A Rogers investor bought a 33,882-SF shopping center in Fayetteville for nearly $3.7 million.

Zheng Lin LLC, led by Jian Fei Lin, bought Joyce Plaza at the northwest corner of Joyce Avenue and Steele Boulevard. The complex covers 3.77 acres and was formerly anchored by Buffalo Wild Wings, which recently moved across Joyce to a location adjacent to the Malco Cinema.

The seller was Joyce Plaza LLC of Little Rock, led by Pete Hornibrook. Arvest Bank of Fayetteville assisted the purchase with a loan of a little more than $2.95 million.

Springdale Warehouses
A property management firm paid nearly $2.5 million for a warehouse complex in Springdale.

Oldwire LLC of Fayetteville, led by Whitley Dunn, bought the complex at 444 Old Wire Road. Dunn is the president of Dunn Property Management, which lists the property as having 18 warehouses totaling more than 97,000 SF.

First State Bank of Fayetteville assisted the purchase with a loan of $2.125 million.

The seller was a combination of Today’s Bank, Union Bank & Trust Co. and First NaturalState Bank.

Harps Food Store
A former Harps Food Store in Elkins sold for $425,000.

Midland Properties South LLC of Rogers bought the 1.95-acre lot with a 15,328-SF building at 110 N. Center St. Midland Properties South is a subsidiary of Midland Industrial Service, a mechanical, electrical and industrial contractor that was founded in Rogers in 2010.

Harps Food Stores Inc. of Springdale was the seller.

Midland Properties South is led by Midland Industrial co-owners Joe Austin, David Stone and Kenny Williams Jr. The buyers signed a restrictive covenant with Harps in which they promised to not open or lease to a grocery store for 99 years or a pharmacy for 10 years.

Harps has a store in Elkins at 1951 N. Center, about 2 miles north of its former location.

Flying Dog Sale
Mark Zweig Inc., a property development company in Fayetteville, bought the Flying Dog Vintage Mall in Fayetteville.

Zweig paid $205,000 for the 6,355-SF retail center at 427 N. College Ave. Mark Zweig Inc. is led by founder Mark Zweig, who plans to renovate the property to serve as the new headquarters for Mark Zweig Inc.

Zweig is also chairman of the Zweig Group, an architectural and engineering consulting firm in Fayetteville. Zweig said he also plans to use the location to store his collection of automobiles and motorcycles.

The seller was the Farmers & Merchant Bank, which acquired the property when it bought the Bank of Fayetteville in 2015. The Bank of Fayetteville acquired the property in lieu of foreclosure from Packardonblock LLC, led by Atal Harshad Patel.

Hospital Land
Washington Regional Medical Center paid $1.65 million for nearly 9 acres in Fayetteville.

The land is at the southwest corner of Drake Street and North Gregg Avenue, a few blocks from the hospital. Drake Street Holdings LLC of Alma, led by Jack Alexander, was the seller.

School Purchase
Prism Education Center paid $825,000 for a 2-acre lot on East Joyce Boulevard in Fayetteville.

The property has two office buildings with a combined 9,375 SF. Prism is a private school with three campuses in Fayetteville that serves students from preschool through high school.

First Security Bank of Fayetteville assisted the purchase with a loan of $720,000. Covan LLC of Springdale, led by Gene Anderson, was the seller.

5 Dogs Buy
The founder of the northwest Arkansas restaurant chain Foghorn’s bought a 5,950-SF mixed-use building for $415,000.

5 Dogs Investments LLC of Springdale, led by Jeff Hodges, bought the property at 451 E. Township St. in Fayetteville. The seller was the James Doyle & Wilma Doris Shelton Revocable Family Trust of Fayetteville.

First National Bank of Fayetteville assisted the purchase with a loan of nearly $353,000.

David Ganoung has been promoted to vice president of marketing at Harps Food Stores Inc. of Springdale.

Ganoung has also been appointed to the grocery store chain’s executive committee of Harps.

A native of northwest Arkansas, Ganoung has worked in the grocery business since earning a degree in business administration from Arkansas Tech University at Russellville in 1988.

He joined Harps in 1995 and has served as a store manager, a marketing specialist and most recently as director of marketing.

Kenneth N. Hall has joined Quattlebaum Grooms & Tull PLLC in Springdale as an of counsel attorney. He is licensed to practice in Arkansas and Missouri and maintains a practice in southwest Missouri.

Chris Murphy and Kristina Jones have accepted new positions at First Tee of Fort Smith. Murphy has been promoted to executive director. He previously served as program coordinator of the organization. Jones has been hired as a community relations specialist.

See more of this week's Movers & Shakers, and submit your own announcement at ArkansasBusiness.com/Movers.

Arkansas State University’s new hospitality management program has plenty of vacancies, partly because few students know about it: Officials are waiting for a $50 million billboard to point to.

A-State announced its academic emphasis on hospitality studies at the same time plans were revealed for a 203-room hotel, convention center and Houlihan’s restaurant on the Jonesboro campus. Beyond being a commercial enterprise, the complex is envisioned as a kind of hands-on laboratory for the growing field of hospitality management, and an advertisement for the A-State program.

For now, though, the 11-acre site for the Embassy Suites by Hilton and Red Wolf Convention Center near the university’s football stadium remains an empty field, except for a few rolls of chain-link fencing, even though preliminary plans were announced as early as 2013.

“We haven’t promoted the program a whole lot in advance of the convention center being built,” said Professor Melodie Philhours, chair of A-State’s department of management and marketing. “That will be a key for us, and as the convention center moves forward we will start to promote the program more and get the students into the pipeline with training and internships.” For now, the program has fewer than a dozen students.

Construction has been snagged by design details, according to project developer Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Hospitality Management of Springfield, Missouri. “The design of these big projects just sometimes takes longer than we would hope,” O’Reilly said in an email to Arkansas Business.

Site work was expected to start in the third quarter of last year, and O’Reilly said in February the start would come in mid-April. As that deadline passed, O’Reilly said he was waiting for the city of Jonesboro’s final approval of architectural plans, which call for 40,000 SF of convention and meeting space. Killian Construction Co. of Springfield is lining up subcontractors with a groundbreaking expected soon, O’Reilly said.

Construction could take up to 18 months, but A-State officials say the delays have caused no real problems. “We’ve been gearing up well ahead of this, and the fact that it has taken a little longer really hasn’t changed anything from our standpoint,” Philhours said.

A competing convention center near Interstate 555 in Jonesboro appears to be in deep trouble just eight months after breaking ground. The Hyatt Place Hotel & Convention Center, unaffiliated with A-State, faces nearly $900,000 in liens from unpaid contractors.

A-State sees the Embassy Suites project as a place where students can serve as interns, absorbing hotel and restaurant operations and working closely with hotel, restaurant and convention marketing executives.

Philhours said that the hospitality management emphasis was designed to be ramped up slowly. “Now we’re offering a management degree with an emphasis on hospitality management,” rather than a specific major in hospitality. “That is a typical way we start our programs,” Philhours said, citing a degree program in global supply chain management that began, like hospitality, as an area of emphasis for a more general management diploma.

No specific construction start or completion date was ever set for the hotel and convention center at Red Wolf Boulevard and Alumni Drive, said Jeff Hankins, A-State’s vice president for strategic communications and economic development. “I wouldn’t characterize it as delays,” he wrote in an email. “O’Reilly Hospitality is awaiting approval from the city to begin construction, and then a completion timetable will be established. With these new facilities, the quality Embassy Suites brand and the O’Reilly Hospitality Partnership, we believe the hospitality management program will help us to recruit and educate students interested in this growing professional field.”

