State Fair to stay put in Little Rock 1 of 3



FAIRGROUND LIVES: Elvis is no longer in the building, but Barton Coliseum will remain an anchor of the Arkansas State Fair, which is staying put in Little Rock.

Good guess by me last night. (It was a guess informed by what insiders had been telling me.)

The State Fair will stay put in Little Rock. David Koon is covering the Fair Board meeting and will have more details before long.

Offers of land in North Little Rock and Jacksonville seemed tempting, but came with no construction money, which would have been in the tens of millions. And the fair’s own consultants said the fair couldn’t expect much better than break-even results financially at even a new, freeway-friendlier site with additional facilities.


Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola has pitched several ideas for expansion of existing fairgrounds for more facilities and included some fair money in the city’s recent sales tax increase spending plans. He’s talked, too, of a direct highway link to Interstate 30 south of the grounds, though this would be an expensive undertaking.

The fair’s current location, amid a faded neighborhood, has been a long concern.


UPDATE FROM DAVID KOON:

Stodola has pledged $300,000 a year for 10 years, with the ability of the fair to make a “draw” against the larger amount for renovations and bigger projects. Plan is to build a pedestrian bridge running parallel to the south side of the Roosevelt Road viaduct and over the railroad tracks — construction beginning in 2013 — so the fair can extend west. City and fair in negotiations with the railroad to move the spur immediately adjacent to the fairgrounds so the fair can extend west immediately, though changes definitely wont be in place by October.

You can see a larger version of the detailed map of the expansion plan on the jump.

The vote was a foregone conclusion. It came with an already-assembled press packet that said the Little Rock plan of more acreage plus a total $3 million commitment was the critical factor.

Said Association Chairman Ned Ray Purtle in a prepared statement: “Much to our surprise, in the end, a giant door opened with the exciting prospects of expanding right where we are — and without the price tag of hundreds of millions of dollars! One of the great side benefits will be that we are going to be the catalyst to rebuilding and growing this Little Rock neighborhood that we’ve called home all these years.”


Here’s the city’s detailed proposal, which includes promises to try to steer more events to the Fairgrounds (a recent decision to put the high school basketball tournament there has been panned by state sportswriters, though Barton remains a decent basketball facility) and to attempt to line up naming rights deals on facilities. The city also said it was in the process of demolishing decrepit homes nearby and will commit to adequate police coverage of the area.

The city’s promise to work to acquire land to the east of the Fairgrounds has already drawn an unhappy response from Dr. Anika Whitfield, who’s also active in the community group fighting condemnation of residential property for the Little Rock Technology Park. She her letter to city officials on the jump.

ALSO: Housing Authority Commissioner Kenyon Lowe said the housing agency, which owns a significant chunk of the land east of the State Fair underneath the Sunset Terrace housing project (see map on jump), is committed to rebuilding that project. He said the mayor had not spoken to the authority about use of that property and that it would “behoove” the State Fair to look west and south for new land rather than east. He said it was a matter of commitment to residents for the Metropolitan Housing Alliance to continue with that rebuilding plan.