The makeover of an industrial area east of downtown Little Rock will continue this year and new businesses are planned for Main Street and Capitol Avenue. The changes are a sign that even more projects are coming, downtown promoters say.
"East Village" and "East 30" are just two of the names being tossed around for the area surrounding an expansive mixed-use redevelopment project planned for east of Interstate 30.
The property at East Sixth Street and Shall Avenue most recently occupied by Sterling Paint was bought by Cromwell Architects last year and is one of a handful of unique commercial ventures being forged from aging buildings in the downtown area this year.
A new bowling alley, German beer hall and winery/restaurant are a few other enterprises set to open their doors in the last half of 2016. Those projects, all put in motion by Moses Tucker Real Estate, are in the vicinity of Capitol Avenue and Main Street.
Gabe Holmstrom, executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, said works like these give downtown momentum for recruiting more entertainment-related businesses.
There's likely to be lots more in store, he said.
"It's a positive indicator that more and more people are willing to invest in our downtown and that more and more people are choosing to make downtown Little Rock their home," Holmstrom said.
The Cromwell project, which will house the firm's Little Rock headquarters, is planned for an area that is primarily industrial. The developers/owners are calling it a River Market District with "grit." Moses Tucker helped secure the property for Cromwell and will be an investor.
Cromwell has said it will refurbish a 50,000-square-foot warehouse at the center of the property and add another 20,000 square feet onto it. The firm will take only about one-third of the development and lease the rest for restaurants, apartments and retail, said Chief Executive Officer Charley Penix.
Work is expected to start in about six months, after budgeting and design.
"What is unique about this project is that our proposed building renovation is only the anchor for a much bigger vision, the revitalization of a large area of Little Rock very close to downtown and historically significant," Penix said. "This is an area that has long been home to businesses that make things: steel, glass windows, building products of many kinds, beer, liquor [and the like].
"As an architecture and engineering firm, we will feel very at home in this environment," he said.
Moses Tucker President Chris Moses said there's been a great deal of interest in the Cromwell project, including two potential restaurants and three other prospective commercial tenants.
Moses Tucker also listed the multistory building Cromwell built for its office 40 years ago at Markham and Spring streets and is working on plans for sprucing it up. The firm turned 130 years old in 2015.
As for a name for the targeted area east of Interstate 30, Penix said: "I guess the winner will be determined by what name sticks."
Winemaker Margie Raimondo hopes to open Raimondo Winery on the first floor of the former Arkansas Democrat building at 615 Main St. later this year. Her wines are made in California, but the Main Street venture would be a finishing and bottling operation and include a tasting room, plus a venue for her to sell her infused balsamic vinegars and extra virgin olive oils.
She announced plans in spring of 2015 with plans to open last October, but renovation of the building by Moses Tucker and some partners has taken longer than expected. The two-story, century-old building also will also house loft apartments that the real estate firm will build out and manage.
Raimondo has had a wine-making operation in Mountain Home since 2008, but the new location downtown will be her flagship operation, she has said. Grapes will continue to be shipped from California and processed at a plant she established in North Little Rock, but the aging and bottling will occur at the Main Street shop. She has plans to offer indoor and outdoor seating and an open kitchen.
"I'm disappointed that's it's taking as long as it is, but it is an abandoned warehouse that had a lot of work to be done, and those kinds of projects, they don't know what they don't know until they get in there," Raimondo said last week.
She now believes she could be in the space in either late July or early August. Even though she could end up losing what amounts to almost a year's worth of sales, she's sold on the location.
"I love that building," Raimondo said. "It cries out 'Raimondo Winery.' It's the perfect place for me."
In the meantime, she's looking for pop-up space in Hillcrest, the Heights or in West Little Rock. She would eventually turn the temporary space into a satellite store for her oils, vinegars and other edibles.
Around the corner and down Capital Avenue, the Dust Bowl Lanes & Lounge, a 10-lane retro bowling alley, is planned for the former M.M. Eberts American Legion Post at 315 E. Capitol. A companion establishment, a German-style beer hall to be called Fassler Hall at 307 E. Capitol Ave. awaits approval from the Little Rock Historic Commission, which meets Monday night.
Approval of plans for the beer hall in the two-story former Paragon Printing building are contingent on changes to the proposed design of the building that the owner deems critical to the ambience of the business. The Paragon building is owned by Central Arkansas Water.
Original renderings by Frank Barksdale and James Sullivan of AMR Architects Inc. showed seven 10-by-10-foot overhead doors along the sides, which could be opened like garage doors to give greater access and visibility to the beer garden outside. At a December meeting of the commission, some members were against adding the overhead doors and painting the brick front, among other things.
The fear was that it would be de-listed as a "contributing property" in the MacArthur Park Historic District, which is itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The architects have since altered the plans to make the west-side doors into multi-panel sliding doors instead of garage doors, Barksdale said recently. They also moved the doors further toward the back of the building, away from the street.
SundayMonday Business on 01/10/2016