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 in September 1972 by Little Rock Unlimited Progress 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. 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. 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 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." During the planning stage, however, authorities noted of the project, 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."

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. Before launching its own pedestrian mall the Metrocentre Commission also visited malls in Evansville, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky.

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 commissioners of the Metrocentre Improvement District in 1987. The mall was created by renovating and connecting the upper levels of a block of buildings for $12 million.

Even before the pedestrian mall opened, local merchants worried about the kinds of people that open plazas and benches for loitering would bring to downtown. Others capitalized on the new audiences, like the Arkansas Theater which showed fringe films like Black Hooker.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.
• 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.
• "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, "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.