It was one of those holidays that mainly benefit bankers and government employees (George Washington's birthday, to be exact), and the streets of downtown Little Rock were empty. After breakfast at the Capital Hotel, I walked to the offices of the Little Rock Regional Chamber for what had been billed as a major announcement.
The word "major" wasn't just hype this time. Instead, the event was about a forward-thinking project that will change the face of downtown Little Rock and be a source of pride for all Arkansans. It was announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded a $2 million planning grant for the city of Little Rock to design a deck park over Interstate 30 between Sixth Street and Ninth Street.
If you've ever experienced Klyde Warren Park in downtown Dallas, you have a sense of what a great deck park can do for a neighborhood. On a larger scale, there's the High Line in New York City.
This park--with interstate traffic flowing underneath--will connect the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts on one side of the interstate with the Clinton Center, the Heifer International campus and the emerging East Village on the other side. Once Lyon College opens dental and veterinary schools on the Heifer campus, almost 1,000 additional people (students, faculty, staff) will spend their days in the area. This will be their park.
Guests at the high-rise Holiday Inn and Comfort Inn, which face a busy interstate, will soon look down on a park. Hotel business will increase. Property values will soar at the Quapaw Tower, a venerable condominium complex whose residents will look down at the park on one side and the arts museum on the other side.
I know what you're saying: "This is only $2 million for a project that will cost $100 million or more. How do we know it will happen?"
I worked in government long enough to know that they're not going to spend $2 million to plan something that's never constructed. The park will be built through a combination of federal, state and city funds. The U.S. Department of Transportation will award annual construction grants for such projects across the country during the next four years.
The term "game-changer" is overused. But this is truly a game-changer. The deck park will complement a nearby 18.9-acre urban park. Space for the larger park, which borders the River Market District and the main campus of the Central Arkansas Library System, was created by the 30 Crossing project. Interested parties already are meeting on a regular basis to make plans for that park.
Two new parks, the arts museum (housed in a world-class facility that has received international coverage already), the dental school and the veterinary school should lead to additional residential complexes, along with more restaurants, bars and retailers. Things suddenly look favorable for downtown.
Plans for a deck park were unveiled at a public meeting in 2016. At the time, it seemed like a pipe dream. Work on the 30 Crossing project began in 2020. In March 2022, members of the nonprofit economic development group Fifty for the Future voted to appropriate $125,000 to hire the engineering firm Garver to craft the grant application.
One thing Little Rock has going for it is that state Sen. Clarke Tucker is a close friend of Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary. They were classmates at Harvard. U.S. Sen. John Boozman, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and U.S. Rep. French Hill have also pushed the project at the federal level.
"This will unify our city," said Dr. Dean Kumpuris, a longtime Little Rock city director who has focused many of his efforts on downtown. "It's an opportunity to move forward."
Mayor Frank Scott Jr. and others spoke of how Interstate 630 divided the city and destroyed neighborhoods. The bridge park will connect rather than divide.
"This project transcends those dividing lines we've had in Little Rock through the years," Tucker said. "Rather than erecting yet another barrier, we're tearing barriers down."
Republicans and Democrats. Blacks and whites. All seemed united and happy on that Monday morning. Such unity is refreshing in the current political environment. The deck park is bringing us together before it's even built. Scott, the city's first elected Black mayor, spoke of the "footprint of segregation" left by Interstate 630. He said that now the focus is on "how our city continues to unite, grow and transform."
Jay Chesshir, who heads the Little Rock Regional Chamber, said people across the country are starting to notice new and planned developments such as the art museum, urban parks, veterinary school and dental school. He thinks these projects will lead to significant private-sector investment downtown.
"These things are beginning to attract attention," he said. "People see what we are doing as a community, and they want to invest."
The $2 million grant is part of the federal Reconnecting Communities pilot program. Grants are specifically for projects that reconnect areas that had been separated by the original construction of the interstate system. The city was a co-applicant with the Arkansas Department of Transportation and Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods. Kathy Wells, the coalition president, gathered letters of support from downtown residents and other stakeholders.
Scott says the process was "built on relationships." Isn't it remarkable what can be accomplished when there's unity rather than division along racial and party lines?
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.