When construction of the new Arkansas Arts Center is completed next year, all that will remain of the old building will be the facade on the north entrance and the theater with a renovated interior.
The scope of the work, a welcome project for dozens of Arkansas businesses during a prolonged pandemic, has been an eye-opener for the center's staff, and for benefactors.
Even Warren Stephens was unprepared for the construction site that he and his wife, Harriett Stephens, helped create with a fundraising campaign. It's the grandest overhaul of the institution since it was established in 1937 as the Museum of Fine Arts.
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Stephens, chairman and chief executive of the Little Rock investment firm Stephens Inc., said he believes other people may not understand the true scale of the project underway behind a blacked-out fence at East Ninth and Commerce streets in downtown Little Rock.
"People think we're remodeling," Stephens said. "Technically, I guess that's the correct term to use. But it's so much bigger than that. It's just incredible. I was really blown away by it. The city of Little Rock and the people who've given are getting their money's worth. It's going to be pretty spectacular."
Ground was broken Oct. 1, 2019, well before the coronavirus pandemic chilled the state's economy. The virus led to a spike in unemployment and forced the temporary closure of many businesses.
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At the time, the $128 million makeover was "one of the most significant construction projects currently underway in the state of Arkansas," said Jake Nabholz, president of Nabholz Construction, one of three construction managers overseeing the project. The others are Doyne Construction, which is based in Little Rock, and Pepper Construction, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in museum projects.
With 150 workers on-site daily and spending totaling about $4.5 million per month, "a project of this magnitude helps stabilize the state's construction community, especially during these uncertain times," he said.
His company has been doing work totaling $7.5 million since May on a new plastics production facility for HMS Manufacturing Co. of Troy, Mich., which is expected to employ 90 workers within two years.
The two projects are vastly different in scale and scope, but the city needs both, Nabholz said.
The arts center project is designed to invite the community in, "where a project like HMS is focused on maximizing production and output per square foot," he said. "But what people have got to remember, too, is they're very similar in that both are essential to central Arkansas' growth. Culture relies on industry for resources to support, but you have to have cultural projects like the Arkansas Arts Center to attract and retain workers for our area."
The arts center project is one of several keeping Nabholz and the local construction industry busy. They include high-profile casino projects, the Amazon fulfillment center and the new $100 million Southwest High School.
A survey by Associated General Contractors, the nation's leading association for the construction industry, found that Arkansas ranked 6th nationally in construction employment growth last month.
"I believe that," Nabholz said. "The market is still busy right now. There may not be a lot of new work right now, but the market is still busy working off existing backlogs and things like that.
"I think what's got us a little anxious is what happens in six months, nine months from now, because in our business we have to be procuring work right now because it's not going to start for six or nine months."
Since last fall, construction has started on a huge fulfillment center at the Port of Little Rock for Amazon. Expected to be completed next year, its price tag is believed to exceed $100 million. Otherwise, only casino construction exceeds the Arkansas Arts Center's project value.
"It's ... a distribution center," Stephens said of the Amazon project. "It's not going to have the intricacies of our mechanical. We've got to keep temperature and humidity control throughout the building. I'm not saying they're not going to be concerned about that, because they are. The museum standards are going to be a heck of a lot higher. Of course, the lighting and the glass."
STATE CONTRACTORS
An arts center news release recently catalogued some of the Arkansas contractors involved in the project.
"It's just a very broad-based group of subcontractors and suppliers that are going to get a lot of business at a time when they most likely don't have a lot of business," Stephens said.
Rogers & Dillon Demolition & Excavating of Mayflower completed the demolition and excavation work.
Steel from WW/AFCO in Little Rock and C&F Steel Erectors of Benton is being used to build the structure for the two-story gallery and collections space.
The glass for a balcony designed to marry the 1937 part of the building to the contemporary design of the newer spaces is being supplied by Glass Erectors Inc. of Mabelvale.
New elevator shafts are being placed by Little Rock-based Otis Elevator Co.
The mechanical improvements -- designed to make the building more energy-efficient while providing the atmospheric conditions to safely house the collection of 14,000 artworks from around the world -- is being performed by Action Mechanical Inc. of Barling and Middleton Heat & Air of Bryant.
As work proceeds, other state contractors that will be involved include Custom Mill Work, Covington Roofing, Roberts-McNutt, Royal Overhead Door, PC Hardware, Oaks Brothers Inc., White River Flooring, McCormick Industrial Abatement Services and Smith Underground.
The work of the Arkansas contractors has been made possible by the city, which raised $31.2 million from the sale of hotel tax-based bonds for the project, Stephens said. Gov. Asa Hutchinson contributed $5 million in state funds.
And virtually all the private donations have come from Arkansans, he said.
"There's a lot of government entities involved in this, and people deserve and need to see who's getting that money and the fact that 90 percent of it is going to Arkansas contractors and suppliers is significant," Stephens said. "We also want to show that this is an Arkansas project."
FORTUNATE TIMING
Victoria Ramirez, the top executive at the arts center, said the organization is lucky that a project of this magnitude, expanding the footprint of the building from 45,000 to 137,000 square feet, started when it did.
Nationwide, the coronavirus's effect on arts and culture has been profound. Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit organization focused on promoting the arts, estimated the pandemic has had a $9.1 billion economic impact on the sector. More than 62,000 employees have been laid off, and almost 50,000 people have been furloughed.
Ramirez said the arts center and entities like it are "social organizations," and require visitors to their galleries and students in their arts classes. Lost attendance is estimated to total more than $88 million, according to Americans for the Arts.
The local arts center hasn't been immune. It furloughed 15 employees in April.
"We've been really fortunate in the timing of this project because we were able to get fairly far with our campaign" before the pandemic hit, she said.
Construction is expected to be completed early next year. It will take another year to move and set up the art before the center re-opens in 2022, which will mark the 40th year since the Stephenses began volunteering at the arts center as newlyweds.
"I hope we will get back to some of that, because for us ... that was the place to be," Warren Stephens said. "And it just fueled our interest in and love of art."
The reimagined arts center will work similar magic on future generations, he said.
"It's going to be a really significant moment," Stephens said. "Not just for Little Rock. Not just for Arkansas. We always said the Arkansas Arts Center has a world-class art collection. But now we're going to have a world-class building ... to showcase it. That's going to help. It's going to help Arkansas. It's going to help the region."