Dan Waymack and I are hanging out in one of his state-of-the art editing suites on Main Street in Little Rock and discussing Mr. Cool. Waymack, who grew up in Cabot, is known nationwide for his video production capabilities. His clients have ranged from Allstate Corp. to Ford Motor Co. to the U.S. Army.
"Can you believe that this used to be Mr. Cool?" Waymack asks. "I once bought a red suit in here."
Having spent much of my career working a few blocks away at the intersection of Capitol and Scott, I can recall what downtown Little Rock used to be. The downtown I knew as an Arkansas Democrat employee in the 1980s had its charms. But I have to say the changes have been for the better. The transition of this building from Mr. Cool to Waymack & Crew--it's now the kind of facility one would expect to find in a much larger city--says a lot about what's currently dubbed as the Creative Corridor.
Mr. Cool's owner was Tom Choi, a Korean immigrant who died in October 2018 at age 88. He ran the store at the corner of Third and Main for more than 30 years, was a founder of the First Korean Presbyterian Church in Little Rock and was a president of the Korean-American Association of Arkansas. For those of us who worked, ate lunch and sometimes shopped in downtown Little Rock, he was simply Mr. Cool. Yes, we referred to him by the name of his clothing store.
"Mr. Cool shouldn't, by all rights, exist in this day and age," David Koon wrote in the Arkansas Times in 2013. "A general clothing store in a downtown core, it's like something out of another era, with a rack of shoes arranged in the doorway and big glass show windows displaying wigs and boots and hats. The store's orange, hanging sign--once lighted, but long since burned out and dark--is as much an icon of Main Street Little Rock as the big, carefully restored Cave's Jewelers clock up the street, even if the ladies window-shopping with purses on their arms jilted Main for the mall 40 years ago."
Those shoppers had already headed for the malls by 1980 when Choi bought a store that had been known as Stein's.
"I am keeping myself very well," Choi, who was 82 at the time, told Koon. "Every day I'm taking exercise and eating vegetables."
Koon wrote: "Choi said he gets customers of all kinds--black, white, Hispanic. The day we visited, two 20-something girls were wading the narrow aisles, mining the racks for vintage gold. Inside, Mr. Cool is a time warp with trendy urban wear hung next to clothes that look like they were frozen in carbonite and shipped express postage from 1978. In one room is what might be the best selection of hats in Little Rock and maybe the state: homburgs and fedoras, porkpies and royal blue bowlers."
As Main Street began to change, Choi retired. In 2007, Little Rock advertising powerhouse CJRW purchased Jones Film Video. The name of the company was changed to M-3 Productions in 2015. The building that had housed Mr. Cool was remodeled for M-3 after CRJW renovated the structure across the street to serve as its headquarters.
After graduating from Cabot High School, Waymack enrolled at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He began shooting basketball highlights for the school. That led to commercial work, some of which he shot in the formal dining room of his mother's house. Locally famous men's clothing retailer Jimmy Karam was an early client.
Waymack went into business with a partner in 1986 to form a company known as Boomtown. In 1992, he split from the partner to form Waymack & Crew. It wasn't long before his work was being noticed nationally. Waymack opened a Chicago office and began doing projects for Leo Burnett USA, one of the world's largest ad agencies at the time. In addition to ads, Waymack turned out programs for cable channels such as the History Channel, A&E, TNN and VH-1.
In February 2016, Waymack & Crew purchased M-3 Productions from CJRW and made the move downtown.
"As my company grew and expanded into other parts of the country, I realized how much of my Arkansas roots I was missing by spending a fair portion of my time outside of the state," Waymack said at the time. "Having the opportunity to acquire this world-class facility in my own backyard, featuring the very latest in technology, is a dream come true."
Waymack said he had never met Darin Gray, CJRW's CEO, until several months before the sale was announced. He said the downtown facility "put us in a position to ensure we continue to grow and expand our client base. To be able to do that from right here at home in Arkansas is great, not only for the company but also for the city and state."
When Mark Stodola was mayor, he coined the Creative Corridor moniker in hopes that the downtown portion of Main Street could become a hub for those involved in creative pursuits. In that sense, Waymack & Crew is a good fit. So is CJRW, along with advertising and communications firm Cranford Co., which has its offices a few blocks to the south. Throw in the resurrection of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and the success of the Little Rock Technology Park, and the pieces are there for a true creative neighborhood.
Here's the next step: Mayor Frank Scott must collaborate with the Downtown Little Rock Partnership and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce to find uses for the two tallest buildings on Main Street, the Boyle and Donaghey buildings. For now, they're empty eyesores that prevent the Creative Corridor from achieving its full potential.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 02/01/2020