The portion of John F. Kennedy Boulevard coursing through historic Park Hill divides the North Little Rock neighborhood and needs to be redesigned if the community is to become more walkable and livable, according to consultants.
“It’s like a raceway,” said Brad Lonberger, a principal in a Dallas urban design firm, Gateway Planning. “Crossing JFK is particularly hostile.”
He was among a retinue of presenters at a public meeting last week that attracted more than 60 people from the neighborhood, one of five in central Arkansas selected for $200,000 federal Jump Start planning grants that are designed to help chart a new course for the areas.
Public meetings also were held last week at the Markham Street neighborhood in Conway and the Little Rock neighborhood bounded by West 12th, Pine and Cedar streets. Meetings scheduled for the Levy neighborhood in North Little Rock and the Old Town neighborhood in Bryant were postponed because of weather and will be rescheduled for early next year.
Richard Magee is the deputy director and planning director for Metroplan, the regional long-range transportation agency that is coordinating the Jump Start initiative. Magee said last week’s meetings were just the beginning of a year-long process to rethink how the neighborhoods should be.
“We want your input,” he told the audience at Park Hill Presbyterian Church. “This is just a start.”
Dan Burden, co-founder of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute and its innovation and inspiration director, provided some energy for that beginning Wednesday night.
Using a presentation with photographs of Park Hill, which is situated on both sides of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and bounded by A Street on the south and the Lakehill Shopping Center on the north, Burden took audience members through a “walking audit” of the neighborhood he had conducted earlier in the day. He told them to develop a vision for the neighborhood before figuring out how to accomplish it.
“If you want to build a great ship, you don’t teach carpentry, but you develop a love for the sea,” he said.
Slowing down traffic in other neighborhoods around the nation has not only provided safer and more livable and walkable neighborhoods, but has also increased sales for area businesses, Burden said.
He suggested several strategies for the boulevard, including raised intersections that better highlight pedestrian crossings and force traffic to slow down, wider sidewalks, bicycle lanes and parking on the side of the street, particularly angled parking that requires a vehicle to back in.
“You can transform a street and create a place,” Burden said.
Lonberger said other strategies include changing the area’s zoning. Space on both sides of John F. Kennedy Boulevard is zoned for commercial, but it should be zoned to allow the addition of residential and office space, he said. And the eventual closure of Park Hill Elementary will free up space for future redevelopment, he said.
But, he added, Jump Start isn’t “about redevelopment; it’s about revitalization.”
After the presentations, Lonberger divided the audience members into smaller groups to allow them to brainstorm ideas for the neighborhood.
Many cited the same problems the consultants identified, particularly traffic through the neighborhood. But they also mentioned that an addition of a grocery store and other amenities, such as a community center, would add to the ambiance of the neighborhood.
“We have three pretty good parks, but we are Park Hill,” said one resident, Jeremy Rhodes, summing up one of the ideas from his group. “Let’s get some parks.”
After recounting the ideas generated from his group, resident Chris Borecky turned back to his group and asked, “Anything I’m missing?”
“Free WiFi,” came a response.
The consultants said they would continue to collect information on the community and return next spring to present some more refined design concepts that the neighborhood could incorporate. The final report isn’t due until December 2014.
A meeting earlier in the week for the grant-receiving neighborhood in Little Rock didn’t attract as many participants, but Ken Richardson, who represents the area on the Little Rock Board of Directors, said in an interview that despite some “healthy skepticism,” it was nonetheless productive.
“It was a really good first meeting,” he said. “I wish we had larger attendance. It was engaging. The consultants did a wonderful job. There was a couple of questions in terms of process. It was a healthy dialogue.”
Richardson said the Jump Start initiative for the neighborhood is the second phase of a revitalization initiative that has been in place since 2008.
That early initiative already has borne fruit with the opening this summer of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center at 4800 W. 10th St. and the construction of a $12.5 million police substation.
Once construction is complete, the 40,000-square foot facility will temporarily house police personnel while the Police Department’s headquarters is renovated. Then, it will be marketed as potential space for community-oriented businesses in addition to serving as a substation.
Jump Start “just adds more energy and synergy to what we started five years ago,” Richardson said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/09/2013