FAYETTEVILLE — Mayor Lioneld Jordan has identified three potential locations for a planned Dickson Street parking deck, none of them on the city-owned lot at West Avenue.
AT A GLANCE
Parking Deck Committee
Members of the mayor’s parking deck committee:
Carl Collier — Owner, Collier’s Drug Store
Steve Clark — President and CEO, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce
Ethel Goodstein Murphree — Associate dean, University of Arkansas’ Fay Jones School of Architecture
Stephen Smith — Communications professor, University of Arkansas
Marilyn Heifner — Executive director, Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission
Sharon Waters — Parking and telecommunications manager, city of Fayetteville
Andrea Foren — Purchasing agent, city of Fayetteville; owner, Maxine’s Tap Room
Brian Swain — Administrator, Central United Methodist Church
Amy White — Owner, Something Urban
Source: Staff Report
The locations — a paid lot south of Grub’s Bar & Grille, another paid lot south of the Kingfish bar and the current site of the Walton Arts Center’s administrative offices — will serve as starting points for discussions by a committee assigned by the mayor to begin looking at designs for the deck.
Jordan said he selected the three spots because they would not involve condemning privately owned homes or businesses.
He also said a Dickson Street parking deck is one component of his long-term plan for the city’s entertainment district along with a desire for more available hotel rooms and an expanded Walton Arts Center.
“Everything hooks up to the vision that I want for the downtown area,” Jordan said.
The parking deck would be financed using proceeds from the city’s paid parking system, which launched in August 2010.
City officials expect to collect nearly $900,000 in parking fees and citations this year.
After covering operating expenses, paying back a portion of the $700,000 internal city loan used to purchase parking equipment and subsidizing programming at the arts center, the city anticipates being able to devote about $230,000 a year toward a roughly $5 million bond issue to finance a deck, according to Paul Becker, Fayetteville’s finance director.
Becker said the city will be able to increase bond payments once the parking equipment is fully paid off. That’s expected to happen in four years.
Becker emphasized discussions with the city’s bond counsel, Stephens Inc., are preliminary, but, he, Jordan and Dennis Hunt, senior vice president at Stephens, said bonds could be issued by the end of the year.
“We’re going to have to look and see what we can safely commit and how much that would generate,” Becker said.
All three locations would allow for a roughly 300-space, five-story deck with “liner” space on the ground floor that could be leased to businesses, Jordan said.
While Jordan’s concept wouldn’t require taking private property, at least one longstanding business could be affected, depending on the Walton Arts Center’s plans to build a new 600-seat theater.
Jordan said the new theater could be attached to the current arts center building, replacing Grub’s Bar & Grille at the northeast corner of Spring Street and West Avenue.
Grub’s, which opened in August 2001, operates out of a city-owned building, but its lease is with the arts center. Grub’s owner, Jason Collins, said he just renewed his lease in August for another year.
Collins said he hasn’t been made aware of any plans for the building he leases. A decision to open a second location in north Fayetteville was not based on plans for an expanded arts center or parking deck, Collins said.
“We have a great relationship with the Walton Arts Center,” he said. “Hopefully we can keep that going.”
Collins said he would look for other locations in the entertainment district if circumstances forced him to close Grub’s on West Avenue.
Jodi Beznoska, vice president of communications at the arts center, declined to elaborate on the center’s expansion plans, but she did say the Grub’s building was one option.
Beznoska said more concrete plans will be spelled out after a group of national consultants finishes identifying all user groups’ needs later this month or next and an architect is retained for the project. She said arts center officials are excited that discussions about a parking deck are moving forward.
Other Dickson Street businesses owners gave the mayor’s plans mixed reviews.
“I find it difficult for the city to invest more money in a parking deck when we have had such a struggle with the paid parking over the past year and the uncertainty of what is going to happen at (the Walton Arts Center),” said Archie Schaffer, who owns Kingfish on School Avenue.
Julie Sill, who owns the Hog Haus Brewing Co. on Dickson Street, said she is happy to see the main Walton Arts Center lot catty-corner from her business will not be destroyed to make way for a parking deck.
“That’s our festival lot,” Sill said. “That’s what brings things to Fayetteville to give it its different feel. If we go and put a high-rise deck in right there on these four corners, it’s going to feel boxy. I think it’s going to take away from the effect and the feel of what we get.”
One missing piece of the parking deck conversation is where plans stand for a boutique hotel, that, as proposed, would remove 40 spaces in the northeast corner of the 293-space Walton Arts Center lot.
John Davidson, who approached the city with plans for an up to six-story, 75-room hotel earlier this year, did not return a voice message seeking comment.
Jordan said he had not heard back from Davidson since city officials sent him a revised lease agreement for the hotel in early August.
“I don’t know why he hasn’t gotten back to me,” Jordan said.
The mayor said his parking deck committee should complete its work in roughly three months.
The Fayetteville City Council would have to approve issuing bonds before any work on a parking deck could begin.