amp - march / april 2015

1mar/apr 2015 arkansas money & politics

2 MAR/APR 2015ARKANSAS MONEY & POLITICS

3MAR/APR 2015 ARKANSAS MONEY & POLITICS

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5mar/apr 2015 arkansas money & politics


CITY SPOTLIGHT / LITTLE ROCK

By Suzi Parker // Photography by Sara Edwards Neal and Ashlee Nobel

Arkansas capitol city has seen reinvestment and job creation growing in its once-forsaken downtown core.

THE CENTER WILL HOLDThe Little Rock skyline

Jay Chesshir of the Little Rock Chamber of

Commerce said the Little Rock economy in 2015 is a "patchwork

quilt of small businesses which support far fewer

larger businesses."

Jerry Jones remembers downtown Little Rock, Ark., as a desolate, abandoned wasteland less than a decade ago. City streets emptied after 5 p.m., when workers left for

the suburbs. Few restaurants stayed open at night. Businesses didnt even consider locat-ing in Little Rocks urban center and, certain-ly, few people wanted to live downtown.

Thats all changed.Its a great time in business in down-

town Little Rock, said Jones, the chief legal and ethics officer for Acxiom. There are new restaurants, new hotels, things going on at the Clinton Presidential Center, and The Rep

is doing great. Things are coming together. Frankly, its good for our business, and our associates like working in downtown Little Rock.

This kind of growth juggernauts into an ideal climate for all businesses. The Entergy and Dassault Falcon Jet expansions, the Tech Parks move into the Block 2 Lofts building, and an influx of innovators and small busi-nesses are contributing to an economic boom in Little Rock. This surge, too, is in no small part thanks to the Clinton Presidential Center serving as an anchor since 1997, when former President Bill Clinton selected acreage by the river as the spot for his library.


CITY SPOTLIGHT / LITTLE ROCK

We are seeing renewed activity in the marketplace with companies looking to make investments both from the perspective of new markets as well as reshoring for what I call pent-up demand for investment that has simply been put off, primarily because of the economy, said Jay Chesshir, president and CEO of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. We are seeing a lot of activity and that includes the entire metro region.

Little Rock and its environs are already home to major manufacturers, such as LOreal USA, LM Wind Power, Caterpillar, and South-west Power Pool Electric Energy Network, among others. Over the last year, additional companies have broken ground throughout the city. FedEx is building a $50 million dis-tribution center in southwest Little Rock, and its expected to employ more than 200 people.

In November, Entergy officials broke ground on a $23 million transmission opera-tions center. In turn, regional transmission or-ganization Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, decided to build an opera-tions center, costing $5 million to $8 million. It will be staffed by 35 to 50 employees with an average salary of $85,000.

Chesshir said the Little Rock economy in 2015 is a patchwork quilt of small businesses which support far fewer larger businesses. He cited Dassault Falcon Jet as a prime exam-ple of how a strong economy spreads.

Last year, Dassault broke ground on a $60

million expansion facility dedicated to two

new models, the Falcon 5X large-body twin-jet and the ultra-long range Falcon 8X trijet.

The project will add 250,000 square feet of

trial plant, it is also an industry leader in dig-ital completion techniques, which Dassault pioneered.

In turn, Beaudet Aviation, a subsidiary of JCB Aero of Toulouse, France, decided to open a $2.5 million facility in Little Rock to serve as a key supplier to Dassault. That investment created an additional 75 jobs on a new pay-roll. This then drove the need for more small businesses, Chesshir said.

While major corporations contribute to the overall central Arkansas economy, tourism is also fueling businesses both large and small. According to the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, hotel stays and restaurant receipts were up 3.3 percent from 2013. In the 10 years since the Clinton Presidential Library opened, stays and receipts have increased 56 percent.

The Clinton Library clearly spearhead-ed the revitalization and growth not just in downtown Little Rock but all of central Arkansas with new shopping, new muse-ums and attractions, new restaurants, said Gretchen Hall, president and CEO of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. It has made a huge impact.

Tourism and hospitality appear on track to create the largest job growth in the city this year. More restaurants are opening, offering Little Rock a chance to become a food mecca, Chesshir said.

Three new hotel properties are also under construction. Another three opened in 2013, one will open this year, and two more will de-but in 2016. All of this adds to more rooms for tourism and convention business, Hall said. Robinson Auditorium will reopen in 2016 af-ter renovations, and, as a result, the adjacent Doubletree Hotel is undergoing $5 million worth of renovations.