$6 Billion Industry
Hospitality is a $6 billion industry in Arkansas, second only to agriculture, and it employs more than 100,000 Arkansans. That’s about 9 percent of the workforce, according to Rolf Wilkin, founder of northwest Arkansas’ Eureka Pizza chain and the new chairman of the Arkansas Hospitality Association board.

Nationwide, nearly 13 million people work in the industry, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and hundreds of thousands of those jobs are in management.

Hospitality education programs, particularly focusing on the culinary arts, have also surged in Arkansas and nationwide. Pulaski Technical College, Northwest Arkansas Community College and Ozarka College in Melbourne were among the early leaders in the state.

A-State hopes to offer the added dimensions of hotel management and convention marketing, following the lead of top hospitality programs like those at Michigan State, which founded its School of Hospitality Business in 1927; Cornell University; the University of Nevada at Las Vegas; and Virginia Tech.

Graduates compete for management jobs at not just hotels and restaurants, but also at event-planning firms, theme parks, resorts, tourism agencies, cruise lines and casinos.

“It’s a growing and particularly relevant field in Arkansas and around the world,” Philhours said. “We’ve looked at what other universities have done and talked to many professionals. A lot of our alumni in the business world have expressed interest in helping. We anticipate that when the convention center opens, our students will get to know every operation, from housekeeping and maintenance to accounting, customer service, sales and marketing.”

Many of the academic details of the hospitality program are already in place at A-State, and Philhours, who has taught at the university for 32 years, said the course of study will include a heavier load of internships.

“When conversation first began about a convention center on campus, we realized it would be an opportunity for the university and an opportunity for our students,” she said. “We can offer students another avenue of specialization, with a management degree and additional training and internships focused on hospitality. We’ll be offering courses in hospitality law and hospitality accounting, courses specializing in advertising for hotels and conventions. This all fits in perfectly with the College of Business.”

O’Reilly’s Jonesboro Hotel Partners LLC will operate the convention center, leasing space from Arkansas State, which will not charge rent for the first three years. Afterward, the lease calls for the university to collect $250,000 a year through the ninth year of operation, plus 10 percent of revenue. For the 10th year and thereafter, rent increases will be based on the Consumer Price Index.

Competing Projects
The campus complex, which will include 40,000 SF of meeting space, will go up whether or not a crosstown rival rises, O’Reilly said. Feasibility studies have suggested that one convention center could contribute as much as $50 million a year to the local economy, but that figure doesn’t factor in the effects of a convention competitor.

The other planned complex, the $30 million Hyatt Place Hotel & Convention Center on Browns Lane Access Road, has raised “some serious red flags” by failing to pay contractors. The Hyatt project is backed by the Jonesboro Advertising & Promotion Commission, which appears ready to rescind a funding agreement if developer Chris Keller doesn’t answer questions soon about his financing.

“Our project is of a different size, and a different scope,” O’Reilly said. While the campus project is likely to focus on attracting academic conferences and athletic events, O’Reilly said officials are eager to accommodate all customers. “Our target is everything,” he told Arkansas Business. “Every piece of business we can book.”

Questions about the competing center are beside the point for Arkansas State officials, even though the loss of one convention project might be seen as the other’s gain. Concerns have been raised on whether a city of 75,000 can support two convention centers, even in an outsize regional commercial hub like Jonesboro. “We remain confident that the convention center and hotel site on the A-State campus is ideal for the region, city and university,” Hankins said, noting that it is adjacent to the university’s Convocation Center, Fowler Center for performing arts and Centennial Bank Stadium. “The campus site is also the most suitable one for our students and faculty who will be involved with the hospitality management program.”

An opening time frame has been set for Zin Wine Bar’s planned second location, at the Market Place Shopping Center at 11121 North Rodney Parham Road.

Co-owner Troy Deal hopes to open Zin No. 2 by the end of May and will be employing five to 10 employees.

The 2,000-SF bar will have the same hours as the Zin in downtown Little Rock and similar food and wine offerings, but will also have a party room that can accommodate groups of up to 30 or 40.

Deal is a partner in the second Zin with Michael Puckett and Jeffrey Owens.

Their investment so far is around $125,000, Deal said.

Texas Roadhouse, the steakhouse restaurant company based in Louisville, Kentucky, is opening its new Benton location on July 17 and will begin hiring June 17. The 7,100 SF-store will be the company’s fourth restaurant in Arkansas, but it’s not necessarily done.

That’s according to Travis Doster, the senior director of PR for Texas Roadhouse and “a proud graduate of the University of Arkansas.”

Doster says the company is looking to open restaurants in at least three other cities in Arkansas. “Our restaurants in Arkansas have done really well,” he said. “Arkansas is a hidden gem.” The location in Little Rock, for example, had sales of more than $4 million in 2014, the last year for which figures are publicly available.

The Benton store will be at 20280 Interstate 30 North. Doster said the high-visibility location is intentional. “Texas Roadhouse doesn’t advertise nationally,” he said. “You’ll never see us on TV.” The buildings themselves, with their bright neon signs and flags, serve as advertisements.

“We like to call ourselves a collection of independent restaurants,” he added, because the managing partner of each location has ownership in that store. “They pay us $25,000 and in return they get 10 percent of the operating profits,” Doster said.

Texas Roadhouse, which is traded on the Nasdaq (TXRH), reported revenue of almost $2 billion in 2016, a 10 percent increase over 2015. Texas Roadhouse has 460 locations in 49 states and five locations in the Middle East, and 90 percent of them are company owned.

“Everything we do is made from scratch, which is very labor-intensive, so we’ll hire about 200 employees” for the Benton location, Doster said. “We have on-site meat-cutters, bakers. We bake our own bread. We cut our own meat in-house.”

Texas Roadhouse encourages its restaurants to become involved in their communities. “They support Little Leagues, Special Olympics, various nonprofit organizations,” Doster said. That activity in the community also helps advertise the restaurants.

Keith Smith is the managing partner of the Benton Texas Roadhouse.

Apartments, an industrial project and a store in Little Rock along with a dental development in Bryant and a closed restaurant in Conway all topped the $1 million sales mark.

• Meadowcrest Apartments LLC, led by Don Marshall Jr., sold its namesake 122-unit complex at 5315 Stanley Drive to Colonial Park RBG LLC of West Plains, Missouri, for $2.8 million.

• Ty Garments USA LLC, an affiliate of Suzhou Industrial Park Tianyuan Garments Co. Ltd. of China, bought the 89,516-SF 8909 Fourche Dam Pike project for more than $1.8 million.

Seller? Joseph T. Ryerson & Son Inc. of Chicago.

• The Alice Flynn 2005 Living Trust of Aptos, California, purchased the 3,500-SF Aspen Dental project at 23021 Interstate 30 from NRE Bryant LLC of Fort Worth, Texas, for nearly $1.8 million.

• River Valley Lodging LLC, led by Chet Patel and Rocky Govind, acquired the former Ruby Tuesday project at 2400 Sanders Road for nearly $1.4 million.

Seller: RT Western Missouri Franchise LLC of Maryville, Tennessee.

• GRT Little Rock DG LLC of San Rafael, California, bought the 9,360-SF Dollar General Store at 4748 Springer Blvd. from Rosebud Springer LLC of Huntington Beach, California.

Price? More than $1.2 million.

There’s a lot that’s new around Mickey’s Cakes and Sweets these days.

The west Little Rock company just moved into a 4,600-SF space, giving it a larger storefront, meeting space and expanded production area to handle its rapidly growing clientele. In addition to customers seeking cakes of all descriptions, Mickey’s has steadily grown its list of baked goods for consumer traffic and, more recently, food service clients. Accordingly, the staff has swelled to nearly 20 full- and part-time employees.

