Arkansas Blog

Under $199,000? I'll sign up today. Wait, I'm 28, but I'm not one of these ultra-high society folks who can actually afford one of these condos aimed at "younger people."

What about affordable housing for regular people? What about buildings with nice, trendy, decent apartments that regular people can afford?

Little Rock is trying to be Manhattan with all of these new projects. While they are nice, I think this city should focus on making downtown more affordable for everyone.

That seems like a lot of new residential developement in the area.

They need to be careful or else there will be half built buildings in bankruptcy and others half occupied.

That will kill the River Market faster than anything.

There won't be any affordable housing in dowtown LR for a while. Downtown is becoming a nice place to live, work, play,etc... but Little Rock is still a small enough city that people can live way out, west, north or south of the urban center and still drive into town without a extreamly frustrating commute like in other larger cities. Downtown development is a business and downtown living is a luxury. It would take an enourmous amount of effort, design and convincing for anything truely affordable to be built downtown.

Anyone up for the challenge?

In the long run, however, it would turn Little Rock into a true urban center rather than just a tourist destination like it and many urban center's around the nation are leaning towards.

Nice project. Hopefully, the condo will block some of those bullets that have reportedly hit the building across the street.

Manhattan? You're lucky to find a parking space for under $200,000 there, let alone a condo. You can't find cheaper condos in similar downtown high rises anywhere, this is about where the base price for this sort of thing would start in any city.

One would hope that rehabilitating the Donaghey Building, since its not new construction, would be able to offer units for a cheaper price but I doubt you'll see condos in the downtown core for less than $150,000. Property values are too high to build low-rise condos and high rises just cost a lot of money.

Check out the condos available in Riverdale, Hillcrest, and even in West Little Rock. You might find these aren't such a bad deal after all.

As far as downtown affordable housing, there are many apartments - some of which even offer subsizidized rent. MacArthur Park and the Quapaw Quarter have a lot of smaller properties for rent at good prices. There are properties to buy on the fringe of downtown but they are a bit sketchy, of course. So the real issue is that people want very affordable luxury high-rise condos in a completely safe and central location downtown, which can't be done.

Is there by any chance a website about this development where a person could look into buying a condo or something?

http://www.rivermarkettower.com/

Thanks, Arkansas Blogger. Much obliged.