Hotels, restaurants, and retail stores arent alone in enjoying the boost. Jones said all of this combines to entice new talent to compa-nies like Acxiom.

One of the things we have found is once we get them to step on a plane to Little Rock and get here, they fall in love with it and all of central Arkansas, Jones said.

He said Acxiom encourages its corporate guests to visit the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Wildlife Center to get a sense of the state. Jones added that while the focus often is on the River Market area of downtown, the burgeoning Southside Main Street, or SoMa neighborhood, cant be ignored as a growing contributor to the city.

Jack Sundell and Corri Bristow Sundell own The Root Caf, a funky SoMa restau-

Downtown Little Rock is in the midst of a restaurant boom.

"The Clinton Library clearly spearheaded the revitalization and

growth not just in down-town Little Rock but all of

central Arkansas..."

new production and completion space, bring-ing the total facility footprint to 1.25 million square feet. The cabinet, upholstery, and headliner shops are undergoing renovations, and older hangars are receiving upgrades.

This undertaking demonstrates a com-mitment to continue our investment in Little Rock and to ensure the facility will remain at the forefront of completion technology, said Eric Trappier, Dassaults chief operating of-ficer, at the groundbreaking last fall. Little Rock is not only the companys largest indus-


rant that strives to serve cuisine using locally raised and grown food. Jack Sundell said the current economic climate in the city is ideal for a small business like theirs.

This is obviously a very exciting time to own and operate a small business in down-town Little Rock, especially in the South Main neighborhood, he said. There is an enormous development initiative focused on downtown, and all of the neighborhoods in close proximity to downtown will benefit from it.

He said SoMa is a prime location for busi-nesses because of its easy access from the in-terstate and downtown, ample parking (often a problem in the congested River Market Dis-trict to the north), proximity to business-lunch customers, and a supportive residential neighborhood.

Sundell said it appears that the citys econ-omy is very much on an upward trajectory.

The current environment is ripe for in-novators and entrepreneurs, and thats one reason for the creation of the Tech Park in the Block 2 Lofts building. Its goal is to create an innovation district enabling new forms of en-terprise, collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and commercialization of ideas within and between Arkansas entrepreneurial, private, governmental, and academic sectors.

The Little Rock Technology Park plans to play a significant role in boosting the inno-vation economy in central Arkansas, Brent Birch, executive director of the park, said. Our chief mission will be to stimulate and assist the flow of knowledge and technology coming in, out, and through our universities, companies, and entrepreneurs. Those efforts will facilitate the creation and growth of inno-vation-based companies, which equals more high-quality jobs and opportunities for Ar-kansans.

Birch said Little Rock cannot currently compete regionally with Austin, Texas, Nash-ville, Tenn., or St. Louis in terms of resourc-es or access to investment funds. He said the technology park will make Little Rock a play-er in the region.

The tech park will be the aggregation point of science, data, technology, and invest-ment funds, allowing bright, high-growth potential companies and people to stay home and flourish, he said.

Innovators are already taking off in the city. David Allen recently created Tagless Style, a men's curated style service that focus-es on sustainability.

We have a unique partnership with Goodwill where we take the very best donat-

ed clothing [and then] sort, clean, and press every item so it looks like new, he said.

Little Rock is a good place to be right now, Allen said.

While I admit, during college I made it my personal goal to get out of Arkansas as fast as I could, I have found a robust network of extremely talented people to surround myself with, he said. It is a very small and very supportive community here in Arkan-sas. From my interactions with other startup ecosystems, I have seen some of them be ex-tremely competitive and showy. We all have a strong incentive to help each other out here because if just one startup finds a lot of suc-cess it would be really helpful for all of us in raising capital and talent.

Chris Moses, president of Moses Tucker Real Estate, said that the technology parks decision to locate on Main Street is a harbin-ger of good things to come.

It will succeed and become a launching

pad for emerging companies, Moses said.

But for all the positives happening in Little

Rock, there are still issues that need to be ad-dressed. Jones said when possible hires visit

the city, they inevitably ask about the school

system.

Public education has got to be ad-dressed, he said. Our educational system

has many strengths but also weaknesses, as

seen when the state Board of Education had

to take over failing schools in the system. That

is the biggest impediment we face recruiting

people to our company.

Moses said that for Little Rock to suc-cessfully grow in the next decade a common

agenda needs to develop among government,

businesses, education leaders, and communi-ty leadership.

At present, we are too fragmented, Mo-ses said. If a common agenda can be devel-oped, Little Rock has great potential.

Jerry Jones, chief legal and ethics officer, Acxiom

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