BUSINESS MATTERS

New LR apartment complex underway, though scaled back a bit

Back in the summer of 2013 the folks over at Moses Tucker Real Estate announced plans for a new residential development in downtown Little Rock. They followed up a year later to announce that construction on the project had begun.

What a few discerning eyes caught when comparing the two news releases was a change in the cost of the project and the number of units planned. Instead of 84 units over four floors at the corner of Capitol and River Market avenues, the company decided on building three stories and 59 apartments. If you feel the need to keep score on these sorts of things, that's about a 25 percent reduction from the initial plan if considering total floors, slightly higher if we're talking number of units.

Lost in those figures, though, is a number perhaps a bit more noteworthy: 35. As in 35 years. This is, the company says, Little Rock's first new downtown residential complex -- we're talking built from the ground up, not renovation/adaptive reuse -- in more than three decades.

Moses Tucker has been a driving force in downtown development and redevelopment since the 1980s, and invested heavily in residential, retail and mixed-use projects of all shapes and sizes. President Chris Moses recently sat down to chat about what the longtime downtown developer hopes to accomplish with the $8 million MacArthur Commons project, which began construction this month. We discussed the evolving nature of the complex, the need for additional residential options downtown and why the River Market and downtown area have been so important to the firm (beyond, of course, the fact that it's been a profitable endeavor).

Close to 700 residential units are currently owned or under management by Moses Tucker. There is, Chris Moses said, a waiting list on properties, and the properties aren't far from 100 percent occupancy annually.

Clearly, the demand is there. Demand exists for new projects even, as Chris Moses noted, with close to 1,000 new residential units coming on the market this year in central Arkansas. That includes a $1.1 million Moses Tucker investment in renovating the Magnolia (formerly known as Voss Apartments) at 401 E. Capitol Ave.

When calculating the interest, risk involved, potential for return to investors and other factors, it just made the most sense to take on the MacArthur Commons project in its current form.

"The economics of a larger building just didn't prove cost-effective," Chris Moses said. "It's a response to the market and in the market analysis we decided it was better to scale the project down and have a smaller, more capable project.

"It's very affordable for the market," he added. "We think building it the right size, you eliminate some of the cost overruns that will happen with a four- or five-story project. The scale of this project just works. It's the best way it works financially. And, it allows us to offer lower rents."

Renters should find affording the property a bit more do-able as a result. A unit at MacArthur Commons will likely range between $700 and $1,400. Other Moses Tucker Properties are fetching between $500 and $2,500 per month.

No sense building somewhere people can't afford to live, right?

Downtowns -- this won't be the first or last time you read this here -- tend to be at their best when people have a mix of residential, retail and restaurant options. That's what Moses Tucker has been doing since the 1980s, something Chris Moses and founding partners Jimmy Moses and Rett Tucker refer to as a "civic responsibility."

"We're all on board with building the next great city," Chris Moses said. "That's our No. 1 objective."

Whether we're talking three or four floors at a time, 59 apartments or 84, it is a guiding philosophy that has served Moses Tucker and downtown Little Rock very well over the past 30-plus years.

SundayMonday Business on 08/17/2014

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