MORRILTON — Mayor Allen Lipsmeyer said 2018 is going to be another “great building year” for the city of Morrilton.
The list is long of construction projects underway, almost finished or planned in the city.
Lipsmeyer said the most recent project he’s been working toward is that developers closed this month on a 160- to 170-lot subdivision on Sardis Road, which will be built in three phases. He said the smaller, 60-lot tract will be ready to build on by summer.
“This is what I’ve been searching for for three years — a developer. The Realtors say they don’t have enough housing,” Lipsmeyer said.
The subdivision will have a significant impact on the city, he said.
“It’s huge. With building permits, you have three jobs equivalent to every house built,” Lipsmeyer said. “This is 500-something new jobs. People don’t look at housing as economic development, but it is — it’s an industry.
“We’re just now starting to get our comps (comparisons) up where they need to be to build brand-new construction. Comps have always been a problem. You have an old house in downtown that might be a 2,000-square-foot house that might be $50,000, and you have brand-new construction for a 2,000-square-foot-house, and you want $200,000.”
He said the new subdivision will be a nice complement to three nearby subdivisions.
Other projects in the city include construction of its first Tractor Supply Store. Ground was broken Dec. 15 on Arkansas 287 for the 19,097-square-foot store. It is being built by Mitchell Brothers Construction, in partnership with R.A. Wilson Enterprises, both of Hot Springs, said Greg Woodard, Morrilton city inspector.
Sacred Heart Catholic School just finished a 2,000-square-foot expansion to the church and is about a week away from completing a 10,200-square-foot addition to the elementary school. Combined, the projects cost $3.45 million, 87 percent of which has been raised through the capital campaign “Serve the Present. Honor the Past. Inspire the Future.”
“We added to the vestibule and the church, a new gathering area, bathrooms and a covered drive. That’s part finished,” said Alisha Koonce, director of development for Sacred Heart School. The project also included replacing the sanctuary ceiling.
Weekend masses took place Jan. 6 and 7 for the first time in the renovated space, Koonce said.
“We took down an old convent built in 1950, and we added six new classrooms and a safe room at the elementary, a much, much needed space,” she said. The project also includes a central office and therapy/tutoring space.
Koonce said the school addition will be completed in about another week, but it won’t be completely utilized until fall.
“Some things will get used this year,” she said, but classrooms won’t be disrupted for the move.
Lipsmeyer said Sacred Heart is one of only two pre-K-through-12th-grade Catholic schools in Arkansas; the other is in Conway.
Also on the education front, the South Conway County School District opened its almost $11.3 million Devil Dog Arena in December at Morrilton High School. The facility also has an attached safe room, making the total square footage “just shy of 70,000 square feet,” Superintendent Shawn Halbrook said.
He said the structure was built to be a multipurpose arena, not just for sports. A speaker and concert are planned in the facility, for example.
“It think it’s going to have a significant economic impact on Conway County and Morrilton,” he said.
The district is partnering with Wonderview to hold the Class A basketball tournament there in February. Attendees will eat, buy gas and possibly stay in hotels in Morrilton, Halbrook said.
Lipsmeyer said the new arena and remodeled Catholic school will be “a good draw” for families to move to Morrilton.
The $13 million, 53,000-square-foot Workforce Training Center at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton is expected to be finished by mid-February, said Austin
DuVall, public relations coordinator, “but we don’t expect to be moving in until March or early April.”
The Workforce Training Center, the biggest project in the college’s 55-year history, will house automotive-service technology; heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration
technology; welding technology; and industrial mechanics and maintenance and technology labs, as well as a space for specialized workforce training and the Workforce Development office.
Downtown Morrilton is experiencing a revitalization with a renewed interest from people in renovating historic buildings. Main Street is home to new businesses, such as a coffee shop, and more are planned. Josef France of Little Rock closed on the former Broadway Hotel on Broadway Street. The hotel also housed a Daylight Donuts until the business moved to another location about 17 years ago.
France said in an earlier interview that his goal is to create loft apartments upstairs and retail/office space downstairs.
Lipsmeyer, who has been mayor since 2015, said he expects Morrilton’s population, which is 6,700, to start growing.
But not too fast.
“We’re moving, to me, at a good pace that we can keep up with,” he said. “If we move too fast, we can’t keep up with infrastructure and all the things the city has to keep up with. It’s not a snail’s pace; it’s a good pace we’re moving at. So far, since I have been mayor, we have moved at a good pace.”
The mayor said it’s important for residents and visitors to see activity.
He said the city has been averaging about four new businesses a year.
“If we can get four businesses a year, that’s a good pace for us. So the secret to our growth is you have to have dirt turning simultaneously all over town for people to look at you. It can’t be sporadic. By building sidewalks, that’s a city project, but that keeps dirt turning,” he said.
“That keeps the momentum, and you have hope, and hope builds the future. We’ve had a positive attitude change here, and that’s allowed all those projects to flourish without any opposition,” Lipsmeyer said.
“We’re between two growing communities,” he said, referring to Russellville and Conway.
And he said Morrilton’s time has come.
“We feel like what we’re trying to do is not wait for things to happen; we’re trying to make things happen,” he said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.