When Bob Major tried to find an office for a new hire at the North Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, he said his thoughts turned to expanding the building rather than squeezing one more person into the space.
"I always like to keep dreaming of possibilities on how we can improve on what we're doing," said Major, who manages the Visitors Bureau as executive director of the city's Advertising and Promotion Commission. "That keeps you fresh and keeps you thinking."
What he came up with is to convert the building's small, second-floor conference room into an office, then adding flooring over the atrium of the two-story building for a more spacious conference area. The visitors information center would remain downstairs in the building at 1 Eldor Johnson Drive in Burns Park.
"It is truly just a vision right now," Major said Friday. "I have no prices or any financial figures to put into it yet.
"The atrium area in the center of the building is bright and airy. But we would also have the ability in the future to add two more offices there and still have a nice-sized conference room for our commission and other meetings we have for groups and other event planning and promotions."
Major's big plan is to relocate the administration offices of the Advertising and Promotion Commission, which oversees the bureau's budget and duties, to the Argenta district of the city's downtown. Such a move would put the commission's eight full-time staff members closer to City Hall and the riverfront attractions in North Little Rock and Little Rock.
"Being downtown will give us more of a presence in the community," Major said of the idea. "People who are visiting and are already staying in a downtown hotel or at somebody's home will come down to ride the [River Rail] trolley or go through the Clinton presidential library. I just think having that downtown presence on Main Street would be beneficial to the promotion of the area and of North Little Rock."
Moving the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau into downtown has been brought up before. When North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce President Terry Hartwick was pitching a convention center for a site on Maple Street, his plan was to include the Visitors Bureau as a co-tenant.
"I think, personally, Advertising and Promotion should have a presence downtown, without a doubt," Hartwick said Friday. "I've always thought that. You've got the Razorback [submarine], the Clinton library, the riverfront. The Argenta District has the Friday Night Art Walk and the [Downtown Riverside] RV Park is right around the corner."
Major worked with Hartwick on the earlier convention center idea, and the two likely could work in tandem on any relocation move in the near future. Hartwick is retiring as chamber president at the end of the year and will become the city's parks director early next year. North Little Rock parks director Bob Rhoads is retiring at the end of the year.
The North Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department owns the visitors center building, which was built about 1972, Major said, and maintains the grounds.
"It's like a condo," Hartwick said, speaking as the incoming parks chief. "We [the parks department] own the building and everything on the outside and they own the inside."
Major said the commission could "let [the parks department] take the building and keep a visitors information center downstairs." The parks department could then convert the building into its administrative offices, now in the North Little Rock Community Center, 2700 Willow St., or another use.
The visitors center in Burns Park is right off Interstate 40, so is a convenient stop for motorists passing through central Arkansas. While promoting North Little Rock is the bureau's priority, the center also provides information on Little Rock and central Arkansas attractions, state parks and other attractions throughout the state.
"We had almost 16,000 visitors stop here last year," Major said. "We're the only real full-service visitors center between Fort Smith and West Memphis. A lot of folks stop and are interested in what to do, what to see and where to stay in this area. And others stop here for the proverbial pit stop, to get out and stretch or use the restroom or walk their dog.
"We try to cover the whole state as much as we can with the room that we have here to help people find something to do," he added. "We are just out of space in this building."
Metro on 07/26/2015