Metrocentre Improvement District

The Metrocentre Improvement District No. 1 is a state legislated special improvement district comprising 44 blocks of downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. The improvement district is managed by the Little Rock Downtown Partnership.

Metrocentre was first proposed on September 13, 1972, by Little Rock Unlimited Progress officials who described it as a "new concept for creating a pedestrian shopping and business mall downtown." The concept was born in reaction to tremendous retail growth in suburban neighborhoods, and decline of downtown Main Street sales. The retailing pattern observed by Unlimited Progress was mirrored across the United States. Retail sales in the central business district of the city declined twenty percent and increased seventy-seven percent on the periphery from 1967 to 1972.

In February 1973 the state legislature approved a bill to create the special improvement district. Leaders were guarded about the potential success of the project. Metrocentre executive director George Millar Jr. noted in 1975, "Little Rock downtown is sick. It is sick to a degree and is certainly not dying and has a lot of life left yet. But anyone who can tell you that we can bring downtown Little Rock back to the days I remember when it was the No. 1 shopping center in Arkansas is foolhardy."

The boundaries of the concept were originally eight blocks bounded by Third, Seventh, Louisiana, and Scott streets, but later revised to encompass the area bounded by Broadway, Ninth Street, Markham Street, and Cumberland Street. Improvements in the district were to be funded by self-imposed voluntary taxes to fund revenue bond issues, as well as general obligation bonds. The bond issues were to provide "convenient access; a place to park; and a place to walk," according to local architect and Metrocentre designer Byron Chapman of Erhart, Eichenbaum, Rauch, and Blass. Other agencies involved in the creation of the pedestrian mall concept included Comprehensive Professional Services and Cromwell, Neyland, Truemper, Millet, and Gatchell. Improvement District authorities also had the power of eminent domain.

Transit in the retail district would change under Metrocentre. Auto traffic would be encouraged by the new Main Street Bridge and a Wilbur D. Mills Freeway interchange to the south. Part of Main Street and the Capitol Parkway would be closed to vehicular traffic other than buses and emergency vehicles, and made into a pedestrian walkway. The area would also be bounded on the northeast and southeast corners by parking garages, and connected to superblocks of retail development by air-conditioned skyways.

The Metrocentre retail plan was inspired by a 1972 visit to Minneapolis' successful downtown Nicollet Mall by several Unlimited Progress representatives, and capitalized on certain aspects of the Main Street 1969 plan. Nicollet Mall was completed in November 1967. On April 27, 1972, O. D. Gay, the executive vice president of the Downtown Council of Minneapolis, confirmed his belief that the Nicollet experience could be replicated in Little Rock. Before launching its own pedestrian mall the Metrocentre Commission also visited malls in Evansville, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky, which led them to the conclusion that parking ramps would be absolutely essential. Porter Briggs of Old Town Properties said of the plan in 1977, "Metrocentre is a great thing, because it's the first thing, in my opinion, that's been done here since World War II for the pedestrian. Everything else has been done for the automobile." But during the planning stage authorities noted instead that "it takes no particular powers of discernment to determine that ample parking at reasonable cost is essential in a society oriented, rightly or wrongly, to the motor car." Parking was of secondary importance to Metrocentre executive director Bob Joblin in 1977, who noted that "[t]here are only two permanent parking lots in downtown. All this asphalt you see, that's land being held for potential redevelopment. And what's the cheapest way to hold land? Parking lots."

Strenuous objections to assessments levied against local property owners in the Metrocentre Improvement District in 1975 led to the paring back the cost of the pedestrian and parking construction project from an original $17 million estimated budget to only $4.585 million. A special panel eliminated several "goodies," including a proposed sculpture entitled Centrenyn as well items deemed essential in early discussions, including both parking garages. The largest assessments were levied against Worthen Bank and Trust, First National Bank, the Boyle Building, KATV Channel 7, Commercial National Bank, the Continental Building, the Tower Building, J. C. Penney, M. M. Cohn, the Federal Reserve Bank, KARK-TV Channel 4, and the Holiday Inn. The scaled back design led architect Noland Blass Jr. to downgrade the Metrocentre as a secondary retail center for the city. Walgreen's trustee Frank J. Wills said, "We have not sponsored this silly thing in trying to revive Main Street. We think they're 10 years late and barking up the wrong tree."

