Fayetteville squared

They came from across the state on an April Friday morning, gathering in a largely empty building on the downtown Fayetteville square. When David and Barbara Pryor call, Arkansans tend to respond.

Board members of the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History had been asked by the Pryors to tour the center’s new home in the East Square Plaza Building, commonly known as the Bank of America Building though it was long ago abandoned by the bank. After working out an agreement with longtime university supporters Ted and Leslie Belden of Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas is taking over a space of almost 100,000 square feet. That’s about the same amount of space as Old Main. The Pryor Center’s mission is to collect, preserve and share Arkansas history.

The Pryor Center, along with the other plans UA administrators have for the East Square Plaza Building, will bring life to a side of the square that has been underutilized in recent years. Despite the rapid growth of Northwest Arkansas, a lot of Arkansans have always had the nagging feeling that the Fayetteville square isn’t living up to its potential. There hasn’t been the around-the-clock life that can be found on the downtown square of another university city-Oxford, Miss.

Granted, Fayetteville’s nearby Dickson Street is awash in activity. Northwest Arkansas is now a sprawling metropolitan area stretching north to Missouri, while there’s little else around Oxford. Still, it has seemed the Fayetteville square could be so much more.

Each Saturday morning from April through November, the Fayetteville Farmers Market brings hundreds of people to the square. And on the first Thursday of each month from March through October, the square is transformed into an arts district featuring music, street performers and the work of more than 40 visual artists during what’s known as First Thursday Fayetteville. For the square to live up to its potential seven daysa week, however, several additional pieces must be put into place. One such piece is the adaptive reuse of the East Square Plaza Building, which is now occurring.

The next important step will be to find a use for the Old Post Office Building, which stands in the middle of the square. It was reported in January that a buyer might take possession of the building this spring. By February, though, it was reported that the 1911 building was still on the market. The Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission had tried to purchase the Old Post Office for $730,000 in March 2012, butthat offer was rejected by owner Ron Bumpass. The building had most recently been occupied by a restaurant called Urban Table, which closed in January 2009.

The landmark building served as a U.S. post office from 1911-63. It was to be demolished in 1974 as part of an urban renewal plan, but a group of Fayetteville residents began a petition drive to preserve the structure. They succeeded in having it placed on the National Register of Historic Places in August of that year. A project began in 1977 to transform the building into a restaurant and club. It has housed everything from the Hog City Diner to Stogie’s Fine Cigars and Tobacco.

One positive step for the neighborhood came last fall when the 15-story hotel that had first opened as a Hilton in 1981 reopened as the Chancellor Hotel after a $15 million renovation. The Hilton had given way to the more downscale Radisson in 2001, then the Cosmopolitan in 2006. With each change, the hotel lost more of its luster. By the time it fell into receivership in 2010, six of the 15 floors were unusable. Developer Ike Thrash of Hattiesburg, Miss., joined forces with construction executive Sam Alley of Little Rock to bring new life to the hotel.

Additional retail and entertainment options have come downtown in the wake of the Chancellor’s opening and the news that the East Square Plaza Building will be given new life. Fans of the Fayetteville square hope that even more upscale retailers and restaurateurs will be attracted to the square and the streets that feed into it. Eventually the neighborhood perhaps could support a boutique hotel brand to complement the larger Chancellor.

Earlier this year, it was announced in Oxford that the city’s Downtown Inn-originally a Holiday Inn built in the 1960s-would be transformed into the Hotel Indigo Oxford. “The Oxford Square is one of the country’s finest treasures,” developer LukeChamblee said. “From the beginning of the design phase, the vision that we were going after was turn-of-the-century old Chicago architecture. We believe this look has withstood the test of time. Wewanted to avoid designing the latest trends as those go in and out of style. … We have approached this project with the understanding that it will be here 100 years from now and the architecture will never go out of style, much like the Oxford square.”

The Fayetteville square is also a treasure. Though there are bookstores on Dickson Street, a quality independent bookstore along the lines of Oxford’s Square Books, which could host regular signings and lectures, would be a key addition. The biggest piece in the puzzle for now is finding a proper use for the Old Post Office. Those who love the square have their fingers crossed.

Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 05/01/2013

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