For nearly a decade, North Little Rock city and business leaders have been discussing ways to revitalize the Park Hill neighborhood and make it more walkable. A key challenge has been finding the best ways to do that with busy JFK Boulevard cutting through the heart of the neighborhood.
On Wednesday, people involved in planning the project celebrated the formal beginning of work by holding a groundbreaking ceremony. Metroplan awarded most of the $2.8 million for the Jump Start project with funding coming from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Tab Townsell, executive director of the planning organization, spoke as traffic whizzed by behind him on the busy roadway, which is also a state highway.
“We have to find a way to live with it in a fashion that is achievable by everybody, not just the pedestrians and the walkers, not just the vehicles out there, the many thousands of cars a day that use [Highway] 107, JFK [Boulevard], but also the business environment,” Townsell said.
The project will expand mixed use commercial and residential development on JFK Boulevard between A Avenue and H Avenue. Traffic cones and barrels are already in place along the side of the roadway where some newly poured curbs and sidewalks are in place. Medians will also be rebuilt.
Houses are located on adjacent streets, well within walking distance of businesses on JFK Boulevard and that makes this ideal for a more pedestrian friendly neighborhood, officials say, similar to Hillcrest or the Heights in Little Rock. However, as was noted during the event, home prices in Park Hill are much lower.
Dave Larson, owner of Angry Dave’s Bicycles, is among business leaders who have been involved in discussions. He says wider sidewalks, crosswalks and shrubbery separating people from passing vehicles will make a big difference.
“Having people in the neighborhoods be able to get outside and walk the neighborhoods and not be scared to death of 45 mile-per-hour traffic an inch from their elbows, it’s one of those things that will help the walkability of the neighborhood,” Larson said in an interview. “It will help all of the businesses that are here. It will extend an invitation to more businesses that will come and join in, so it has been a long time coming and I’m excited to see it happening.”
He opened the bicycle shop in March 2013 and has since moved it to a larger location in a former McDonald’s on JFK Boulevard. He says seeing the evolution taking place in Park Hill, which was established in 1922, encouraged him to expand his business.
“We’ve got some amazing original houses that are just getting snatched up any time there’s a for sale sign in the yard,” Larson said. “We’ve drawn a lot of business. This is just one more step to bring that in.”
Since the 2013 repeal of a ban on the sale of alcohol in Park Hill, new restaurants and bars have opened. Kent Walker, an attorney who chairs the Park Hill Business & Merchants Association, says it was another step in making the area more of a destination rather than a place for drivers to pass through.
“We thought, why don’t people see what we see here. Why can’t people see this vision of what Park Hill should be, and then Jump Start came along,” he said. “That gave us the impetits to start meeting as a group to start organizing, start thinking, how do we create a neighborhood. They don’t just appear. Argenta didn’t just appear, you have to work on it. You have to create it.”
Walker says for the effort to succeed, those who live and work in the area will also need to be engaged.
“There has to be investment of the businesses, there has to be investment of the community, there has to be investment of the city, state, local governments,” Walker said. “That just happened here. It has been amazing what just took place.”
Plans had to be approved by the Arkansas Department of Transportation because it maintains Highway 107. The project is scheduled to be completed by next May.
