Widening U.S. 62 through Green Forest could require tearing down 15 historic buildings, according to the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.
But some residents of this Carroll County city said the alternative could be worse - bypassing Green Forest altogether.
“We’re one of the main routes between Eureka Springs and Branson, so we get tons of tourists that go between Eureka and Branson,” said Rob Kerby. “The very idea of them being routed around us is scary.”
Kerby owns The Country Rooster, a cafe and antique store on U.S. 62, which is also Main Street in Green Forest. Kerby said his 110-year-old,sandstone-block building could be one of those facing demolition.
About 10,000 vehicles pass through Green Forest every day on U.S. 62, encountering two stop lights along the way, according to an environmental assessment done last year by the Highway Department. By 2023, the number of daily vehicles could be as high as13,300.
The department wants to widen a 3-mile section of U.S. 62 to five lanes through downtown Green Forest or construct a bypass north or south of the city of 2,761 residents. Currently, the highway through downtown is two or three lanes wide depending on the section. U.S. 62 is four lanes wide east of Green Forest and two lanes west of the city.
The cost would vary from $25.8 million to $31.9 million to build a bypass from 3.5 to 4.5 miles long, according to the assessment. To widen U.S. 62 to five lanes through the middle of Green Forest would cost $29.7 million.
Another alternative is to do nothing, but the traffic congestion in Green Forest will just get worse, according to the study.
Kerby said residents don’t want downtown Green Forest to suffer like other bypassed towns, including Hindsville in Madison County and Omaha in Boone County.
“With the U.S. 412 bypass of Hindsville, they’re in big trouble,” he said. “Cafes, antique stores, things like that there no longer have that life blood of tourist traffic. Now you have to hope tourists see the sign and take that turn to downtown, but what are the chances especially if they’re in a rush? We just don’t want to see that same fate.”
SACRIFICE TOWN
About 100 people turned out during the first hour of a three-hour public meeting Thursday on the subject at Green Forest School’s alumnicenter.
Green Forest Mayor Charlie Reece said he wants the highway through town to be widened but only to four lanes. That way, buildings wouldn’t have to be torn down.
At the meeting Thursday, Reece said a Highway Department representative told him four-lane roads in cities weren’t “the standard anymore.”
“It would have to be five,” Reece said. “I asked why even pursue this, why even do it, and they said they were looking to provide better transportation to Eureka Springs because it’s a leading tourist town in the state. So they will sacrifice one town for another.”
Businessman Bob Tanner agreed with the mayor on the four-lane option.
“They don’t have to take out the old buildings,” he said “They can four-lane it.”
Tanner said a bypass “is going to kill us.”
“We’re going to fight it,” he said. “We want it to go through town.”
Ruby Jordan, public involvement section head with the Highway Department, said, “What I would tell the mayor and anybody else is make your comments known in writing.”
The environmental assessment is a working document, and plans could change, Jordan said.
After the Highway Department reviews public comments and decides on an alternative, a public meeting will be held on the design to see what people think about it. A final decision could be made before the end of the year, Jordan said.
Kerby said about half of the buildings in downtown Green Forest are vacant now. The city, which has a colorful history, has been struggling through the recession.
Green Forest was originally named Scott’s Prairie.But city leaders decided that Erik the Red had a good idea when he named the icy island Greenland in an attempt to attract settlers. So they changed Scott’s Prairie to Green Forest in 1895 to make it sound more appealing, said Kerby, a former president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce.
“There’s no forest, and there’s not a prairie either,” he said. “But we’ve been Green Forest ever since.”
Green Forest was home to pioneer television evangelist Lester Sumrall and the birthplace of Helen Gurley Brown, who was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine from 1965 to 1997.
The city was devastated by tornadoes in 1927 and 1937, but residents kept rebuilding.
Tyson Foods Inc. is the largest employer in Green Forest, with two plants and about 4,000 employees.
RELOCATIONS
Widening the highway through Green Forest would result in 52 business relocations and 14 residential relocations, according to the environmental assessment. That would include 15 buildings either on or eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Kerby has suggested an alternate proposal making Main Street one way heading east and Olive Street, to the north of Main, one way heading west. That would preserve the buildings between the two streets.
“They gave us a little bit of hope basically that if enough people promoted the Olive Street split, that it’s a possibility,” Kerby said during the meeting Thursday.
The Highway Department conducted a survey last fall that indicated 6 percent to 8 percent of revenue to downtown businesses came from out-of-town visitors.
But Reece said that’s a significant amount.
“That 6 to 8 percent is typically your profit margin,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “So that’s a big deal for a small business.”
Reece, who ran a restaurant called Charlie’s on U.S. 62, said 50 percent of his business came from people who lived outside the city. Reece said that may have been becausethe menu offered home cooking and some upscale items such as crab legs.
“I got a lot of people from Harrison, Eureka and Berryville coming over to eat,” Reece said. “We got a lot of passing-through traffic from Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.”
He closed the restaurant Dec. 1 after 1 1/2 years in business. Reece said he was tired of working 80-hour weeks.
Eldon Shrock, owner of Das Butcher Haus, said he likes the southern bypass idea. That could send the bypass by his business, which is west of Green Forest. The city would grow toward the west if the bypass tied into existing U.S. 62 out there, Shrock said.
A bypass on the north side would have too many obstacles to overcome, including two cemeteries, Glenwood and Pickens, said Reece.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/22/2012