But what’s most significant here, and what the business revolves around, is what hasn’t changed. The bakery is co-owned by multiple family members; Dorothy Coleman, Yolanda Coleman, Marquis and Kendra Boyle. Dorothy Coleman has been baking and decorating cakes for almost 50 years, more than half of it at Mickey’s and 20 years of it as co- or sole owner. In that time, she’s been joined in the business by two daughters who’ve introduced fresh ideas and handle back-office business tasks.

When it comes to the product quality, Dorothy sets the standard high.

“We strive to never fail our customers and we succeed in meeting this goal 90 percent of the time.” Dorothy said. Cakes have come a long way since Coleman started at North Little Rock’s landmark Koehler’s Bakery in 1969.

Realizing there was a customer niche looking for more cake options than round or square, she joined her friend and future business partner Mickey Young, namesake of Mickey’s Cakes & Sweets, in 1990.

“Both [Dorothy] and Mickey were innovators in the Little Rock area,” said Yolanda Coleman, Dorothy’s daughter. “Back then, there really weren’t custom cakes and so when they decided to offer that, especially in the Little Rock area, it was something new and fresh. We’ve always led the industry from that perspective.”

Timing was perfect and business boomed, right through to today when Pinterest and reality shows like Cake Boss have made the sky practically the limit for what customers will request. Dorothy and the Mickey’s team have created two- and three-foot replicas of office buildings, configured every wedding cake imaginable and even captured the image of a beauty queen, near-life sized, in cake.

“Someone had a pageant and they wanted the cake to actually be formed like a regular person,” she said. “It stood about five feet; we had to rent a U-Haul truck to transport it to the event center.”

There are no shortcuts in Dorothy’s kitchen. Eggs are still cracked by hand, carrots are grated individually for the carrot cake and all of the frostings and fillings are made in-house. More than once she’s worked into the early morning hours to meet a deadline; even today, her staff might come in to find she’d slept in the bakery. To Dorothy it’s just part of doing business and she passes this philosophy on to employees and family alike, in word and by example.

“You must have a passion for it. That is very essential because if you do not have a passion for it, you won’t be able to last,” she said. “[Entrepreneurship] requires long hours and it requires some dedication as far as your time. There are times when you have to let that social life go in order to get the business developed and going, so stay motivated.”

Petit & Keet Bar & Grill, a joint venture between veteran Arkansas restaurateurs Louis Petit and Jim Keet, is scheduled to open May 18, according to a Tuesday news release.

It will open in the previous 1620 Savoy location at 1620 Market St. in Little Rock.

Arkansas Business first announced plans for the restaurant in September.

"We are excited to bring a chef-driven menu, original signature cocktails, and an expansive wine list with affordable prices to the West Little Rock area," Keet said in the release. "Little Rock has a growing number of food savvy customers who are looking for restaurants that are locally owned with great food, unique and vibrant atmospheres, and a top-notch staff. We look forward to exceeding their expectations."

Keet has been in the Arkansas restaurant business since 1975, and currently owns and operates Taziki's Mediterranean Cafés and Paninis & Co. in Arkansas with his sons, Tommy and Jake, who also are partners in Petit & Keet.

Petit, recently inducted into the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame, was an original owner of Jacques & Suzanne, a legendary Little Rock restaurant that introduced a number of restaurateurs and chefs who went on to open other famed establishments in the area.

"Jim and I have been friends for decades and share a passion for excellent food and outstanding service. We have been talking about bringing an exciting new restaurant to Arkansas for years and we are looking forward to making Petit & Keet an unforgettable venue for our guests," Petit said.

The interior of Petit & Keet, which the release described as a "polished-casual restaurant and bar," was designed in collaboration with Little Rock native Garry Mertins and KO Construction Management was the contractor for the project.

The new restaurant will have a varied menu crafted by local chefs and will use as many local products and ingredients as possible, the release said. Petit & Keet will also have a full bar with specialty drinks, cocktails and "a first-class bartending staff."

"With the restaurant's polished-casual redesign, guests will be able to enjoy the outdoor patio, a new sidewalk café, or the redesigned dining room," the release said. "Petit & Keet will also have three private event rooms, accommodating parties from 10 to 70."

Brent Lenners, who previously has served as food and beverage director for Native Lights Casino in Oklahoma and Margaritaville Resort & Casino in Shreveport, Louisiana, will be Petit & Keet's general manager. His wife, Tyler, will be assistant general manager and event coordinator.

There’s nothing wrong the retail market in northwest Arkansas.

The vacancy rate in the market is less than 5 percent and new areas of development are showing promise, experts said. The Pinnacle area in Rogers is an obvious growth area as new offices and retail centers feed off each other.

“In terms of activity and tenant demand, I would say the retail market is as strong or stronger than it has been,” said Alan Cole, a principal with Colliers International. “Retail is a very hot sector in the market. What we are seeing is there are certain corridors that are ripe for expansion and will probably be a focus for retailers over the next year or two or five.”

Joe Whisenhunt’s Whisenhunt Investments built a 24,000-SF retail center and has a 16,000-SF center under construction on Pauline Whitaker Parkway. The completed center, District Shops I, is filled up with active or pledged tenants, and the second center already has one confirmed tenant: Mirabella’s Table, a restaurant by Carl Garrett, who owns the popular Table Mesa in downtown Bentonville.

Burke Larkin of Whisenhunt said that the market is strong enough that the retail center is offering a minimum five-year lease.

“The rents are good right now,” Larkin said. “We’re kind of getting picky and choosy with our tenants. We’re signing some five-, seven-, 10-year deals. We have a good mix of local, regional and national tenants.”

Shops I, the completed center, has tenants such as Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Kom Hot Yoga and Adella Nail Bar. Developers try to get lease combinations that work well with each other so a retail center becomes a destination for today’s shoppers.

“You go do your yoga and then get your nails done and then go get tacos,” Larkin said. “That’s a female friendly shopping center when it’s all said and done. That’s just what the market is doing right now.”

T.J. Lefler, executive vice president with Sage Partners, said grocery-anchored centers that offer goods and services consumers can’t buy online are good bets. Amazon can ship just about anything to your house but it can’t give you a manicure or a workout.

“You really can’t order your haircut on the internet,” Lefler said. “Anytime you see a center come available on the market, it doesn’t last very long. Ten years ago, there were a lot of centers being built for no reason. Now any center I see has a reason. They’re preleased at least half. It’s tenant-driven. There’s not a lot of spec out there.”

Cole said Pinnacle will be popular until it fills up, which could be soon the way retail center space gets scooped up as it become available. With Pinnacle filling up, developers are naturally looking for the next hot spot. So far, that looks to be a few miles to the south at Pleasant Grove. The downtown areas of each of the region’s four main cities continue to be popular as well.

“It is blowing up down there,” Larkin said of Pleasant Grove. “There is all kinds of stuff happening down there. I look forward to what happens a year from now.”

Don’t forget the downtowns, though, Cole said, pointing out Bentonville’s surge, Fayetteville’s steady activity and Springdale’s resurgence.

“Those downtown areas that have been overlooked for retail for the past decade have all really started seeing this renewal,” he said.

See more from the 2017 Northwest Arkansas Lease Guide.

Heights Corner Market has hired Chef Jeffrey Moore to run its prepared foods department and the Heights Corner Café, owner Eric Herget says.

Moore was at one point the chef for Terry’s Restaurant, the restaurant affiliated with Terry’s Finer Foods, whose location and mantle Heights Corner Market has taken up.

