NWA Letters to the Editor

Park no replacement

for arts center success

I founded Underwoods 61 years ago on Dickson Street, so I have more than a little experience regarding parking for patrons and customers. In those years, there have been many "ups and downs" on Dickson Street, but nothing has had more of a positive effect, for both Dickson Street and Fayetteville, than the Walton Arts Center.

As the arts center offers more variety and better shows, TheatreSquared opens and related activities take place, convenient parking becomes more of an issue for continued success.

I've had both knee and hip joint replacements, which make walking from parking difficult if more than a couple of blocks. Unless I can park fairly close to the arts center, I simply cannot attend. There are many hundreds of patrons just like me. Nothing will compromise the arts center more than making parking inconvenient. We absolutely must not risk that. A beautiful park will not save the arts center if there is no convenient and close parking. We will lose the arts center and literally kill the area.

With several satellite parking lots, a patron will naturally go to the nearest lot first, but when its full, to the second nearest and maybe the third, then will become discouraged and go home, because it is too uncomfortable to walk. If that happens often enough, we lose support for the arts center and related businesses. It's like a death spiral. Can we really risk letting that happen?

I like the idea of an attractive garden and park, but absolutely not at the risk of closing the arts center lot.

Why could we not preserve the arts center lot, dressed it up a bit with brick walls with arches, then build a beautiful garden above it? That is how the university built the football practice field above parking. It is the perfect solution to solve both problems for the arts center.

University of Arkansas Chancellor Steinmetz tells me the parking garage and practice field cost $9 million in 2012 and an estimated $11 million today, providing 216 parking spaces. But we already have 272 spaces in the current arts center lot, the most desirable location for parking. Lose parking spaces and spend more millions for farther away parking, and compounding access to the arts center? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

I can envision all kinds of greenery, plantings, even small trees, waterfalls, flowers and gardens with flowing streams. There could be continuous escalators from the ground parking lot to the sky garden, with escalators from the garden to the arts center. Can you imagine what a beautiful addition that would be to Dickson Street?

If we lose that Walton Arts Center parking lot on Dickson Street, it will be the ultimate decline and death of the arts center. I have seen that sequence of events too many times in my 61 years on Dickson Street: Can we afford to take that risk? Absolutely, positively not!

Bill Underwood

Fayetteville

NW News on 01/15/2019

Upcoming Events