ARKADELPHIA — Five businessmen hope to revitalize North
10th Street by transforming a former “eyesore” into an office and re
tail center.
Keith L. Runyan, Stuart Thomas,
Robert Burchfield, Mark Overturf
and Jerry Simmons are general
partners in Vision Quest Develop
ments Inc. They are renovating the building that once housed a furniture manufacturer into the new University Plaza.
Burchfield, Overturf and Simmons own Twin Rivers Architecture. Runyan owns Wall Street in the Woods, and Thomas owns TNT Building Materials & Stoneworks. The main portion of University Plaza, which contains 38,000 square feet of available space, is still being renovated, but Thomas has already moved his business into another building on the site.
“I moved here from Caddo Valley about a year ago,” said Thomas, who is the president of Vision Quest. “I bought my building from the group. It’s a good investment. We have increased our traffic flow and visibility, and I think it’ll get better as all this develops.”
Runyan said he and his partners “want to see something new in Arkadelphia. We decided we’d dive into that swimming pool full of alligators and try to swim across. We’re about halfway there.”
He said Burchfield, Overturf and Simmons “got the idea in 2006 about what could be done out there. They approached me and Stuart, and we formed Vision Quest in March 2007.”
Vision Quest purchased the building, but other hurdles had to be cleared before work could begin.
“We had to check the groundwater and soil for contaminants,” Overturf said, “and we had to take samples from some of the remaining [manufacturing] equipment. There were some loading areas in the back of the building where there had been some leaks, and we had to have those tested in order to reassure the Environmental Protection Agency. Those were steps that just had to be taken.”
The EPA notified the group last April that the agency was satisfied that no contaminants were on the site. The partners were then ready to proceed with their plans. Renovations began in October.
“I kept hearing that the first thing people saw in Arkadelphia as they entered town from the north was this giant old building,” Runyan said.
“Once people found out we’d bought it,” Overturf said, “they were asking us, ‘What are you going to do now, tear it down?’ No - it’s a concrete block and steel building. It’s very sound.”
Twin Rivers Architecture designed the facade of the revamped structure, and plans call for a landscaped parking lot.
“We’ll have the most available parking spaces in Clark County,” Burchfield said, “and the traffic count on North 10th Street competes with the count on Pine Street - about 7,500 cars a day.”
One design proposal for the project includes seven retail spaces of about 2,000 square feet each, with one 3,200-square-foot area that could be used by the community as a conference room, Simmons said. Patrons will enter through a commons area, and a lobby will connect all of the retail spaces. But the largest interior space - containing 12,750 square feet - might be converted into a movie theater.
Runyan said he and his partners have been negotiating to bring a theater to University Plaza.
“If we can get it, it will be state-of-the-art,” he said. “It will be digital and have stadium seating, but it will represent a substantial investment.”
He said the “low end” of installing a movie theater in the building would be about $2 million.
“We already have the building and the parking,” Runyan said.
“If we had to buy the landand build the building, it’d be twice that.”
He said the public has been “asking and asking” for a movie theater in Arkadelphia, “and they continue to ask for one.
With $4 gas, it just seems like it would be a more economical alternative to have one here than for folks to keep driving to Benton or Hot Springs.”
Burchfield stressed that there is still plenty of space available for lease in the building.
“We are not all leased up,” he said.
Runyan said one other local business, Fastenal, has signed a lease. Fastenal, a distributor of fasteners and other commercial supplies, will occupy 4,000 square feet.
“Right now, it’s looking like we’ll have that portion of the building ready by July,” Runyan said.
“We’d love to see things come in to benefit families,” he said. “A yogurt shop, a coffee house, things oriented toward recreation. But we’ve got to fill the building.”
Simmons said there is plenty of room to expand on the property. The group also purchased undeveloped property adjacent to the existing buildings.
“I’ve added two more workers since I moved here,” Thomas said. “We average two or three people a week thanking us for doing what we’ve done.
I’ve heard no negatives. People ask me all the time what else is coming.”
Thomas said he thinks Arkadelphia will continue to grow along North 10th Street, which has already seen Ouachita Baptist University improve its entrance to the campus.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he said of the property available for lease in University Plaza. “We’re getting inquiries, and we’re finally able to start quoting some rates.”
Staff writer Daniel A. Marsh can be reached at (501) 246-3688 or dmarsh@arkansasonline.
com.
Tri-Lakes, Pages 49 on 03/22/2012