Moore’s grandfather is Ed Moore, a restaurateur who with former Continental Cuisine partners Paul Bash, Louis Petit and Denis Seyer was named Proprietor of the Year by the Department of Arkansas Heritage and its Arkansas Food Hall of Fame in February. Continental Cuisine was behind Restaurant Jacques & Suzanne, and members of the partnership, including Moore, went on to open a number of famed central Arkansas restaurants, among them Alouette’s, Graffiti’s and the Purple Cow.

Choices for the coffee-loving crowd are proliferating in downtown Little Rock what with the opening or scheduled opening of at least four new coffee shops within the last few months.

They are:

• A full-service Starbucks, which opened in September in the Little Rock Marriott at 3 Statehouse Plaza.

• Blue Sail Coffee, at 417 Main St. in the Little Rock Technology Park. Blue Sail, owned by Kyle Tabor, originated in Conway, where it has two locations, one of which is also a coffee roastery while the other is also a bakery. “Downtown Little Rock has needed coffee for a long time,” said Tabor, an Arkansas Business 20 in Their 20s honoree in 2015. “We heard that from so many people.” Blue Sail opened in March and Tabor said business has been good.

• Zetêo Coffee, which was scheduled to open to the public Saturday, at 610 President Clinton Ave., the Rock Dental Brands building that used to house the Clinton Museum Store. Zeteo, owned by Jon and Trina Mitchell, is another example of a Conway coffee shop branching out to Little Rock. Zetêo will offer coffee from Onyx Coffee Lab of Springdale. Unlike the Conway shop, the Little Rock location will also serve beer and wine.

• Nexus Coffee & Creative at 301B President Clinton Ave., next to the former location of Ten Thousand Villages. The owner is Amy Moorehead, who earned a degree in hospitality management from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and who previously was the director of membership and special events at the Arkansas Hospitality Association. Her timeline to open is sometime this summer, and Nexus will partner with Leiva’s Coffee, the family-owned coffee company based in Sherwood, to roast its coffee.

We visited a little with Moorehead, who described Nexus’ “crop to cup campaign,” which focuses on providing a better quality of life coffee farmers. “The community, when they purchase our bags of coffee or our cups of coffee, they’re supporting that as well and they’re giving back to the farmer,” she said.

Nexus will also offer specialty tea and “a simplified menu with top-quality food items,” serving breakfast, lunch and “shareable appetizer options for our happy hour.” It will serve Arkansas cheese and bread, local craft beer — including Diamond Bear and Lost Forty — along with local wine from Raimondo Winery and Post Familie Vineyards & Winery, as well as others.

It’s a family-operated enterprise, Moorehead said, and the venture is funded through a combination of her money and a loan from Arvest Bank.

“We’re very serious and we’re very committed,” she said. “We want to see this expand in the community and beyond Little Rock but stay within the state of Arkansas.”

Despite the surge in coffee-oriented restaurants downtown, Moorehead thinks there’s room for everybody.

“There’s room to share. Our goal is to work with other coffee shops in the area to promote this coffee and tea industry that has yet to be very established in Little Rock and beyond,” she said.

She sees the coffee and tea scene as a way to bring people together to share ideas and stories. “A lot of what we’re doing is promoting that creativity and that networking that already is here in Little Rock but it’s taking it to a new level with coffee and tea.”

Speaking of Onyx
Three Onyx Coffee Lab representatives won recognition in the 2017 U.S. Coffee Championships in Seattle late last month. Dylan Siemens won first place in the brewers cup competition; Mark Michaelson, first place in the roaster division; and Andrea Allen, second place in the barista competition. This is an impressive showing. Winners will go on to compete in the World Coffee Championships later this year.

A retail building in west Little Rock tipped the scales at $4.01 million.

Beefam LLC and Bonerts MV LLC of Santa Ana, California, acquired the 7,457-SF project at 17701 Chenal Parkway, home to Pei Wei and Mattress Firm. The seller is Promenade at Chenal Lot 3 LLC, an affiliate of Thompson Thrift Development Inc. of Terre Haute, Indiana.

The deal is financed with a 10-year loan of $2.95 million from Arvest Bank of Fayetteville. The 1.47-acre development previously was tied to an October 2015 mortgage of $2.36 million held by Old National Bank of Evansville, Indiana.

The location was bought for $925,000 19 months ago from Red Little Rock Land LLC of Overland Park, Kansas.

Parking Purchase
A parking lot in downtown Little Rock weighed in at $2.1 million.

Scion Investments LLC, led by Reed Lynch, purchased the 0.96-acre property on the east side of Broadway between Third and Fourth streets. The seller is 301 South Broadway LLC, led by the S. Gene Cauley Irrevocable Trust.

South Broadway carried $1.7 million of the purchase price. The property previously was linked with a June 2008 mortgage of $1.2 million held by First Security Bank of Searcy.

The property was acquired for $1.7 million in June 2008 from Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks.

Crest Acquisition
An undeveloped 10-acre parcel in west Little Rock changed hands in a $1.03 million transaction.

Crest at Chenal LLC, led by Larry Crain Jr., bought the land near the southwest corner of Chenal Parkway and Northfield Drive. The seller is the Presbytery of Arkansas.

The deal is backed with a two-year loan of $824,000 from First Security Bank. The land previously was tied to a pair of December 2014 mortgages totaling $1 million held by BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Mississippi.

The property was purchased for $262,000 in August 1991 from Deltic Farm & Timber Co. of El Dorado.

Rural Acreage
About 41 acres in west Pulaski County is under new ownership after an $800,000 transaction. Aaron Gamewell and Nola Proctor acquired the property nearly 3 miles west of Ferndale from the John & Carolyn Russell Family Trust.

The deal is funded with a one-year loan of $400,000 from Relyance Bank of Pine Bluff. The property was assembled in four deals totaling $181,400.

The sellers were Barbara Pride Whitfield, $81,600 in February 2000; the Paul R. Pride Revocable Trust, $27,300 in February 2000; Judy Hampton, $7,500 in March 2001; and Walter and Nancy Dunn, $65,000 in February 2011.

Industrial Land
Land on the southern edge of the Little Rock Port Industrial Park rang up a $357,500 sale.

Bevans Family Ltd., led by James Shipman, purchased 11 acres at the northwest corner of Zeuber and Thibault roads.

The sellers are the Barbara & George Beene Joint Revocable Trust, Mary McKinnon Biondo Joint Revocable Trust, William W. Crawford, Bobby Fewell Revocable Trust, Glenda Shannon Fewell Family Trust, Thomas I. Koike & Kay K. Koike Trust, Louis Anthony Renaud, Georganne R. Freasier Revocable Trust, Jerome Sherman, Anthony and Myrtle DiPietro, John Meadors, Robert Watkins and Matthew and Grant Williams.

The property was acquired for $105,308 in December 1979 from Mary Toney.

Alignment Buy
A 3,068-SF commercial building in North Little Rock drew a $260,000 transaction.

Alignment Properties LLC, led by Kristin and John Clark, bought the former Wooldridge Photography project at 5307 JFK Blvd. from Tim Wooldridge.

The deal is financed with a 15-year loan of $208,000 from Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama.

A 0.4-acre development previously was linked with a January 2011 mortgage of $229,000 held by One Bank & Trust of Little Rock.

Wooldridge purchased the property for $155,000 in March 2001 from Scott and Connie Scherz.

Multifamily Deal
A four-unit apartment building in Sherwood sold for $200,000.

Hadir Orkibi acquired the 202-208 Cherrie Ave. project from TNT KLATR LLC, led by Zeke Tanner.

The deal is backed with a 30-year loan of $159,375 from Caliber Home Loans Inc. of Irving, Texas.

