Recreational vehicle drivers crossing the Interstate 30 bridge often will spot North Little Rock's Downtown Riverside RV Park and pull off to stay the night, only to find there's no room for them, manager Sheila Bullerwell said Friday.
For the city-owned RV park, created seven years ago just east of the I-30 bridge and along the Arkansas River across from the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, full or nearly full is the norm.
"They're the ones I have to work so hard to fit in," Bullerwell said of RVers without reservations. "We get at least a couple every night. When it's so full like this, it's very difficult to find spaces for people coming off the road."
Almost 4,000 RVs have parked there so far this year, each averaging almost four days per stay, making the 60 spaces with full hookups for electricity and water premium spots.
"It has been full almost every night," said Bullerwell, the RV park's on-site manager since it opened in 2008. "Maybe not completely full, but 90 percent full. Sometimes we are completely full. Like this weekend, we're completely full.
"For Memorial Day weekend, they start calling Jan. 1 for reservations. By noon Jan. 1, all the sites on the river are completely booked for that weekend."
Needing more room, the city's Advertising and Promotion Commission plans to extend the fence that's on the back side of the RV park by the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge (formerly the Rock Island Bridge) east to the city's property line, commission Executive Director Bob Major said last week. Major oversees the North Little Rock Visitors Bureau, under which the RV park falls.
The expanded area would add a minimum 10-15 spaces for RVs. Besides the 60 full hookups, another 10 spaces are available for overflow now, but those can fill up, too, Major said. Extending the fence won't interfere with public access to the Clinton bridge, he said.
There have been 3,995 reservations this year, 561 more than at the same time last year, Bullerwell said. Income is $78,450, up by $15,340 over the same period last year, she said. Through March, the RV park had 2,964 RVs from 46 states and Canada, with the average stay being 3.73 days, according to information provided to the Advertising and Promotion Commission at its meeting Tuesday.
"It's just trying to accommodate the demand we have from visitors in the area," Major said. "There are people who come in, and the regular sites are full so they'll take a temporary site for a day or two until they can move into a full hookup site."
North Little Rock created the RV park on 5 acres of city property in 2008, where city leaders previously envisioned a riverfront hotel. The City Council approved a $200,000 bond issue in May 2008 to create the park, which included adding fencing and electric, water and sewer services.
The expansion shows the popularity of the downtown RV park, Mayor Joe Smith said.
"This RV park, from what I understand from when we first started this, is that the most important thing is location and the second is word-of-mouth," Smith said. "Obviously, the RVers have been pleased with the service we provide and the location we provide. It's a good problem that we've outgrown where we are."
Bullerwell said the feedback she gets from customers shows RV drivers enjoy going to North Little Rock. The location, right across from the Clinton Presidential Center, is also near many riverfront and downtown attractions and restaurants.
"We get so many repeat people, and so many people who come in and talk about what a well-kept secret we are, and how they love that it is so convenient that they can walk to so many places, and about the view," she said. "So many say, 'I'm going to tell all my friends.' That's how we've gotten a lot of our business from day one. And we have several who have been coming here ever since we opened up."
Major said he is waiting on a property survey before he will have a cost-estimate for how much additional fencing and concrete will be needed for the expansion. The RV park's fence is on a concrete pad and can be removed in case of flooding from the river. The Advertising and Promotion Commission will go through a bid process as required, he added.
Having 10-15 more RV spaces will be enough to handle the overflow, Major said, but possibly 20 could fit if needed for an RV conference or group meeting.
"We don't really want to cram them in there," Major said. "And when it's not being used for overflow, the extra area will give the people staying there [in the main park] a little bit more of a buffer from people who come across the levee for a place to hang out. It would be better a buffer between the RVers and people parking on the levee playing their radio loud."
Metro on 04/26/2015