http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/12/12/little-rock-unveils-creative-corridor-plan Comments On: Little Rock unveils 'Creative Corridor' plan by Lindsey Millar en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 07:30:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Since I don't live in LR I don't know the history of the streetcar line but surely this has been discussed? In many communities the wealthy suburbanites oppose extending light rail to their white enclaves out of fear that "urban" (read: black) hooligans will ride the train to their neighborhood to create mayhem and do some crimes. :-(
Posted by GrizLee Blackbear]]> Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:51:53 -0600 Arkansas Times
Downtown needs a classy grocery store within walking distance of all the new residences. Say, somewhere between the RiverMarket condos and the new Main Street Condos. Maybe they could take one of those parking lots and actually redeem it with commerce.

The other thing that would be a fantastic addition to downtown would be a multiplex cinema within easy walking distance of the River Market restaurants. Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that people would come downtown for a great meal and a good, first-run movie. I'm less hopeful about getting such a facility with the building of the new cinema at McCain Mall. Maybe another option that we don't have that other cities are embracing is a dinner theater kind of approach to cinemas. Have tables and comfy chairs in the theatre along with really good food and encourage eating during the movie. That's a concept that not really been tried here.
Posted by Perplexed]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:08:14 -0600 Arkansas Times
The opening sentance of your 1st post set the tone and that tone came off as superior, but not quite to the level of arrogant.

"Anyone who hasn't ACTUALLY seen this presentation CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO GRASP..." (lables posters as ignorant - could be true but does not gain allies)

You may not have intended that tone but that is the tone of your phrasing.

Then add, "However, as usual, that didn't stop..." and the tone is continued. (whines that whiners are whining as usual)

I have been in sales, sales training and sales management for decades and would suggest a reply more like...

"The parking concerns are a valid point and the presentation did have much additional information that the short blog post did not cover, such as blah blah blah."

Then sum up with something such as "It is good to see so many comments on this proposal, it indicates a lot of interest in the community!"

Catch flies with honey.
Posted by Citizen1]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:50:00 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by CatMan Did]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:39:33 -0600 Arkansas Times It saves on commute time and if you bring in more Mom and Pop type businesses (read: local groceries, dry cleaners, and what they used to call Five and Dime stores before Walmart killed them all off) then you have a thriving community where most conveniences are within a short walk.

Posted by Arkhobbit]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:29:37 -0600 Arkansas Times
Including plaques and qr codes explaining the historical significants of certain sites in downtown LR would be nice too and wouldn't interfere with modern installations. How about some plaques telling the story of LR's personal war, the 1874 Brooks-Baxter war which was fought in the area of the Capital Hotel? It's some pretty exciting stuff that's unique to LR.

Might take some tips from your older cousin, Fort Baptist and start playing up LR history to draw in and entertain and educate the locals and the tourists. The cost will be a fraction of what will be spent creating a Creative Corridor, so remember to include some history in the revamping.
Posted by DeathbyInches]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 12:49:37 -0600 Arkansas Times
Maybe you're referring to my first paragraph about "naysayers making false assumptions," but if you look at those assumptions, it's true. They were predicated not only on a complete lack of understanding about the plan, but also a lack of knowledge about the area in general and what seemed to be a lack of interest in learning more info before jumping to the sweeping conclusion that "this will fail."
Posted by Little Rocker]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:58:57 -0600 Arkansas Times
Contrary to the spirit of the 1930's, even essential infrastructure needs may be deemed too frivolous for public expenditures, let alone attempts at spiritual enhancements of our common environments. We are descending into a miserly meanness where only funding for weaponry, more prisons, and corporate giveaways will be politically allowable uses of tax money.

The imagined "fiscal cliff" is the culmination of nearly a decade of stupid economic errors based on greed, but the solution bandied about is to preach selective sacrifice. The picture is where the wealthy have one foot on the buckle of each citizen cinching up the belts of everyone but themselves.

We are about to enter a dismal Dickensian era where "creative corridors" only live in the minds of idled architects.
Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:47:34 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by offside]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:36:21 -0600 Arkansas Times
These little presentations are just the rick folks 'preachin' to the choir', patting themselves on the back, and preparing another scam to reshuffle your tax dollars from one pocket to the other.

There is no there there as long as LR is a zero growth city. Talk about schizophrenic; they subsidize western growth to the point that the new rich are about to enter the next county and abandon our public schools to the point that new families all live in Benton, Bryant, Cabot, and Conway and then they want to believe that all that was keeping the good suit club from investing millions in downtown was a free $150k plan.

It's Main Street Mall all over again. Only this time the big anchor buildings have already been sold off for government subsidized housing. You think one of two floors of culture open a fews days a month are going to overcome the expansion of that?

Until LR citizens eject the LRCC and LRCofC from the city board and mayor's office and run this city for the citizens instead of the hoi polloi this act will go on ad infinitum. If you ain't got candidates you ain't got nothin'.
Posted by FullThrottle]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:00:41 -0600 Arkansas Times
Excellent examples.
Posted by Eureka Springs]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:59:53 -0600 Arkansas Times
I agree whole-heartedly with ES on this.