The 0.33-acre development previously was tied to a July 2014 mortgage of $185,000 held by Eagle Bank & Trust of Little Rock.

The property was bought for $205,000 nearly three years ago from Kenneth Rhone.

Sologne Manor
A 7,099-SF home in the Sologne Circle neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development tipped the scales at $1.21 million.

The RAL Revocable Trust, led by Marilyn Rene Nauman, purchased the house from the Lowell Steven Jumper & Sheila Dianne Jumper Revocable Trust.

The Jumpers acquired the property for $400,000 in March 2007 from J&J Family Ltd., led by Richard E. Jones.

Orle Residence
A 5,751-SF home in the Orle Circle neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development changed hands in a $752,000 sale.

James and Virginia Hill bought the house from Robert and Shanon Greer. The deal is funded with a five-year loan of $675,000 from Citizens Bank of Batesville.

The residence previously was linked with a March 2015 mortgage of $417,000 held by First Security Bank.

The location was purchased for $132,000 in December 2007 from Deltic Timber Corp. of El Dorado.

Woodland’s Abode
A 3,180-SF home in west Little Rock’s Woodland’s Edge neighborhood is under new ownership after a $636,000 transaction.

Virginia Mullins acquired the house from Duston Hennard Homes Inc. The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $325,000 from Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff.

The residence previously was tied to an October 2015 mortgage of $365,000 held by the bank.

The site was bought for $79,000 19 months ago from Rocket Properties LLC, led by Ron Tyne and Lisenne Rockefeller.

Bell Pointe House
A 3,903-SF home in west Little Rock’s Belle Pointe neighborhood rang up a $540,000 sale.

Nahel Saied purchased the house from Liudmila Schafer. The deal is backed with a 15-year loan of $424,400 from Eagle Bank & Trust of Little Rock.

The residence previously was linked with a pair of mortgages totaling $577,000 held by Arkansas Federal Credit Union of Jacksonville.

The property was acquired for $607,000 in December 2012 from the Paul W. Stout Revocable Trust.

Osage Falls Home
A 4,725-SF home in Maumelle’s Osage Falls neighborhood drew a $525,000 transaction.

Dorman Reed bought the house from the Jonathan G. Young & Karen A. Young Trust No. 1. The deal is funded with a 30-year loan of $375,000 from Quicken Loans Inc. of Detroit.

The location was purchased for $95,000 in October 2010 from Wanda Carroll.

Miramar Dwelling
A 4,000-SF home in the Miramar Place neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development sold for $506,361.

Brent and Kristi Robinson acquired the house from WI Properties LLC, led by Todd Witham.

The location was bought for $89,000 in December 2014 from Deltic Timber Corp. of El Dorado.

Conway will be getting a Burge’s Restaurant this summer, at the southeast corner of Dave Ward and Equity drives, at the entrance to the Acxiom campus.

It will be Burge’s third location, after Lewisville (1962) and Little Rock (1974). Bruce Stracener, who doesn’t pay much attention to titles — “I kind of do everything around here” — called it a “slow expansion strategy.”

Burge’s owner, Jeff Voyles, said he’d considered opening a third location in west Little Rock a couple of times, “but I never was comfortable with the location, but this Conway location I really like. I think it’s a good fit. We have a lot of customers that come from Conway.”

Groundbreaking on the building that will house the restaurant took place about two weeks ago. Burge’s will occupy 4,000 SF and a second tenant will occupy the remaining 1,200 SF, Voyles said.

Voyles said he’s also had a lot of requests to open a Burge’s in northwest Arkansas. “My thinking was do a Conway location and maybe have something in the Fort Smith-Russellville area and also in the Fayetteville area.”

Voyles, originally from Texarkana, grew up eating at the original Burge’s in Lewisville, founded by Alden Burge. He bought both locations eight years ago from Alden’s son, Jack.

Voyles used to be an investment broker and Jack Burge was one of his clients. Voyles sent Burge’s hams and turkeys to clients all over the country. When Burge started thinking about retiring, he urged Voyles to buy Burge’s.

Although running restaurants is a little different from being an investment broker, his financial background has helped him, Voyles said.

Voyles received his finance degree from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in 1989, so “in some sense it’s going back to my roots. I’ve always loved Conway as a town.”

Little Rock restaurant group Yellow Rocket Concepts on Monday announced that it was opening a Big Orange in Rogers, its first restaurant outside central Arkansas.

Scheduled to open in late fall 2017, Big Orange Northwest will be the third Big Orange. The 5,200-SF restaurant will be in the Pinnacle Hills Promenade at 2203 S. Promenade Blvd. It will seat about 158.

Yellow Rocket Concepts also operates the restaurants Zaza, Local Lime and Heights Taco & Tamale Co., as well as Lost Forty Brewing.

In addition to Big Orange's burgers and other menu items, Big Orange Northwest will offer "expanded small plates and starter dishes, hyper-local food and beverage selections, house-made desserts, and dangerously delicious spiked milkshakes," according to a news release from Yellow Rocket.

The restaurant, BONW, will also have a full bar, craft cocktails, 20 draft beers (as well as canned and bottled beer), draft wine and nonalcoholic draft beverages. 

"BONY will host annual beer, wine, and spirit dinners, as well as pop-up bar dinner experiences," Yellow Rocket said.

Big Orange first opened in 2011 and has won a number of awards.

"I was born at Washington Regional in Fayetteville while my dad played for the Arkansas Razorbacks," Scott McGehee, a partner in Yellow Rocket and YRC executive chef, said in the release. "I returned to Fayetteville to attend the University of Arkansas before leaving for culinary school. Sharing my team's passion for thoughtfully prepared, delicious burgers with our friends in Northwest Arkansas will be the most wonderful homecoming I could imagine." 

McGehee's father, Frank McGehee, who died in 2005, helped found Juanita's, a popular restaurant and live music venue that closed in December 2015.

Yellow Rocket, which employs about 470, last year paid $825,000 for a 2-acre property in Riverdale, including two buildings comprising 11,150 SF, to serve as the company's new corporate headquarters. It brought in $10.8 million in food sales alone in 2014, the last year for which figures were available.

A 10,430-SF retail building in west Little Rock weighed in at $3.57 million.

Gateway Village I LLC, led by Tommy Hodges, sold the 6 Bass Pro Drive project, home of David’s Burgers, Hogman’s Gameday Superstore and more.

The new ownership was divided among three limited liability companies managed by the Little Rock office of Colliers International: 300 West Lime (Lakeland), 64.9 percent; Huntsville Investors, 25 percent; and Gateway Village Lot 2, 10.1 percent.

The deal is financed with a seven-year loan of $2.88 million from Greenwoods State Bank of Lake Mills, Wisconsin.

The 1.74-acre development previously was tied to an October 2014 mortgage of $1.7 million held by Malvern National Bank.

The land is part of a four-part assembly of 176 acres in January 2002 deals totaling more than $2.4 million.

The sellers were Canadian Pacific Properties Inc. of Alberta, Calgary, $1.46 million; Otter Creek Development Co. LLC, led by Robert McGinnis and Byron Eiseman, $784,000; Cynthia Keaton, $143,000; and the Jennifer Mae Kochtitzky Trust No. 2, $81,390.

Garment Plant
An 89,516-SF industrial building in east Little Rock tipped the scales at $1.85 million.

Ty Garments USA LLC, an affiliate of Suzhou Industrial Park Tianyuan Garments Co. Ltd. of China, bought the 8909 Fourche Dam Pike project from Joseph T. Ryerson & Son Inc. of Chicago.

The 10-acre location was purchased for $108,900 in September 1973 from the city of Little Rock.

