Sometimes the wheels of government turn slowly, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t moving in the right direction.
Nine years ago, the city of North Little Rock received a grant for $2.3 million to improve transportation options and spur economic development in the city’s Levy area near Interstate 40. Today, the project is nearly complete with new sidewalks and crosswalks in place and new lighting and landscaping on the way.
The area is home to several small businesses, including restaurants, a small grocery store and a church with residential areas nearby.
Metroplan awarded the grant in 2013, but the project dragged on for years as the city held “countless meetings” with stakeholders, according to the city’s director of development, Robert Birch.
Birch took over the program in July 2019 when it was only about 50% complete with the goal of getting it to construction.
“Over the eight, nine years prior to construction starting, it was a very slow process,” Birch said. “It was a lot of meetings with community members [and] walking the area, but it was a time for getting some plans going and moving.”
The project moved to construction in January 2021, and today it’s nearly complete. Sidewalks and decorative crosswalks have been installed and parking spots have been created along some of the streets. The city also changed some zoning in the area to create more mixed-use development and narrowed Camp Robinson Road to two lanes to slow traffic passing through the area. New lighting and landscaping will be added as well.
Metroplan Executive Director Tab Townsell described the Levy project as an attempt to “redefine the cultural life and economic future of an older corridor by creating a full-spectrum transportation system in that corridor that is both sensitive to the users of the system and the land uses alongside it.”
Construction created a few hassles for the neighborhood, but Birch said most people involved understood it was good for the community in the long run.
“I told a lot of the business owners, ‘it’s going to be a headache while it’s being built,’” Birch said. “But the long-term future of this area is going to be greatly enhanced by this project, because businesses want to locate in newly developed areas.”
By investing in the area, the city hoped business owners and property owners would be more inclined to make their own investments. Prospective business owners would also, hopefully, find the area more attractive to create new businesses.
According to Birch, existing businesses have already begun investing, and prospective owners have called to inquire about the area.
“A city can only do so much to promote growth,” Birch said. “But us showing that we are going to invest almost $2.5 million into that area shows that we feel it’s worthy to those business owners and landowners to invest in their property to increase their value, to increase the value of the neighborhood as a whole.”
In addition to the Levy project, Metroplan has funded similar projects in North Little Rock’s Park Hill neighborhood as well as areas in Bryant, Conway and Little Rock.
Griffin Coop lives in Little Rock and covers the cannabis industry for the Arkansas Times.
