Mayflower recovery plan to be unveiled Tuesday

MAYFLOWER — Mayor Randy Holland said residents want to put the 2014 tornado behind them and see Mayflower move forward, and a proposed new town center is one of the possibilities.

“We’ve had all kinds of town-hall meetings. … We met with people down at Stroud’s [Diner], and we had a real good meeting the other day with students at the high school, the Student Council,” he said. “Your kids have to be involved with the future of Mayflower because that’s what you’re building it for.”

A recovery plan for Mayflower was developed by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center in Fayetteville. The plan will be unveiled at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Mayflower City Council meeting.

Devin Howland, local disaster recovery manager, said it’s “a culmination of all the data we have collected from the town halls and citizens we have talked to in four sectors — economic development, infrastructure and environment, school and community

facilities, and housing and neighborhood.

“The plan is this — if I had to sum it up in one sentence — it is a message to the mayor and the city council of what the citizens want in their community, what they think maybe could be improved.”

In a few weeks, the design for a proposed town center will be showcased, Howland said.

Holland noted the idea for the town center to be “a little bit like” The Village at Hendrix. the project will include a green space, restaurants, shops, businesses and residences in a walkable neighborhood.

“They can walk and bike to town; that’s what everybody’s wanting,” Holland said. “They want to keep it a small-town atmosphere but keep it a modern society.”

Holland said he wants to see an amphitheater for plays and concerts built in the town center.

Mayflower and Vilonia share Howland, and his two assistants, for redevelopment planning. He is employed by the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District, which contracted the University of Arkansas Community Design Center to do the project, and he will unveil the plan.

“UACDC is beyond talented in creating beautiful cities to live in,” Howland said.

“We’re seeing a shift across this country where we’re building front porches again, and we’re not building back decks,” Howland said. The common criticism he heard in town-hall meetings in Vilonia and Mayflower in the past few months is the lack of options in housing, he said.

The “downtown triangle” of the proposed town center begins at Arkansas 89 and 365 and goes north to Stroud’s Diner. The heart would be near City Hall and Frank Pearce Memorial Park, Howland said.

“It’s private property right now, except for what the city owns,” Howland said.

“These designs have not removed any buildings; that’s the beauty of it,” he said, speaking of both the Vilonia and Mayflower plans.

“Designs are great, … but those are simply designs. They are conceptions. It’s showing them what could be — that with proper planning, their city could be more,” Howland said.

Part of the area proposed is in the floodplain, but Howland said it could be left to showcase its natural beauty.

For the dream to come to fruition, Howland said residents have to agree on the plan, and funding must be found. To that end, the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District contracted with Metroplan, which brought in its Jump Start initiative. Metroplan, the long-range transportation planning agency for the region, then contracted with Gateway Planning, based in Dallas. Gateway Planning produced cost estimates. All those entities are involved in the proposed Vilonia town-center plan, too, Howland said.

“The beauty of this whole process, if I could sum it up, … businesses, developers, investors are looking at these towns because of the rapid growth Faulkner County is experiencing,” he said.

Gateway also drafted

proposed zoning ordinances to help steer the development, Howland said, but the planning commissions in both cities will vote on those.

“Everybody’s had a hand in that — designs, planning, thinking about the codes. My job is to help them find funding for these projects and just to get them forward-thinking, and they already are,” he said, referring again to both Mayflower and Vilonia.

Holland said the city has united. “That’s the one big thing — the whole community has come together — city council, planning commission, school board, administration and the churches. The churches have got together here, and it’s amazing how they’ve been working together.”

Holland said he learned several lessons from the 2014 tornado.

“If you’re going to grow back, that’s the way you do it — you do it together. Individually, it’ll never work. If you work together, that’s the way you grow back as a town,” he said.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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