Sonic Sale
A fast-food eatery in west Little Rock rang up a $1.3 million sale.

D.L. Rogers Corp. of North Richland Hills, Texas, acquired the Sonic Drive-In at 11700 Col. Glenn Road.

The seller is LLEJ Lot 1 LLC, led by Leonard Boen. The 1.73-acre location was bought in October 2002 as part of a $1.9 million deal with Rector Phillips Morse’s Birch Brook Inc.

Heights Retail
A 6,900-SF retail center in the Heights area of Little Rock changed hands in a $975,000 transaction.

Three Shops With A Top LLC, led by John Hathaway, Tomas Bohm and Wesley Martin, purchased the 5707-5711 Kavanaugh Blvd. project. The seller is Bee Properties LLC, led by Joseph Beck.

The deal is backed with a five-year loan of $780,000 from IberiaBank of Lafayette, Louisiana.

The Beck family has owned the 0.24-acre development since June 1946.

Riverside Purchase
A 4.54-acre commercial site in west Little Rock sold for $950,000.

Riverside Properties LLC, led by Lisenne Rockefeller, acquired the land at the northwest corner of David O. Dodd Road and Lawson Cut-off.

The seller is Terraforma LLC, led by Doug Meyer and David Bruning.

The property was purchased in January 2004 as part of a $225,000 deal with Mark Riable Ltd. and Susan McNamara Smith.

Office Acquisition
A 2,924-SF office building in west Little Rock drew a $900,000 transaction.

Madison Markham LLC of Issaquah, Washington, bought the 12211 W. Markham St. project from Vandervoort Enterprises LLC, led by Blake Price.

The deal is funded with a four-year loan of $1 million from Washington Trust Bank of Seattle.

Vandervoort Enterprises acquired the property for $615,000 in April 2011 from Centennial Bank of Conway.

Concrete Transactions
Two North Little Rock concrete properties combined for a $535,000 deal.

Razorback Concrete Co. of Wichita, Kansas, purchased the 4000 Crystal Hill Road project for $360,000 and the 2500 Eanes Road project for $175,000.

The seller in both deals is Two LLC, led by Keith Ingram. The projects previously were linked with a November 2013 mortgage of $1.1 million held by Cadence Bank of Memphis.

The 6.35-acre Crystal Hill property was acquired for $186,000 in July 2003 from Peggy and Richard Pryor and Patricia and Arthur Norris.

The 8.97-acre Eanes Road development was bought for $120,000 in March 2010 from Weaver-Bailey Contractors Inc., led by Charles Weaver.

Club House I
A 3,079-SF home near the Country Club of Little Rock is under new ownership after a $709,000 sale.

Lindsay and Nicholas Makris acquired the house from Shawn and Elizabeth Grotte. The residence previously was tied to a December 2009 mortgage of $360,000 held by Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama.

The Grottes purchased the property for $475,000 in October 2007 from Jana and John Turner.

Club House II
A 2,962-SF home near the Country Club of Little Rock rang up a $635,000 sale. The Ashley B. Jackson Revocable Trust bought the house from Michael and Marsha Ballard.

The residence previously was linked with a December 2015 mortgage of $300,000 held by BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Mississippi.

The Ballards acquired the location for $160,000 in April 2015 from James Gray.

Woodland’s Home I
A 4,235-SF home in the Woodland’s Edge neighborhood of west Little Rock changed hands in a $599,900 deal.

Karmon and John Johnson purchased the residence from Mark and Kristen Schneider.

The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $300,000 from the Bank of England. The house previously was tied to a March 2016 mortgage of $440,000 held by Arvest Bank of Fayetteville.

The Schneiders bought the property for $550,000 14 months ago from The Dillon Group Inc., led by Janet Dillon.

Condo Residence
A 1,658-SF high-rise condo in downtown Little Rock sold for $565,000.

Cynthia Fisher acquired the sixth-floor unit in the River Market Tower at 315 Rock St. from Austin and Ann Grimes.

The deal is backed with a 30-year loan of $508,500 from One Bank & Trust of Little Rock. The residence previously was linked with an April 2010 mortgage of $203,500 held by Arkansas Federal Credit Union of Jacksonville.

The Grimes family purchased the property for $513,000 in June 2009 from River Market Tower LLC, led by Jimmy Moses and Rett Tucker.

Prospect Abode
A 2,292-SF home in Little Rock’s Prospect Terrace neighborhood drew a $535,000 transaction.

Dawn Scott bought the house from Robert and Eliza Gaines. The deal is funded with a 30-year loan of $424,100 from Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff.

The residence previously was tied to a March 2013 mortgage of $360,000 held by Delta Trust Mortgage of Little Rock.

The Gaines family acquired the property for $458,000 more than four years ago from Charles Henry Jr. and his wife, Susan.

Woodland’s Home II
A 5,368-SF home in the Woodland’s Edge neighborhood of west Little Rock is under new ownership after a $527,000 sale.

Carl Dyer Sr. and his wife, Marsha, purchased the house from Thomas and Cherel Chilton. The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $421,000 from the Bank of England.

The residence previously was linked with a January 2012 mortgage of $358,375 held by Summit Bank of Arkadelphia.

The Chiltons bought the property for $519,000 in January 2012 from The Wilson Co., led by Janet Dillon.

Multimillion-Dollar Construction

Medical Office    $16,000,000
Arkansas Specialty Orthopaedics
800 Fair Park Blvd., Little Rock
Kinco Constructors LLC, Little Rock

Construction projects are flourishing in Jonesboro, despite the financial woes plaguing one of its largest commercial ventures.

Inside the city limits, $164 million worth of construction is in motion, led by St. Bernards Medical Center in downtown Jonesboro. And more projects are on the way.

Construction is expected to start soon on the $60 million Embassy Suites and Red Wolf Convention Center on the campus of Arkansas State University, Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Hospitality Management of Springfield, Missouri, said in an email to Arkansas Business last week. “We are waiting for the building permit which we will have any day,” he wrote.

The project is expected to take 14-15 months to complete. It will feature a 202-room Embassy Suites hotel, 40,000-SF Red Wolf Convention Center and Houlihan’s restaurant. Killian Construction Co. of Springfield, Missouri, is the general contractor. The project is scheduled to open before the start of the fall 2018 semester at the college.

The other convention center project in Jonesboro, however, is struggling and has been hit with a number of contractor’s liens and lawsuits.

Other projects in Jonesboro are doing better. St. Bernards Medical Center recently completed its $7.35 million Ben E. Owens Cancer Center addition and renovation project, said Kevin Hodges, vice president of affiliated and senior services at St. Bernards.

The work was one of four phases that will total $137.5 million at St. Bernards in downtown Jonesboro, which has helped fuel interest in the area, Hailey Knight, executive director of the Downtown Jonesboro Association, said in an email.

“We have 29 new lofts being built,” she wrote. “People are attracted to this area.”

She says downtown also benefited from the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State, which enrolled its first class of 120 students last August.

Also helping development in Jonesboro is Craighead County’s low unemployment rate, which has been attractive to developers, said Joshua Brown, principal broker of Haag Brown Commercial Real Estate & Development in Jonesboro.

The unemployment rate for the county was 2.8 percent in March, which was lower than the state’s rate of 3.6 percent and the national rate of 4.5 percent.

And he said that the city is still seeing commercial projects as a result of NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro spending $400 million on its medical campus, which opened in January 2014.

Here are some of the current top projects in the city.

St. Bernards Medical Center Surgery Tower/ Emergency Department Ambulance Entrance

Cost: $80 million
Contractor: Nabholz Construction Corp. of Conway
Architect: HKS Inc. of Dallas
Projected Completion: Spring 2019

St. Bernards announced in December 2015 that it was starting a four-phase construction project.