An artist friend of mine rented an artist's loft in a section of downtown L.A. that was a re-use of old space. His biggest complaint was that there was no dry cleaner or grocery store within easy distance. A similar development in the port city of San Pedro was more successful because of it's proximity to the stores and services needed.

Our city fathers/mothers should study the urban renaissances of places like Long Beach, CA and Albuquerque, NM for guidance on how to proceed.

It doesn't happen overnight, but is an evolutionary process. Building a new shiny thing to draw people on the weekends and evenings won't cut it.

I should add that Long Beach and Albuquerque both had (or have in the case of Albuquerque) crime rates like Little Rock.
Posted by the outlier]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:19:05 -0600 Arkansas Times
Make sure everyone has a living or better (triple the minimum) wage job if they at all want one... and treat addiction as part of a national health policy (cutting the nations health GDP by at least half) rather than clubbing human beings like baby seals in an endless cat vs mouse penal cycle which keeps people destitute and afraid by design and a few maintain extreme wealth.

My great grandmother moved out west from downtown Quapaw and bought her first home in the impressive new expansion called Fair Park back in the day. My parents bought a huge old house on Battery street just out of college in the late 60's. We were burglarized then as much as we would be now.

LR is still utilizing the failed police enforcement of whack-a-mole for class warfare now as they were 50 years ago.

Also:

One of the best parts of a vibrant inner city is that people LIVE there - GASP - without cars. Not needing a car is why they live there and why they can afford it. What you need is public transit, scooter, bike, motorcycle parking. In a time of increasing energy costs and increasing pollution /global warming cities like LR had better improve from within because without some major breakthroughs in oil/replacement the suburban sprawl model can not last.
Posted by Eureka Springs]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 08:15:39 -0600 Arkansas Times
Don't get your shorts all twisted. Comments and questions are my desire when I am making sales presentations.

They are not a sign to slap down objections. They are a request for further info.

Spend a little on a Dale Carnegie or Zig Zeigler course. Or at least go get the cliffnotes on one of their books.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, when in Russia, do as you are told!

The tone of the Littlerocker response sure seems more like Russia than Rome.
Posted by Citizen1]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 06:50:40 -0600 Arkansas Times
Certainly, with The Rep anchoring one end and the Peabody / Statehouse Convention Center and River Market district anchoring the other, the parameters are there for those six blocks along Main Street to someday come back to life.

Naysayers are a dime a dozen, though it appears from what one hears that their nays are based on past overhyped promises and badly executed experiences, going back to the infamous “pedestrian mall” fiasco of yore, and ever since.

Nor should people’s safety concerns be so blithely dismissed. Truth is, outside the populated and apparently under-policed River Market district along Clinton Avenue, dark streets and alleys extend all directions.

I personally always feel safe when visiting there with friends, even at Copper or Dugan’s three blocks away. Even at LULAV. Or Robinson.

And CERTAINLY at the fabulous Packet House on my most recent stayover in The Rock!

The Rep, with its multi-story covered parking deck behind and attached to it, is sort of okay. Yet there too the nearby streets embrace the theatre rather darkly, seedily. What’s to be done about those?

By contrast, one exits any venue at the Promenade—restaurant, shop, bar, cinema—to join throngs of shopping, gallery and dining options in relatively bright-lit, clean, safe-feeling calm.

Plans for a Creative Corridor along Main Street are a wonderful goal. Maybe that goal can someday be reached through careful and continuous planning. Can it happen in a year or two? No. Five? Ten? Twenty?

What I DO find disheartening (and typical) is: “If it was realized, Little Rock would be a beacon for urban design the world over.”

Many years ago, as a girl visiting friends, I recall bus-stop bench backs around UAMS loudly proclaiming the hospital offering “World Class Care!”

All I could think was that one NEVER sees that phrase in front of Sloan-Kettering or Cedars of Lebanon; places that actually DO provide “world class care.” If you’ve got it, everybody knows it.

Those bench signs reeked Inferiority Complex.

They’re gone, now, I see. Maybe because UAMS finally DOES offer world class care (certainly in multiple myeloma).

Now you have promises of Main Street someday being “a beacon for urban design the world over.”

Somehow, I doubt that. Nor does such hype even need to BE.

Part of the problem in attracting new businesses, especially high tech ones, and retaining your creative and ambitious people, is Arkansas’s long-established mind-set.

As long as The Natural State is controlled by and mired in right-wing retro-politics that resent and resist “outsiders” and oppose ever-more-progressive nationally evolving Constitutional rights for women’s health care, LGBT citizens, blacks, Latinos, non-Christians, et al., Arkansas will continue to be perceived as a backward, bigoted place to live and attract more backward bigots.

Even UAMS is now considering "partnering" with a Catholic health care service notorious for imposing religious dogma over patient care.

Ironic that Republicans have taken over The Natural State for the first time in umpteen years, just when that party has been totally eclipsed in the last election and is dying through its increasing exposure across all media as the corrupt, lying, venal, bigoted, mean spirited anti-tomorrow fundamentalist Tea Party travesty it’s become.

