Tech-park location supporters speak out

Consultant report has holes, they say

Friday, January 18, 2013

— Supporters of the three remaining sites under consideration for the proposed Little Rock Technology Park say they’ve provided information that answers most of the concerns from an outside consultant who has said none of the sites is ideal.

Charles Dilks, a consultant hired by the Little Rock Technology Park Authority Board who is considered an expert in technology and research parks, advised the board in a letter earlier this month to move forward with caution because none of the sites has all of the qualities necessary for success.

The letter also listed some concerns about each of the sites, including demolition costs and potential topographical problems.

The owners and advocates for the three sites weighed in on those concerns this week, saying many have been addressed in presentations and materials not seen by Dilks.

At least one owner wrote a letter to the authority board addressing the conditions that Dilks wrote in his letter might call for exclusion of that site.

“Mr. Dilks certainly raises some fair and interesting questions, but none of them rise to the level of excluding this site,” Rett Tucker wrote in his letter advocating for the downtown site.

“It is apparent he isn’t considering the many intangibles that need to be weighed in your deliberations. The amenities in the neighborhood and the opportunities for collaboration with nearby stakeholders are extremely promising.”

The three remaining sites are:

About 10 acres between East Sixth and East Eighth streets and between College and Collins streets.

About 35 undeveloped acres on John Barrow Road near the intersection of Interstate 630.

About 84 acres consisting of several parcels at South University and Asher avenues.

The authority board voted in December to ask Dilks to evaluate the sites from an investment perspective and to identify anything that an engineer should evaluate before the board makes a decision. Board members said earlier this month that they plan to ask Dilks to recommend one of the sites, although the board will have the final say in what site is picked.

The proposed park is a partnership among the city of Little Rock, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The plan for the park is to attract private companies and public investment to further develop research being done at the city’s higher-education and medical institutions.

For the downtown site, Dilks raised concerns about whether land would be available for future expansion, how the board would address the nearby historic Woodruff House, the cost of demolishing existing buildings, environmental issues, accessibility to nearby Interstate 30, residential zoning issues and whether the site has adequate utility capacity.

Tucker said in his letter that he has reached out to about nine owners of land adjacent to the site, seven of whom said they would make their property available if needed and two who were still discussing the possibility as of the letter’s date.

“This issue is not an issue,” he wrote. “Mr. Dilks’ assessment that it is his ‘expectation’ that ‘contiguous land is not available’ would seem to be unfounded and based only on his uninformed speculation.”

Tucker said a group of advocates has a condition assessment report for the historic Woodruff House, which needs extensive renovation, but he noted that the house’s land did not have to be included in the project.

He said the group has obtained a preliminary demolition assessment for the four buildings on the core property ranging from $125,000 to $150,000, and noted that it is unlikely that there is asbestos in the buildings because of when they were built.

The letter also points out that access to Interstate 630 is available by traveling along College Street, with no stoplights or traffic concerns. Tucker wrote that rezoning shouldn’t be an issue because there are no residential homes or residents being displaced in the site.

Pamela Brown Courtney, the owner of the John Barrow site, answered Dilks’ concerns via e-mail this week.

Dilks asked the engineer to consider what site plans might work with the topography of that property, which slopes from the sides into a lake at its center. He also asked how costly it would be to install utilities on the vacant property, how easy would it be to access major highways and whether there would be an issue with zoning or height restrictions that would hinder the park’s design.

Courtney said in her e-mail that the board should use the lake and the topography as an asset, not something to overcome. She said other research parks have designed recycled water irrigation systems for their parks, for example.

She also wrote that given the potential investment and job development associated with the proposed technology park, the city would likely be willing to approve any necessary zoning or height variations. She noted that access to highways leading east, west, north and south were within a five-minute drive of the potential entrance to the park and that many nearby arterial roads could be used as alternative routes.

Courtney addressed the utility concerns at length.

“With new multi-million dollar developments a couple of blocks or less away from the John Barrow site, it is highly unlikely that tying the infrastructure into a Technology Park on John Barrow Road would be extremely costly,” she wrote.

“Those new developments include an upcoming expansion to be built across the street at the Sid McMath Library, which is already in the city improvement tax voters passed in 2011; to the north, about two blocks away, Second Baptist is building a new multi-million dollar sanctuary and Parkview high school is next door to the south. The property [also] consists of improvements from previously existing buildings.”

For the University Avenue site, Dilks raised concerns about the U shape of the property and whether the two sides of the site could be connected.

He asked about alternative configurations for phased development, issues with environmental factors tied to past uses of the property, traffic issues from the nearby busy intersection of University and Asher avenues, and about any problems with demolishing buildings, including the events center.

Ron Copeland, executive director of the University District Partnership, said the University Avenue site is the only one that addresses Dilks’ major concern from the letter, “close proximity to the sponsoring institutions.”

“Our site is right across the street from the [UALR]. It is immediately adjacent,” Copeland said.

“Ideally, he’s thinking it needs to be close to all three, and in our presentation we addressed the site’s proximity to [UAMS] and to Children’s Hospital. We think the opportunity to build the park close without displacing residents outweighs the need to have the park central to all three. And there are ancillary benefits to being close to UALR - access to campus facilities, patrol by the UALR public safety department, the existing infrastructure for broadband access.”

Copeland said the supporters’ presentation to the authority board in November showed the possibility of connecting the two sides via an access road and entrance way. He said the same presentation showed step by step how to develop the property in phases.

He said he didn’t know of any previous land uses that would require environmental mitigation but that an environmental assessment would have to be part of the development. He said all of the buildings included in the proposal are open for demolition, depending on the leases if they’re occupied by businesses, including the event center, which does not have an historic designation.

Copeland also said the nearby arterial roads would be a benefit for the park.

“If you go back to the original assessment, the board wanted access to arterial roadways,” he said. “Our site has access to all three, Mabelvale Pike, Asher Avenue and University Avenue. We see that as an asset of access and with multiple entrance ways, there would be no issue with egress or ingress.”

The authority board has asked Crafton Tull and Associates to complete a preliminary engineering report on each site before the board’s next meeting scheduled for Feb. 13.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/18/2013