Vote rededicates tax for shopping area

8th-percent levy passes in Conway to improve new development at old airport

CONWAY -- Residents of Conway voted Tuesday to rededicate and extend an eighth-percent sales tax aimed at improving street access to a planned mixed-use development at the site of the city's old airport and to a proposed Sam's Club in another area of town.

Unofficial but complete results, according to the Faulkner County clerk's office:

For 1,847

Against 520

"In the end ... a positive vote means we get a Dillard's. It may be as simple as that," Mayor Tab Townsell said of the victory margin.

The one-eighth portion of Conway's 1.75 percent sales-tax rate would have expired in 2021. Now, it will expire in 2045.

Plans call for the mixed-use development, which will be called Central Landing and sit at the 151-acre site of Conway's old airport along Sixth Street, to include a shopping center, restaurants, single- and multifamily residences and other businesses. The projected opening is late 2016.

The Shoppes at Central Landing will be anchored by Dillard's, city officials have said. Alabama developer Jim Wilson & Associates has not released the names of the other businesses it hopes to attract.

Wilson & Associates and the nonprofit economy-focused Conway Development Corp. have agreed to buy the land for $6.1 million. The development company formed a for-profit entity called Cantrell Field Redevelopment for the Central Landing effort.

Brad Lacy, president and chief executive officer of the development corporation, credited the victory to the plan being "about more than retail."

"It was about helping people get around town better" and about redevelopment, Lacy said.

The one-eighth percent tax has been going to finance bonds to buy fire and sanitation department equipment. The rededication for up to $27 million in bonds will cover the remaining equipment debt along with new debt created by the street projects. The tax now generates about $1.6 million in revenue annually, according to Stephens Inc., the investment firm advising the city.

Earlier this month, the city opened a new municipal airport, on the town's western edge. The old airport, which is near Interstate 40 and another shopping center, will close at some point after the new facility is fully operational.

Street projects would include a four-lane overpass crossing I-40 and extending from the old airport site to Elsinger Boulevard, which runs through the busy Conway Commons shopping center along Oak Street. There also would be a connection from the overpass to Bruce Street, providing a new four-lane east-west street separate from the often-congested Oak Street. A four-lane connection would extend from Oak Street to the new four-lane road running through the old airport site.

The city also plans major upgrades to part of Arkansas 365 from east of I-40 to Thomas Wilson Drive, the location where Sam's Club plans to build. State funding also would kick in on the Arkansas 365 project.

State Desk on 09/10/2014

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