Nottingham is a little closer to home following the grand opening of the Burns Park Archery Range Wednesday.
City representatives cut the ribbon on the fully renovated range. North Little Rock Mayor Terry Hartwick knocked a few arrows and struck at the heart of a high-density foam deer stationed at the end of the 20-yard alley.
Hartwick said this is one step on a long road to recovery from a devastating tornado in March 2023.
“We lost 15,000 trees, but not only that we lost the BMX track, our RV park is still out. There was so much construction. But what we did is we took the things that people used the most and fixed them the first," he said. "The archery range was still up, but you can see it needed to be redone. We want to make something that all people, no matter what your level of shooting bows and arrows are, to be proud of.”
Hartwick said the park’s restoration has had some help from federal dollars, but that the city has also provided much of the funding.
"FEMA has helped us a lot, I wont say they haven't, but when you deal with FEMA it's usually a 75/25. So they'll pay 75 to 25. So we're down probably $8 to $10 million.”
Hartwick said there are a few specific projects left to tackle to get one of the nation’s largest city parks back to full operation.
"I got some other things that we are looking at, not only this, but also I want to look at the RV park. The BMX track, we need to get it back to where it was. There's still things that need to be done in our park here to make it completely 100% like it was before.”
The range has a shaded pavilion, paved access to each target for ADA accessibility, and offers targets at 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 yards. It includes both standard and 3D targets like bears and deer at certain times throughout the week.
The range is free to use, open to the public and open year-round from sunrise to sunset. It is unsupervised, and minors under 16 years of age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
