LR has plan to draw the arts downtown

City presents concept for corridor

Hernesto Gomez of Scott Construction helps build a fence Tuesday that encircles an entire block of Main Street where a renovation project is under way.
Hernesto Gomez of Scott Construction helps build a fence Tuesday that encircles an entire block of Main Street where a renovation project is under way.

— Little Rock officials want to make a home for the arts in the center of the city’s downtown.

The city unveiled its concept Tuesday for an arts corridor along Main Street, developed to revitalize the area with living spaces and work spaces, along with attractions for pedestrians.

City officials hope they can parlay the changes into further economic development and a renewed population of urban dwellers.

A year-long planning process funded by a $150,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts culminated in the design presented to property owners, arts groups and others Tuesday. The plan includes gateways and public hubs in the 300, 400, 500 and 600 blocks of Main Street.

Designers and developers said discussions have begun on attracting the city’s cultural and artistic resources into the corridor, including possibly creating a practice and office space for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra performs at Robinson Music Hall and now has an office space in the Heights neighborhood on North Tyler Street.

Other possible partners mentioned include Ballet Arkansas, the Museum School at the Arkansas Arts Center and the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, which already sits at Sixth and Main streets.

“According to the Urban Land Institute, 30 percent of the demand for housing over the next 10 years will be urban housing served by public transportation, and 22 million large suburban homes will be abandoned by 2025,” architect Stephen Luoni said.

“There’s an opportunity here. Every one of these projects took leadership, and there are going to be fights and naysayers, but keeping vision to accomplish these things is key ... We have never seen such an example for great buy-in [from the stakeholders].”

Luoni, a professor at the University of Arkansas’ School of Architecture, along with architect Marlon Blackwell, department chairman at the School of Architecture, worked with city officials to create the concept design.

Blackwell said Tuesday that the group has spent hours measuring buildings, talking to the owners of both vacant properties and buildings undergoing redevelopment, and to the arts partners they eventually hope to attract into the space.

There have been several major redevelopment announcements in the past few months that will tie into the development of the arts corridor.

Main Street Lofts LLC purchased four prominent downtown buildings last month on the 500 block of Main Street, including the Boyle Building, the MM Cohn Building, the Arkansas Building and the Annex Building.

A $900,000 no-interest loan from the Pulaski County Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund to remove hazardous materials from the structures will aid the partnership in the mixed-use retail and residential redevelopment.

In March, Doyle Rogers Co. and Moses Tucker Real Estate announced a $20 million plan to redevelop the former Blass Department Stores flagship building at 324 Main St. into 20 loft-style apartments with street-level retail space and office space.

The city also announced an Environmental Protection Agency matching grant earlier this summer to help install storm-water-filtration features, including rain gardens and tree wells, along portions of Main Street — some of which may overlap with the arts corridor.

The architects said Tuesday that private investment will be an important factor in making the corridor a vibrant place to live and work but must be partnered with public investments to create incentives.

The plan highlighted ways to revitalize the downtown area, which in recent years has emptied out early in the evening. The designs focused on making the corridor safer and more attractive for pedestrians at all hours of the day and night.

The designers broke the plan down into four phases that can be implemented in any order but that all serve as an important part of a successful design, they said.

One phase would create gateways at Third and Main streets and at Seventh and Main streets.

Those gateway designs include plans for public displays such as gardens that would make art out of the historic street lamps along Main Street. Other features could include LED displays on screens at the Repertory Theatre, cafes and seating spaces, and glassfronted stores and galleries.

At the Third Street side, KATV executives have been working with the designers to create a plan for a museum in its lobby and an open, glassfronted news studio.

The second phase would create a hub at the center of the district at the intersection of Main Street and Capitol Avenue. The designs showed mixed uses for the surrounding buildings, some of which would accentuate historic architecture and others that would include more modern designs incorporating parking inside the building, courtyards in the center of tall mixed-use buildings and clear street-level windows to promote interaction between artists who might live at the loft and work space.

While no commitment has been announced by the symphony, the plan envisions a possible practice space on that 500 block of Main Street in one recently purchased building.

“This has to feel like a place people want to be [24 hours a day, seven days a week],” Blackwell said. “Imagine leaving your office and hearing the music of the symphony in the air. That’s a presence you can’t put a dollar amount on.”

A third phase includes connecting those gateways and hubs through streetscaping, specifically through pedestrian allees. The allees — a French word for promenades with various features aimed at making high-traffic areas centered on pedestrian life — would be landscaped with environmentally friendly rain gardens and ornamental tree stands that, unlike some of the current tree species, wouldn’t hide the architecture of the street.

The last phase includes further developing public transportation. The architect said that could include making Louisiana and Scott streets into bicycle corridors, as well as using the existing bus route or restarting a streetcar line.

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola said that with development along the 500 block, some parts of the plan could come to fruition faster than others. But the city plans to pursue grants and other opportunities to make the arts corridor concept into a reality.

“Things like this don’t happen overnight; it’s really a progression,” he said. “Part of that will depend on the economics of private investment ... but there are so many partners who have worked so diligently to design this concept and provide input for what they hope to see.

“It’s really a cooperative effort of far-reaching proportions to revitalize, reinvigorate and recreate Main Street.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/19/2012

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