Even before the pedestrian mall officially opened in October 1978, local merchants worried about the kinds of people that open plazas and benches for loitering would bring to downtown. Some businesses like On Time Leisure Clothes, which catered to African Americans, were unwelcome because they "catered to a vry small percentage of the market in their merchandising." Others capitalized on the new audiences, like the Arkansas Theater which showed fringe films like Black Hooker. Metrocentre executive direct Bob Joblin tried to assuage those fears by pointing out that "once the street is reclaimed from the automobile and returned to the pedestrian, we can do 'people' things. They will include gymnastics, belly dancing, pep rallies, concerts, boat shows, fashion shows, and just casual relaxation."

The Metrocentre bonds were issued by Powell and Satterfield. The mall was constructed by George S. Rush Company of Anniston, Alabama, which also constructed the Mid-America Mall in Memphis.

Metrocentre's Main Street Mall (also called "Main Street Market") involved an enclosed multilevel shopping, office, and restaurant center opened under the direction of the Metrocentre Commission in 1987. The mall was created by renovating and connecting the upper levels of a block of buildings for $12 million.

The Main Street Mall was shuttered in 1989 when the pedestrian-only Main Street reopened to traffic. The old mall is now occupied by state government agencies.

While the Main Street Mall at the center of the development has largely been deemed a failure, the Metrocentre Improvement District continues to operate.

References

• "Big Step for Metrocenter," Arkansas Gazette, June 7, 1974.
• "Cost of Metrocentre Mall, Garages Reduced $6 Million," Arkansas Gazette, September 10, 1975.
• Leroy Donald, "Let's Stroll Down the New Mall ...," Arkansas Gazette, October 2, 1977.
• Joseph A. Huddleston, "'Metrocentre' is Discussed for Downtown," Arkansas Gazette, September 13, 1972.
• Joseph A. Huddleston, "Plan for Mall at LR Seen as Catalyst to Revive Business," Arkansas Gazette, October 3, 1972.
• Bill Lewis, "A Mall Grows at LR," Arkansas Gazette, August 8, 1978.
• "Metrocentre: Exciting Concept for Downtown," Arkansas Gazette, September 14, 1972.
• Leslie Mitchell, "Property Owners Push Downtown Mall Plan to Near Starting Soon," Arkansas Gazette, July 26, 1973.
• "Petitions for Downtown Mall Moving Ahead With Slow Haste," Arkansas Gazette, January 6, 1974.
• Bob Stover, "15 Landowners File Protests of Levy to Aid Metrocentre," Arkansas Gazette, October 19, 1975.
• "Letters by 15 Landowners Protest Metrocentre Tax," Arkansas Gazette, October 19, 1975.
• "New Life Downtown," Arkansas Gazette, May 13, 1977.
• "Reduced Assessments and Levies for Scaled-Down Mall Project Filed," Arkansas Gazette, August 19, 1976.
• "A Snag for Mall Project," Arkansas Gazette, October 22, 1975.
• "Some Cutbacks in Metrocentre Called Possible," Arkansas Gazette, November 6, 1975.
• Brenda Spillman, "Metrocentre Mall Holiday Sales Brisk," Arkansas Gazette, September 5, 1978.
• Bob Stover, "Alabama Firm to Build Mall," Arkansas Gazette, February 4, 1977.
• Bob Stover, "Big Reductions in Mall Project are Discussed," Arkansas Gazette, October 25, 1975.
• Bob Stover, "Mall Reduced to $4 Million," Arkansas Gazette, April 16, 1976.
• Bob Stover, "Most of Cost of Metrocentre Borne by Few," Arkansas Gazette, October 4, 1975.
• Bob Stover, "Rumor is Fact: Main Merchants Say They're Happy, Successful," Arkansas Gazette, May 16, 1977.
• Bob Stover, "20 Years After Conception, Birth of Mall Excites Hometown," Arkansas Gazette, February 13, 1977.
• Bob Stover, "Type of Establishments and People Mall to Attract Causing Worries," Arkansas Gazette, March 12, 1975.
• David Terrell, "Little Rock Story: Downtown Residential Area Becomes Increasingly Attractive as a Place to Live and Work," American Preservation 1.1 (October-November 1977): 69.
• "U.S. Report Shows Decrease in Sales in Downtown LR," Arkansas Gazette, April 4, 1975.