The centerpiece of the project is the $80 million, 245,000-SF, five-story surgical and intensive care tower and renovation of the emergency department, said Hodges.

The project will consolidate services into one building, he said. It will also provide a new entrance for emergency services. The first level will have 14 surgical suites and a pharmacy, and the second floor will be a 48-bed critical care unit. Hodges said the project was financed through a bond issue and with the health care system’s cash reserves. After this project is complete, Hodges said, another phase will begin on renovating areas that haven’t yet been identified. He didn’t have a cost estimate for that construction phase.

Hyatt Place Hotel & Convention Center

Cost: $25 Million
Contractor: Construction Network Inc. of Jonesboro
Architect: Pure Architecture Studio LLC of Milwaukee
Projected Completion: Unknown

Jonesboro Hyatt Place Hotel & Convention Center broke ground in August, and problems soon developed. Subcontractors earlier this year began filing liens against the project totaling more than $900,000.

The developer, Northern Arkansas Hotel & Convention Center LLC, hasn’t made any payments to the general contractor and owes $1.5 million to subcontractors and a supplier, according to documents filed in court late last month.

Sean Stem, the president of Construction Network Inc. of Jonesboro, said in an affidavit filed April 21 that Northern Arkansas Hotel & Convention Center “has failed to make payments to CNI and to date has made no payments in any amount to CNI related to work performed on this project.”

The Jonesboro Advertising & Promotion Commission on April 13 sent a letter to Northern Arkansas Hotel & Convention Center demanding copies of several documents involving the financing of the project; it also asked to see a commitment letter from Hyatt. If the commission doesn’t receive the paperwork by May 19, it will rescind its pledge of $300,000 to the project.

Chris Keller, CEO of Northern Arkansas Hotel & Convention Center, didn’t respond to an email message from Arkansas Business last week.

Last week, Keller returned nearly $75,000 the A&P Commission had given for the project, Chairman Jerry Morgan said in an email to Arkansas Business last week. The check “didn’t have any correspondence with it,” he said. “It was just the check.”

FNB Financial Park

Cost: $20 million
Contractor: Ramsons Inc. of Jonesboro
Architect: WD&D Architects of Little Rock
Projected Completion: Spring 2018

First National Bank of Paragould announced in September that it was building a five-story, 60,000-SF building for its Craighead County operations. First National spokesman Blake Guinn said the bank’s headquarters will remain in Paragould.

The Jonesboro project will have a community room, an outdoor terrace and “public events will be welcomed and encouraged,” according to a First National news release. The site also will have underground parking for 50 vehicles.

The project is on schedule and should be completed in the spring of 2018, Guinn said.

Arkansas State University Undergraduate Housing

Cost: $14.8 million
Contractor: Huffman & Co. of Little Rock
Architect: Planworx Architecture of Raleigh, North Carolina
Projected Completion: Fall 2017

The two buildings, totaling 350 beds, for undergraduates at Arkansas State University won’t look “anything like dormitories from the late 20 century,” said spokesman Bill Smith. “They’ll have 9-foot ceilings. They have ceiling fans. They have walk-in closets.”

The amenities will be comparable to off-campus apartments, he said.

A-State signed a 35-year land lease agreement with Zimmer Development Co. of Wilmington, North Carolina, to build the dorms along with graduate housing. Zimmer also will maintain the units while A-State will manage and market the complex, according to an A-State news release. During the initial years, Zimmer will pay $200,000 annually for the undergraduate land lease.

Smith said A-State’s on-campus housing had operated at full capacity for several years.

The arrangement with Zimmer “was seen as a way to enhance the inventory of campus housing without the debt load that might come with it.”

Arkansas State University Graduate Housing

Cost: $12.2 million
Contractor: Huffman & Co. of Little Rock
Architect: Planworx Architecture of Raleigh, North Carolina
Projected Completion: Fall 2017

The 165-bed complex for Arkansas State University’s graduate students is expected to open by the fall, said A-State spokesman Bill Smith.

The rooms feature their own bathrooms and closets, he said.

Zimmer Development Co. is also leasing the land the building is on and will pay $105,000 during the initial years.

“Our student community has grown,” then-Chancellor Tim Hudson said in a February 2016 news release announcing the housing projects. “These projects allow us to accommodate students who want to reside on campus throughout their career.”

The two projects will bring the resident total to about 3,700.

St. Bernards Heartcare Center Renovation

Cost: $12 million
Contractor: Nabholz Construction Corp. of Conway
Architect: HKS Inc. of Dallas
Projected Completion: December 2017

The 14,000-SF renovation work at St. Bernards Heartcare Center started in January and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, said Hodges, the St. Bernards VP. The facade of the center will remain the same, but the inside is being renovated so that all noninvasive procedures will be conducted on the first floor and invasive procedures on the second. It also is adding a cardiac catheterization lab. The third floor, which had been a shell since the building opened in 1999, will be built out to hold a 26-unit patient prep and recovery area and a separate family waiting area, according to St. Bernards.

No $21 million, six-story building goes up without a well-thought-out plan.

When the building is under construction across the street from the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, planning becomes even more important. The Dave Grundfest Co. of Little Rock realized that after it was hired to build the 8W Center at Walton Boulevard and Eighth Street.

The property is owned by Troy Link, who co-owns Link Snacks Inc. of Minneapolis, the company best known for its Jack Link’s beef jerky products. Nielsen Architecture of Bentonville designed the building for developer Newmark Grubb Arkansas of North Little Rock.

The challenge of the 8W Center was not the design or price tag, but the location. As one might expect, there is quite a bit of rush-hour traffic around Wal-Mart’s headquarters, and a Walmart Supercenter is nearby as well.

Jeff McNeil, an executive with Grundfest who oversaw the project, said the construction schedule had to be organized to minimize complications. Further complicating the construction was the fact that the 8W Center covered almost the entire lot, so space was short for stroring building materials.

“There was no room because of the roads, and the building took the entire footprint of the lot,” McNeil said. “The logistics of the location was a challenge. You know, Wal-Mart is pretty demanding, and we didn’t want to interfere with any of their access. It was a big coordination effort.

“What made this project successful was timing the trucks in to unload [materials] right off the trucks into place. We literally would unload steel and concrete and things like that right into place.”

The effort was a success. The 8W Center was completed earlier this year, and a Jimmy John’s sandwich shop, owned by Troy Link, has already opened on the ground floor.

Bentonville Boom

The 8W Center was just one of seven multimillion-dollar commercial construction projects in Bentonville in 2016. It ranked as the 17th largest in the state and was fourth among the 30 projects in Washington and Benton counties.

“This was one of our largest projects, for sure,” McNeil said. “It’s a real significant project for us that we are proud of — not only because of the size and the construction amount, but because of the complexity of the construction. This is a true urban setting even though you don’t think of Bentonville as a real complex urban environment. In this particular case it really was.”

Nabholz Construction Corp. of Conway has three Benton County projects on the 2016 list, one of which it has completed. Nabholz had 33 of the state’s largest projects, including the $98 million Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Springdale, which ranked second.

In Benton County, Nabholz built the $20 million-plus 8th Street Market and Brightwater Culinary School in Bentonville, and it is finishing up on a complex that will include a $15.6 million elementary school and a $13.5 million middle school.

“There is a general uptick, a good feel for what is being done in Benton County,” said Greg Fogle, president of Nabholz’s Midwest division. “It’s not record-breaking, but it is definitely noticeable. There is a lot of nice activity happening right here in Benton County, and that is enjoyable for everyone involved.

“It’s a good time to be in construction.”