For some reason (Fear? Inferiority?) conformity (to the lowest common Jess Folks denominator) in Arkansas is prized above virtually all else.

Opportunities there are limited, for those who are truly ambitious, creative, educated . . . unless they’re eager to join the ranks of doctors, lawyers, bankers, real estaters, constructioners, restauranteurs and the like: all fields still demanding Good Ol’ Boy conformist back-slapping to thrive and succeed.

The Rock is not a big city. It is not even as big a city as it likes to think it is. Maybe someday. But right now it’s a small city where most people go home after work on weekdays and weeknights.

Isolated venues like The Rep and a few places in the River Market and elsewhere around town see enough customers to stay in business, but how many more—realistically—would The Rock support, given its present population?

I wish you well. But turning Main Street into a “Creative Corridor” is a tall order, much less “a beacon for urban design the world over.”

Because, I’ve gotta tell ya: every time I'm in The Rock and somebody asks where I go to church, I think, “Good luck!” and can’t wait to get back to California or New York, where dreams really DO come true.
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:06:43 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Verla Sweere]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:49:44 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Little Rocker]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:57:10 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Sound Policy]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:34:47 -0600 Arkansas Times
--"How am I going to park when I go there? I'm not going to leave my car way over by the Clinton Library and then walk to Main Street at night."

There are 2 parking decks on Main Street--one at 2nd and one at 6th. The plan also leaves in place virtually the same number of street-side parking places as exist now, so there is no loss of parking in the plan.

--"How about parking? Without easy, free, safe parking it will fail, like all the other attempts to revive Main Street have failed."

There is plenty of easy, safe parking, thought it's not free. Of course, neither is parking in the River Market. Or at the Rep for that matter. Failures? Hardly.

--"As it is, it will be hard to get folks to come from West Little Rock. But without parking, I think it is doomed.

This isn't about getting people from WLR to come downtown (any more than they already do), nor will it succeed or fail based upon that. It's about getting a critical mass of activity on Main St, along with a critical mass of residents. Both of these things are happening. There's demand for apartments for recent college grads (the same folks who populate Tuf Nut and Rock St Lofts at full capacity) and others. There are already 3 residential projects underway on Main to address this. Combine this with a 3-block concentration of arts-based street-level tenants (The Rep, The Ark Symphony, Ballet Arkansas, co-op art studio space, Ark Arts Center space, etc.), and you have plenty of people on Main. All of these things are already happening through private development. The plan presented today demonstrates how to capitalize on the momentum and spread it further.

--"Didn't we go through that idea about 50 years ago with that Main Street Pedistrian Mall concept."

That was a very different type of project at a very different time. First, Main St already has the momentum. This isn't a "build it and they will come" scenario. They are already coming. Take a drive down Main and look at the amount of construction going on. And there is more to come along with several big announcements. This plan does is lay out a cohesive way to finish-out the streetscape to make it more inviting to the pedestrians who will already be there.

--"How much of the city money will they throw at this Chamber idea IN ADDITION to the $100,000s they give already. Why not fix the streets somewhere other than Chenal instead."

First of all, the money spent so far and the money planned to be spent so far comes either from grants or from the developers who have ongoing projects. If the Mayor had planned on spending a lot of city money on this, he would have added it to the sales tax last year or millage renewal this year. Second, this isn't a Chamber idea. The Chamber has had nothing to do with any of it. The Mayor applied for and won the grant from the National Endowment for the Arts which allowed them to hire an architecture firm to take on the design. The only organization that has had any affiliation with it is the Downtown Partnership, and that has only been a supportive role. You can criticize the project, the Chamber, the mayor, or the DLRP all you want for various reasons, but don't distort the facts or make sweeping assumptions.

--"Did this "Creative Corridor" also include plans for what to do when you are carjacked, robbed at gunpoint, or raped? We need to make sure we keep up with all the current events in the downtown area."

Spoken like a true Chenal resident. Not saying you are, but you sure sound like one.
Posted by Little Rocker]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:56:44 -0600 Arkansas Times Once you begin to draw increased people and foot traffic to the area, selfish personal business interests will create better and better settings to take advantage of the increased people and traffic (marketing opportunity). The MetroMall was an example of how not to do it. Charlotteville, Va Downtown is an example of how to do it right.
Building and streetscape settings do not revitalize an area, people do. People will come to view "architectural pavement, special landscaping and unique lighting, a public plaza, an outdoor amphitheater, LED Screen, trees, rain gardens, terraces and a pedestrian promenade" ONCE. But unless, there are multiple events to draw the people back again, and again, it will remain a deserted, empty deteriorating streetscape.
Posted by dottholliday]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:15:23 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Arkansasfiddler]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:08:37 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by beerforbreakfast]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:24:41 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by couldn't be better]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:57:48 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by MarcKyle1964]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:37:25 -0600 Arkansas Times
As it is, it will be hard to get folks to come from West Little Rock. But without parking, I think it is doomed.

That said, wouldn't it be great if all this happened?
Posted by Carrick Patterson]]> Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:37:49 -0600 Arkansas Times