Public spaces are important. No cheesy made-for-TV movie is complete without a dramatic kiss between the protagonist and their love interest at a community festival in the town square. The fact that these kinds of public spaces are so ubiquitous to be a movie trope is telling. Often taken for granted, a hard-to-fill void opens when these places don’t exist in a town.
It’s a frequent joke within the Conway Planning Department that our town father, Asa P. Robinson, was a much better railroad engineer than city planner, and his legacy is a mixed bag. Streets like Oak that should have grand widths don’t. Others like Locust that shouldn’t, do. But Mr. Robinson was also largely responsible for ensuring the forested land in Old Conway remained a legacy Conwegians enjoy today. Regardless, being a good railroad man, he made sure Conway’s central focus was the rail line running through town and not anything trivial like a courthouse square. As such, good public spaces have been a challenge for Conway.
In the last two decades, however, the city has made excellent strides. Rogers Plaza, resulting from the demolition of the infamous bright blue “Smurf” building and a realignment of Van Ronkle Street, has become a key gathering place. Festivals, celebrations, protests and Hallmark-esque movie kisses in front of the giant Conway Christmas tree all happen there.
Ever evolving, an area north of downtown is planned for growth and redevelopment.
The Markham Street corridor connecting downtown to Hendrix College was the historic route of U.S. Highway 65. It was also the heart of Conway’s Black business district, featuring establishments like the Deluxe Diner and Mattison’s Blacksmith Shop. Historically, the Deluxe Diner was an important safe haven for Black travelers, being listed in the Green Book as a diner and hotel. Mattison’s shop was noted for being one of the oldest Black-owned businesses in the region, even being featured in Ebony magazine in August 1956. Today, the corridor is a shell of its former glory.
To revitalize the area, the city of Conway sought a Metroplan Jump Start grant in 2013. The grant funded a planning study to rethink the corridor, using a solid plan, zoning reform and transportation dollars to catalyze development. Though identified in previous planning efforts, a key recommendation of the plan was the development of an amphitheater at the site of a metal scrap yard. That recommendation started an ongoing eight-year, multipronged effort to achieve a poetic redemption of the site.
The Conway Scrap Metal Yard, in operation since the early 1900s, provided value to the many people that used and relied on it for economic gain. However, over time, the site became a polluted eyesore that harbored toxic materials in its soil. As a result of a 2014 grant from the EPA and Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment, the city of Conway acquired the property and began cleanup. Subsequent grants from the EPA, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission and National Endowment for the Arts allowed the city to work with the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and others to transform the amphitheater concept from previous planning efforts into something more. Their work envisioned the site as a town square and rain terrain.
In 2019, the EPA and Arkansas Natural Resources Commission provided still more funding to design and construct the Markham Square project. The city partnered with renowned landscape architects SWA Group on the design. Officially a water-quality demonstration project, Markham Square has evolved into something much bigger. The site will serve as a detention pond in heavy rain events that plague downtown Conway.
Markham Square will use time as a key ally in fighting floods, which have been a persistent problem in downtown Conway since its founding. The square’s detention function will slow the release of water from the site during heavy rain events. City Engineer Kurt Jones is quick to point out that this feature alone won’t fix all of downtown’s drainage problems. However, the square will be a valuable down payment in a silver buckshot approach to solving flooding.
Markham Square will also use the power of plants to help heal its natural surroundings by using organic features like rain gardens and bioswales to help treat stormwater. The intent is that water exiting the park will be cleaner than when it entered. This occurs through a treatment train effect where stormwater is slowed, allowed to absorb back into the ground or evaporate, and pollutants and sediment are captured in rain gardens or bioswales. Plants then use phytoremediation to capture pollutants and break them down into less harmful materials.
In future phases of construction, woonerfs will border the square. A woonerf, a Dutch term meaning living street, is a street design that aims to balance the comfort of pedestrians and drivers. Cars are permitted to drive through the area at very slow speed, but environmental cues ensure drivers are aware the road is meant to be shared with pedestrians. Textured surfaces and flat curbs make the street operate more like an extension of the park, where people walk freely through the space. The woonerf is an important tool to fully leverage the public space created by the square. The city’s partnership with local, highly innovative engineering and landscape architecture firm McClelland Consulting Engineers has been critical to achieving an effective design.
The other major benefit of Markham Square is the creation of a new, high-quality public space. The area is envisioned as a place to loiter and congregate. It will become a place for gatherings, festivals and celebrations, as well as a respite from daily life for people to simply enjoy and be. As any good public space, it will reflect the identity and culture of its surroundings.
Though little is left of the Black business district on Markham Street, the square will pay tribute to the legacy and identity of the community by honoring important figures in Conway’s Black community like William T. Mattison, a Tuskegee Airman. Additionally, the park will be dedicated to the life, legacy and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These steps will ensure the square embodies the identity and character of the place in which it’s rooted, regardless of growth or change that may occur in the neighborhood in the future.
To this end, Markham Square tells a beautiful story of redemption and reconciliation. An environmental hazard reclaimed and used to heal the natural environment. A minority community, disappearing through demolition and time, honored and remembered. A public space created to bring people together across divides, honoring the life and work of an American hero whose dream was an equal and undivided people.
Public spaces are important, and, hopefully, a Hallmark movie kiss or two will happen at Markham Square, too.
James Walden is planning and development director of the city of Conway.
