LITTLE ROCK — One potential site for the planned Little Rock Technology Park is too small, one site is too spread out and one site may not have enough property owners on board, according to a preliminary engineering study.
That left the park’s authority board trying to figure out how to make one site seem just right.
Little Rock Technology Park Authority Board members are nearing a decision on three sites under consideration. They met Wednesday to discuss engineering studies of each of the sites and hear site representatives answer questions.
Authority board Chairman Mary Good said Tuesday that the board could choose any one of the sites or it could say none are acceptable.
“Sooner or later we’re going to have to make a decision and decide whether one of these sites will work,” she said. “Or we are going to have to say these sites don’t work and then either shelve the idea or go look for other sites.
“I would not support going out for proposals again because we’ve had plenty of sites given at this point.”
The technology park is a partnership among the city of Little Rock, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The aim of the park is to attract public and private investment to develop ongoing research from the city’s educational and medical institutions to eventually market it.
Each of the partners pledged $125,000 in seed money to develop the site plan, and the Little Rock promised $22 million in sales tax funds - a little less than half of what is needed - to begin building the park.
The three site finalists from 23 proposals are:
About 10 acres, plus other pieces of property under negotiation, between Fourth and Ninth streets and College and Collins streets downtown.
About 35 undeveloped acres near John Barrow Road and Interstate 630.
About 84 acres consisting of several parcels at South University and Asher avenues.
Crafton Tull and Associates, a Little Rock engineering firm, looked at the three sites and returned preliminary assessments this week.
“The board was somewhat disappointed in that we had hoped that the report would have eliminated one or two of the sites,” Good said. “The report as it stands did not eliminate any of them.”
Some of the concerns raised over the Collins Street site included whether all of the property owners would agree to sell their properties to make up the needed 30acres.
Board members also raised questions about closing the streets to vehicular traffic, whether plans to add lanes to nearby Interstate 30 would eat into the site and what the cost would be to obtain the site, including acreage, demolition and taking care of environmental concerns.
Rett Tucker, co-owner of Moses Tucker Real Estate, which brokered the downtown proposal, said he believed the full site could be obtained for about $10 million. He also noted that brownfield site cleanup grants were available through a city-county partnership and through the state.
The engineers also had concerns about the Asher Avenue site, including connecting the two usable pieces of property and avoiding the parts of the property that are in the floodway or protected wetlands.
Other concerns included a cost to acquire the property, which could have environmental concerns because of the age of several buildings and past uses. The cost per acre varies greatly across the property from the high traffic frontage on University or Asher avenues to the floodway land, which would be much cheaper per foot.
Representatives of the site indicated that it is the only location adjacent to one of the partner institutions and that there was readily available broadband access. They also mentioned the willingness of UALR to give up a piece of land on Asher Avenue to connect the two usable properties, which sit on either side of the university’s student apartments and track complex.
The board also raised concerns about whether they would have to go through a process with the Corps of Engineers to fill any land in the floodway. Site representatives said about 10 acres of property can be filled in the floodway because of a previous deal to remove fill dirt from the site and that the city could approve the fill.
Engineers said a lake in the middle of the John Barrow Road site made it difficult to fit all of the buildings required under the tech-park plan. He said their engineers could only fit eight of 10 proposed buildings in a mock site plan.
Site representatives said they had paid for a consultant and engineer to look at the property and were able to fit the required square footage of buildings without needing to seek a variance to build taller buildings.
Board members said the big issue with the site was the proximity to the partners. Owner Pam Courtney Brown said the site is close to Baptist Health Medical Center and the medical corridor, and not far from the partners.
“Downtown is tremendous because someone had a vision and believed and said we will make this something,” she said. “We just need to envision how we are going to make it work and they will come. If you build it, they will come.”
The authority board requested that the representatives come up with solid cost estimates for their sites and return with answers to some of the questions raised Tuesday. Good also requested that a representative from the technology park in Northwest Arkansas and from UAMS and UALR programs that help startup technology businesses make presentations atthe March meeting.
There was only a brief mention of a petition from about 20 property owners in the Forest Hills neighborhood, asking to sell their property for the park’s location. The site was one of three residential neighborhoods taken off the table at the request of the Little Rock Board of Directors.
Good said the board had no plans to pursue that site as of Wednesday.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/14/2013