THAT’S BUSINESS

Well, do tell - a hotel for Main Street in LR

It was the worst-kept secret in Little Rock.

For months, the word on the street was that a hotel would be put in the Boyle Building at Main Street and Capitol Avenue.

As you know, constant reader, on Monday at 10 a.m. what’s left of the veneer of secrecy will be stripped away.

It won’t be exactly a David Copperfield moment - a hotel appears from thin air after the cloak is snatched away.

The Chi Hotel Group has set up a news conference at that corner.

Of course, there is many a slip ’twixt the cup and lip. But I don’t think so this time.

Almost as certain is the brand of the hotel.

Aloft, a modern hotel that appeals especially to the under 35s, will be it. Not officially yet, but highly likely.

And, as has been said in this space, that will be a nifty complement for the Main Street Lofts, with their converted, urban look that will fit the understated second-decade 21st-century-style decor and attitude of the Aloft.

Why yet another hotel downtown? This makes the sixth built or planned in the past decade. Good question. Developers are betting that it’s not one too many.

Little Rock is growing, and, yeah, maturing. Hotels are a barometer for the attractiveness of a city. Obviously, more and more visitors are coming to Little Rock, for tourism as well as business.

Here’s more evidence of the latter.

Ever hear of Expeditors International? Not likely.

The Seattle-based company, which started in 1979 as an importer of goods from the Far East, recently opened a two-person office in the Regions Bank Building downtown.

A Fortune 500 company, it employs more than 13,000 in about 250 locations across six continents.

Expeditors had been attempting to service central Arkansas out of Memphis. But it just couldn’t keep up with the growth of business in Little Rock.

Is there a connection between the FedEx terminal and distribution center to be built here - reported first in this paper just the other day?

Nice try, but no cigar.

Memphis-based FedEx, as the constant reader of this paper knows, was founded in Little Rock, but moved within a couple of years to the Bluff City.

Memphis was in an expansive mode long before that - vaguely renaming its region the mid-South because it sounds bigger, like the Midwest. It had been more-accurately called the Tri-State area forever. It would be difficult to prove that Memphis, with its city government finances in a mess, is as aggressive and attractive these days. Is there a vacuum that Little Rock is taking advantage of?

Little Rock’s history decidedly would have been different had it not been for the loss of FedEx. With its 31,500 employees in Memphis alone, it is a global behemoth, the kind of beast you want in your town.

But that was long ago and far away.

Arkansas - which is much bigger than Little Rock, we admit - exported goods worth $7.5 billion in 2013 compared with $5.2 billion in 2010.

Civilian aviation is by far the biggest exporter, accounting for $1.8 billion in 2013, more than doubling agriculture in all its aspects, which totaled about $700 million in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That aviation figure includes Dassault Falcon business jets, which are finished out in Little Rock.

But those products fly themselves.

Still there are about 180 companies and between 9,000 and 10,000 employees in Arkansas’ aerospace industry (not including the Defense Department manufacturers).

They make parts that do need to be moved along.

“We’re a travel agent for freight,” said Kimberly Lovell,manager of Expeditors’ mid-Atlantic region.

There is a slight link between the proposed distribution center and truck terminal and Expeditors. It sometimes uses FedEx, Lovell said.

“We’re a nonasset-based company, which means we don’t have trucks and planes,” she added.

The Memphis office employs 60, an indication that the Little Rock office stands to grow.

If you have a tip, call Jack Weatherly at (501) 378-3518 or email him at [email protected]

Business, Pages 79 on 04/13/2014

Upcoming Events