Winning site for tech park is downtown

The Little Rock Technology Park Authority Board voted Wednesday in favor of a downtown site for the city’s research and technology park, pushing two other finalists off the table and focusing efforts on evaluating that location.

When the seven board members ranked the three proposed sites in an effort to reach a final decision at Wednesday’s meeting, a downtown site envisioned along Main Street received four first-place votes, and the site on University Avenue where a Sears store now sits came in a close second with three first-place votes.

A site northeast of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock received no first place votes.

Board Chairman Mary Good, who voted for the Sears site as her top pick and the downtown site as her least-favorite, tried to persuade the board to continue considering both options in case the downtown site isn’t feasible or falls through.

“How do we guarantee or manage to acquire enough property down there to acquire some continuity?” Good asked. “Because all the pieces down there are very scattered and very small. So to put together some type of park arrangement is going to be very difficult in my mind.”

But Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola, who had publicly voiced his support for the downtown location before Wednesday’s vote, presented the board with a rendering - focused mainly between Capitol Avenue and Third Street - that showed the possibility of using both new and existing building space to host the technology park. Five of the buildings in the drawing face one another on Main Street.

The board unanimously voted to move forward with hiring a real-estate consultant to evaluate the yet-to be-defined area downtown and represent the board in negotiations. All options will be considered in developing the site, including using empty buildings, razing buildings and building new ones.

Jay Chesshir, a member of the board and chief executive officer of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, also made a motion that the board discuss at its next meeting the option of leasing space in that area for two years until the first tech-park building is developed. He added that getting a building designed and operational should be the board’s main focus.

“I don’t think we need to get caught up in what the end result 30 years from now will play out and look like,” he said. “I think we need to start with a building and ample property around it to be able to expand. … I think in the end, [the tech park] is not in one place.”

Board member Kevin Zaffaroni, senior vice president for Acxiom Corp.

’s information-technology outsourcing business, also didn’t see the need for the tech-park’s buildings to be in the same area. Zaffaroni said the important thing is for the board members to agree on the mission of the site. But Dickson Flake, board member and a developer with Colliers International, said he is against having the tech park scattered in separate locations.

“I can get on board with the mission, but I cannot get on board with separating the buildings. I think you are destroying the reasons why we are doing this, and that is to have the shared services and these groups stimulating each other, and each one making the whole rather than the sum of the parts. Separated physically, you are not going to accomplish that.”

Ultimately, the board members agreed that the next step is to hire a real-estate expert with experience in central Arkansas who can work with tech-park consultant Charles Dilks in deciding whether the downtown location is feasible. Afterward, the board will define a specific area where the park will be located and move forward with developing the first building.

Chesshir is intent on the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ BioVentures research incubation program moving into the first tech-park building. That program would need 45,000 square feet, Chesshir said.

“In my opinion, our first goal is to get this first building up and operational, get the ecosystem, the shared services, all that coming together with the ability to grow around it. So I think we need to focus on not just real estate. BioVentures will be moving into this building,” he said.

Voting for the downtown site as the first pick were Chesshir, Zaffaroni, C.J. Duvall and Tom Butler. Voting for the Sears site as the top pick were Good, Flake and Bob Johnson. Despite the difference in opinion, they all agreed that they’d put their full efforts toward proceeding with the downtown location and making the technology park a success.

“This is a good day,” Zaffaroni said. “The vote is 4-to-3, but we have the opportunity here to capture some momentum for Little Rock.”