Residents and visitors in certain areas of Little Rock's expansive Quapaw Quarter will begin to see banners and markers in January designating the historic area and a few of its 14 individual neighborhoods.
The banners are the result of a community branding campaign conceptualized in 2010. Implementation has been delayed for lack of funding.
The Quapaw Quarter Association hired Arnett Muldrow & Associates of Greenville, S.C., to visit Little Rock and develop a plan to encourage more people to move to the quarter, to better market the quarter's assets and to change the way people perceive it.
"People who were interested in the restoration and preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods came up with the Quapaw Quarter name hoping it would carry more positive connotations," said Cheri Nichols, a member of the Quapaw Quarter Association's board of directors and an early proponent of the community re-branding effort.
The quarter encompasses about 9 square miles stretching south from the Arkansas River. The neighborhoods within the area are the Capitol Area, River Market District, MacArthur Park Historic District, Hanger Hill, Pettaway, Governor's Mansion Historic District, SoMa (South Main), Dunbar School, Central High, Wright Avenue, Capitol Hill, South End, Martin Luther King and Meadowbrook.
Some of the areas have no legal boundaries, and in some cases, they overlap. Brian Minyard, a planner with the city, said the number of neighborhoods within Quapaw Quarter really depends on who you ask.
"If you ask the people on the street they're going to have different opinions," Minyard said. From real estate agents to members of the different neighborhood associations, each have varying opinions on the number of neighborhoods and where they begin and end.
"No one can give you an authoritative number," Minyard said.
Said Nichols: "This confusion over areas and boundaries is one reason why branding the Quapaw Quarter is important. Since its creation in the early 1960s, the Quapaw Quarter has been a rather nebulous concept, and the branding project is an opportunity to clarify what the [Quapaw Quarter] is and to promote the positive qualities of this oldest and most historic section of Little Rock."
Little Rock's central business district is not recognized as a neighborhood of the Quapaw Quarter but is within the geographical boundaries of the Quapaw Quarter. At least part of that area has been designated the city's Financial Quarter. There has been discussion between the Quapaw Quarter Association and leaders in the Financial Quarter over the Financial Quarter's use of the name "quarter" in its moniker. Those talks are still ongoing.
Arnett Muldrow, which specializes in community branding, charged the Quapaw Quarter Association about $12,000 for its study and suggestions. The cost was picked up by the Quapaw Quarter Association and the Little Rock Visitor Foundation, the city of Little Rock, the Downtown Dames and the Downtown Neighborhood Association. The bulk of the South Carolina firm's work was done over a weeklong visit to the city.
The firm suggested, among other things, that the association devise a brand statement that connected the neighborhoods with each other and with downtown.
Muldrow also provided proposed logos for the quarter and different logos for each of the Quapaw Quarter's neighborhoods.
Rhea Roberts, executive director of the Quapaw Quarter Association, said sign-toppers, banners and riders for real estate signs were made available to all the neighborhoods. Sign toppers would be attached to the top of street signs, like the ones seen in MacArthur Park and the Governor's Mansion historic districts.
"They're about the size of the street sign and go right on top," Roberts said. The new ones still need approval by the city, she said.
Vanessa McKuin, executive director of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas and a homeowner in the Central High neighborhood, said her neighborhood association decided on banners but hasn't decided where they will be placed.
"When most people think of the Quapaw Quarter, they're mainly talking about the Governor's Mansion Historic District," McKuin said, "and the purpose of this project was to show there are several other neighborhoods with really rich histories in the Quapaw Quarter that aren't thought of as being part of the Quapaw Quarter."
Though the Central High neighborhood has its own identity, "it's nice to have the opportunity to be thought of as part of the Quapaw Quarter," McKuin added.
Funding for the materials comes from a $30,000 general improvement fund grant from the state through the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District. However, only one-third of that will go toward the marketing materials.
The nonprofit association, which is more of a preservation organization, operates on an annual budget of less than $200,000. The association has about 300 members, plus others they can count on for help with advocacy issues.
Banners will first appear in the Wright Avenue and Central High neighborhoods.
Tony Curtis, a real estate broker who specializes in historic properties, orchestrated an effort to put up three free-standing signs in that neighborhood. The signs were the first to use the logos designed by Muldrow. No money from the Quapaw Quarter Association went to pay for those signs, Curtis said.
Business on 12/25/2015