Rogers City Officials To Meet

Companies Vying For Downtown Planning Plan

— Four development companies are scheduled to meet with a city committee today at City Hall. One of the companies will be selected to design the downtown improvement plan, city officials said.

At A Glance:

Committee Meeting And Members

The committee is composed of: Greg Hines, mayor; Nathan Beckwell, city project engineer; David Hook, city facilities development manager; Mark Kruger, alderman: Derrel Smith, city senior planner; Lance Jobe, city engineer; Kelsey Kreaher, planning department; and Raymond Burns, president and executive director of the Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce. The closed meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. today with each firm getting an hour to make a presentation. The meeting should be over by 3 p.m.

Source: Staff Report

“We need to increase the downtown footprint, rezone some areas, create mixed uses for downtown such as apartments with retail or offices on the first floor. That’s just some of our goals we want to achieve,” said Greg Hines, mayor.

There are eight members on the committee, some from the city staff, the mayor, an alderman and the president of the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce. Proposals from the firms are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. with each company getting an hour to make its presentation, Hines said.

The four finalists are Jacobs Engineering, working with HR&A and Crafton Tull; Bennett Benner Pettit, working with Hight-Jackson Associates; Development Strategies; and Gateway Planning. Each company prepared a request for qualifications that outlined strengths and listed other similar projects performed by the companies.

“We build on the authentic history of what’s already there,” said Scott Polikov, president of Gateway Planning, a Dallas-based firm.

Gateway has researched Northwest Arkansas for several months to get a feel for each town and the region, Polikov said.

“We look at the Rogers project as a regional project, in that whatever we can do for Rogers will be good for the region. We won’t be trying to take anything away from another city in the region, but build on what Rogers has and put together a plan that is a good fit,” Polikov said.

One of the projects included in the Gateway Planning proposal was the McKinney, Texas, downtown redevelopment plan. McKinney has a population of 140,828, according to a Census Bureau estimate.

“They were very easy to work with,” said Don Day, a McKinney alderman.

The original plan was developed in 2008, but Gateway continued to work with McKinney for the next couple of years, Day said.

“We’re still using the plan they developed, it hasn’t gone out of date,” Day said.

The Bennett company worked with the city of Fort Worth, Texas, on the Trinity River Vision Authority to create Trinity Uptown, an 800-acre waterfront development.

“It was a comprehensive plan that created a residential, business and trails on a peninsula in the river,” said Matt Oliver, a public information officer for the River Authority. Bennett Benner Pettit is located in Fort Worth.

“Working with the Bennett firm was a very positive experience. They created a mixed-use development that changed the area immensely,” Oliver said.

Learning what the issues are and determining where the business interests and city interest converge and diverge are the first step Development Strategies takes in any development plan, said Bob Lewis, one of the owners of the company.

“We need to find out if everyone is on the same page, and if they aren’t, what can we do to close the gap between the two sides,” Lewis said.

Company officials are aware that most of development in Rogers is on the west side of town. Lewis said part of the company’s job will be to develop a downtown plan that provides an alternative to the west side development.

“We want to create a mix of residential, business and office space for downtown. It must be something unique that attracts people to the area to live, work and play,” Lewis said.

Jacobs is a construction service company that includes all aspects of architecture and engineering. HR&A deals with mixed-use, neighborhood downtown and regional development projects. Crafton Tull is a multidisciplinary firm offering planning, architecture, engineering and landscape architecture, according to a proposal submitted to the city.

The Little Rock Crafton Tull office recently was involved in creating a community plan for Maumelle.

“It was a very detailed, comprehensive plan that covered the whole nine yards,” said Joshua Clausen, Maumelle city clerk and treasurer.

“The City Council approved the plan a week ago and we are ready to move forward. The Planning Commission is scheduled to begin looking at land use zoning next week, Clausen said.

The public was involved in the planning from the beginning. The majority of residents were interested in traffic problems and making sure Maumelle remains a family community, Clausen said.

“It’s tough for a town of our size — about 20,000 people — because we have always been a bedroom community to Little Rock and we don’t have the business base other cities of our size would normally have,” Clausen said.

City officials, businesses and residents involved in structuring the plan were pleased with the way Crafton Tull handled the project, Clausen said.

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