevelopment district, is scheduled to open in early 2013.
The Little Rock Board of Directors approved initial funding for the $8 million police substation to be at 12th and Pine streets. Plans for the building were shared with residents this week. The substation follows two other large projects including a children’s library and the Empowerment Center, which will offer substance abuse counseling.
Organizers working on the neighborhood’s revitalization are hoping the three buildings, which add up to about $24 million in public investments, will bring in private-sector development as well.
“This is just the beginning,” Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson said. “We’re hoping to attract strategic private investments with the public investments we’ve already made.”
Ward 2 stretches from Interstate 630 south to Little Fourche Creek near Arch Street and includes the area between South University Avenue and Geyer Springs Road, east to Interstate 530.
The police substation will be funded in part by the 1 percentage-point city sales tax increase passed in September.
The Board of Directors approved an ordinance this week to seek and issue bonds worth almost $8 million for the building’s construction. An additional federal disaster-relief grant worth $278,000 was awarded to the city last year for outside improvements such as sidewalks.
Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas spoke to a group of residents Thursday explaining the plan for the substation, which will become home to a number of detectives and patrol officers.
“It’s a two-story building with half of the ground floor dedicated to commercial and retail use and it’s going to be a safe place to come and do business,” he said. “Our portion of the downstairs will be the patrol division and property crimes, and upstairs will be the violent-crimes division. We’ll be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Richardson said he would like to see a credit union or a health-food store in the building’s commercial space. He said he has been actively seeking businesses to bring into the community, which he has classified as a food desert because of the lack of affordable and readily available fresh meat and produce and the overflow of stores that sell beer and liquor along the corridor.
The 25,000-square-foot building will be at the site of an empty thrift store that was knocked down to make way for the new facility. The station and the other two projects are at major entrances into the 12th Street corridor.
“Our hope is that this police presence will not only take care of the actual crime,but also take care of some of the perception of crime,” Richardson said. “They’ll be open 24 hours a day and be a definite presence in the community.”
The 30,000-square-foot children’s library, which is projected to cost $10 million, and the Empowerment Center, which is estimated to cost $6 million, are to be completed by the end of the year.
The overall revitalization plan includes updates to the appearance of the busy east west corridor, eventually planning for tree-lined medians, bicycle lanes and other landscaping improvements. Richardson said he hopes the plan also will be done in a way that invests in “human revitalization” as well.
“We’re not looking to just fix the streets, but the people on those streets,” he said.
Organizers for the 12th Street corridor revitalization plan have gone up against some stiff opposition to several parts of the plan. Some neighbors and several city officials opposed the Empowerment Center because of the potential for an increased number of people seeking substance-abuse help in their community. Others who lived in houses that were razed to make way for the facility were reluctant to move into new homes provided by the Better Community Development organization.
The library, near War Memorial Park between Interstate 630 and 12th Street, also required several houses to be razed or moved to accommodate for space needs.
Before the sales tax was passed, funding for the police station was in question. Bids for the building work came in at almost double what officials had hoped to pay for the building.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 02/11/2012