Nabholz’s completed project is a combination market-educational facility designed by Hufft Architects of Kansas City in Bentonville’s Market District. Northwest Arkansas Community College of Bentonville uses part of the facility for its Brightwater Culinary School, while the rest is set aside for food-related commercial stores.

The culinary school opened for events this year, while the market spaces are still being developed. Bike Rack Brewing has already opened in the 8th Street Market, which probably gives culinary instructors something to look forward to at the end of the day.

Fogle said Bentonville’s growth is evident across the commercial construction sectors. Nabholz doesn’t do residential or multifamily buildings — there are several such projects that made the 2016 largest projects list — but Fogle said interest is strong in retail, medical and schools.

Those are usually clear indicators the region or city is growing. The schools that Nabholz is building for the city of Bentonville are the Osage Creek Elementary and Creekside Middle School. The project, 180,000 SF combined, is scheduled to be completed in time for next school year’s start in August.

“This is our home district,” Fogle said. “The Bentonville School District is clearly a success story, and it’s fun to be a part of their growth, which has been pretty remarkable.”

Unique Looks
Fogle said the school district was determined to get its money’s worth for the $29 million initial price tag that came with the schools’ construction.

“Bentonville is very focused on making certain their value remains very high,” Fogle said. “They’re certainly not going to be extravagant. They focus on building the right building for the best possible price.”

Private commercial buildings can have a little more flair and ingenuity.

The Brightwater-8th Street Market project was a repurposing of an old Tyson hatchery, which was a Krispy Kitchens manufacturing plant before that. Tyson used it for 33 years before closing it in 2005, and the Walton Family Foundation provided the grant that allowed the building’s reuse for NWACC.

Fogle said Hufft’s design called for keeping some of the old look and feel of the facility.

“The reuse of the building was dramatic,” Fogle said. “The effort that has gone into transforming that space truly was remarkable from an architectural standpoint and from a construction standpoint. I consider it one of the most challenging projects that we have had recently. What’s cool, too, is they went to great lengths to preserve the visual elements of that old manufacturing-processing plant.”

Fogle said the walls and structural steel weren’t painted or refurbished but left rough-looking for effect. He said it’s a modern facility that still looks like an old manufacturing plant.

“It really did help preserve the history of the building,” Fogle said.

McNeil said the 8W Center was a unique design for Bentonville because of the six stories, three of them are dedicated to a 185-car parking garage. The first floor is retail, the top two floors are reserved for offices while the second through fourth floors are parking.

McNeil said other urban areas have incorporated this multiuse design, but since northwest Arkansas is generally roomy, it hasn’t been used in Arkansas. The crowded nature of the Wal-Mart HQ area made it a perfect plan for the 8W.

“The intent was to hide the parking garage inside the building and not make it look like a parking garage,” McNeil said.

“It’s a real significant type of building for Bentonville. It’s probably going to be a pioneer for some future-type vendor buildings.”

A flurry of behind-the-scenes activity indicates a restart is in the works for a key part of the Creative Corridor in downtown Little Rock.

Lawsuits and countersuits surrounding unpaid work on the dormant 125,000-SF Main Street Lofts redevelopment recently were dismissed.

The order in Pulaski County Circuit Court alludes to a financial settlement that squared away more than $1.3 million in claims on the three-building project at 510-524 Main St. by Little Rock’s AMR Construction and its subcontractors.

A new entity, Deep Creek LR LLC, also became the owner of the former M.M. Cohn Building at 510 Main St. Real estate documents portray the change as a reorganization and an internal shift in ownership, a transaction valued at $2.1 million.

Trailing behind this, the lead construction lender, Riverside Bank of Sparkman, released its security interest in the 62,688-SF building. The property secured a 2015 mortgage of $2 million held by the bank.

Delinquent property taxes totaling $30,542 for 2012-15 also were paid, tying up another loose end in advance of renewed work on the building or a possible sale.

All these developments come two years after activity moved from the construction site to the courthouse when AMR Construction walked off the job in April 2015. AMR received an $896,756 arbitration award that was converted to a judgment last year against the Main Street Lofts ownership group, then led by Scott Reed of Portland, Oregon. According to sources, his role with the project has changed.

“I believe that Scott Reed is out of the picture, except he may be consulting with the new group because of his knowledge about the entire project,” said Phil Kaplan, a member of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s board of directors. “We made it clear we didn’t want to deal with him.”

Will the symphony set up shop in part of the M.M. Cohn Building as originally planned?

“The ASO is still very interested in the possibility of becoming a tenant in the building if the terms can be worked out,” Kaplan said.

Various parties involved with past workout attempts for Main Street Lofts considered Reed to be the biggest obstacle to getting the project back on track. His removal from the forefront is touted as a leading cause that momentum is restored.

“Scott’s got a lot of pride,” said one Little Rock businessman who’s spent more frustrating time with Reed than he cares to count. “He’s never wrong. He may be a super salesman, but he just can’t take it to the finish line.”

Two blocks to the north, the 32-unit K Lofts apartment project that Reed started but couldn’t finish was brought back to life earlier this year. As with Main Street Lofts, internal pressure from investors is credited with restoring order.

Elevator inspection and installation of the remaining appliances are two of the last big checklist items remaining before the apartments at 315 Main St. are ready for showing to prospective tenants.

“We’re getting very close,” said Matt Foster, owner of Little Rock’s MWF Construction LLC. “We hope to be finished up during the next three weeks.”

MWF’s $375,000 contract to finish K Lofts is among a string of construction jobs in downtown Little Rock expected to be completed before year’s end.

The biggest of the bunch is the seven-story, $12.5 million Hilton Garden Inn at 322 Rock St. Progress on the 140-room hotel is on pace for a fall opening.

“For working in a dense urban environment, it’s been pretty smooth,” said William Clark, CEO of Little Rock’s Clark Contractors LLC. “We’ll be finished with our part in August.

“A couple months after that, it should open.”

The project will house nearly 4,000 SF of meeting space and a full-service restaurant and bar on the ground floor named The Garden and a top-floor venue called Posh.

Seven blocks to the south, the three-story, 48-unit Clayton on Scott apartment project is moving toward completion in August.

“We’re in the finish-out phase,” said Jonathan Shively, president of Little Rock’s Central Construction Group. “We’re in the process of about to start painting.”

The $4 million construction project at 915 Scott St. is among four sizable jobs the company has going in downtown Little Rock.

Construction of 16 apartments at 1300 E. Sixth St., part of the $7 million Sterling Paint redevelopment, should be completed by early fall.

“We’re doing site work and framing out the second-floor apartments,” Shively said.

Workers also are preparing space on the ground floor for new offices of Cromwell Architects Engineers and a 4,000-SF restaurant, whose identity remains under wraps.

“We’re hoping that all comes together by the end of the year,” Shively said.

Central Construction recently began work to redevelop the former M.M. Eberts American Legion Post at 315 E. Capitol Ave. into the Dust Bowl Lanes & Lounge.

The $913,000 project should be complete in about six months, along with a neighboring redevelopment.

Next door, the former Paragon Printing Building at 307 E. Capitol Ave. is marked for a $1.2 million transformation into Fassler Hall, a German-style beer hall and restaurant, The two projects will be the first Arkansas endeavors for The McNellie’s Group of Tulsa, the hospitality enterprise behind both concepts.

Ground-floor space is taking shape in the former Fulk-Arkansas Democrat Building.

The new home of Three Fold Noodles & Dumpling Co. will round out the redevelopment, which includes eight completed apartments on the second floor.

The finish-out work by Little Rock’s Tycor Construction should be completed by mid-September. The $450,000 project at 611 Main St. will provide seating for 120.