April 2, 2025 • 62 mins
Mayor Doug Sprouse has led Springdale, Arkansas through a remarkable transformation since taking office in 2009. What began with economic hardship and crisis—an ice storm three weeks into his first term—has evolved into a story of visionary urban renewal that's changing Northwest Arkansas.
Through our conversation with Mayor Sprouse, we discover how Springdale's downtown renaissance took root when the city insisted the Razorback Greenway run directly through downtown. "Whatever we do, they're coming," Sprouse told residents about the inevitable foot traffic. This strategic decision, combined with key partnerships—Tyson Foods saving the historic hatchery building, the Walton Family Foundation supporting Luther George Park, and the crucial 2017 designation of Opportunity Zones—created momentum that continues accelerating today.
The mayor's journey offers valuable insights for developers, investors, and community leaders. From navigating the shift from a moratorium on multifamily housing to embracing density, Sprouse demonstrates how thoughtful governance can balance growth with community character. His perspective on streamlining development processes while maintaining quality standards provides a blueprint for efficient, trust-based collaboration between cities and developers.
What stands out most is Springdale's authentic character. Visitors frequently comment on the "grit" and "realness" of downtown—qualities that differentiate it from other Northwest Arkansas downtowns. With projects like Via Emma bringing more retail and multifamily housing, the ongoing County Line Road improvements creating new connectivity, and three bond issues passing with over 80% approval, Springdale's transformation shows what happens when leadership, strategic investment, and community buy-in align.
Ready to be part of Springdale's story? Visit downtown, experience the energy at Turnbow Park, explore Luther George Park, and discover why Mayor Sprouse confidently says: "When you give Springdale a chance, we'll make you proud."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to North List Arkansas Investing Podcast.
We have a great guest heretoday, Mayor Doug Sprouse of
Springdale.
Thank you for being with us,Doug.
We really appreciate your time.
We value your time.
We just kind of wanted to getin here so we wanted to jump
right in.
You've been the mayor since2008.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, I was elected in 08, took office in January of
09.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, how did that come about?
Were you like hey, let's runfor mayor?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, I was 51 years old when I was actually at a
Sunday school fellowship and thediscussion started about Mayor
Van Hoos not seeking re-electionand you know, somebody said
something stupid at a party andsaid you know what you ought to
run for mayor.
And everybody kind of laughs,you know, and I laugh it off,
(00:58):
but I was currently serving onthe school board at the time.
I'd been on the school boardfor almost 10 years and really
enjoyed that service and so youknow, sometimes somebody plants
a seed, you know, and God won'tlet you let it go.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, I started.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
you know, I started talking with my wife, sandy, and
my kids, because I knew if Ijumped into this it would affect
them probably more than anybody.
My kids they were all growingout of the house but they'll
hear all the stuff and all thatand have to deal with that and I
wanted to be sure they wereokay with it.
(01:34):
Of course they were all verysupportive.
And then I started talking withthe Chamber of Commerce and
with people in the community.
I certainly went and talked.
I met with Jerry Van Hoose andhe encouraged me and I talked to
my pastor, just all kinds ofthings.
I took a few months and then,by May of 08, because this was
(01:55):
in late 07.
Right, and in May of 08, Iannounced, and then, of course,
there were six of us in the racebeing an open seat, and I won
it then in a runoff Wow, mikeOverton, who's still on our
council he was a council memberat the time and I were in a
(02:20):
runoff and then I won it andtook office in January of 2009.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Wow, what an interesting time to get into
politics too.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, 07, 08, 09.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, it was tough, it was tough then.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know I can remember well, I'll get into
that in a minute, but I rememberone of the first things as a
mayor and it was during the icestorm and I'm happy to talk
about that too that happenedabout three weeks after I took
office and I was like hey,welcome to my room and we had a
(02:51):
new mayor in Fayetteville too.
I can remember Lionel and Isitting with a new county judge,
judge Edward, judge MayorEdwards, down in Washington
County, and I can remember ussitting across the table from
each other with all this stuffgoing at the EOC down in
Washington County and alllooking at each other like what
in the world are we doing?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But through that honestly that was a tough, tough
time.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The economy was in the tank anyway, as in the tank
as it gets in northwest Arkansas.
And we, I can remember I'd beento an event in Bentonville and
Wyman Morgan, my chief of staffchief of staff wasn't really his
title, he was director offinancial services for
Springdale, but he was my righthand at the time and we were
(03:43):
coming back.
I was driving, wyman was in thepassenger seat and he got our
sales tax numbers in for the forthe month, yeah, and uh and I
about ran off the road, I mean,and I didn't know enough to be
scared.
But yeah, when wyman got off,got that message and got off his
(04:03):
phone and called our financialdirector in Springdale and said,
are we going to be okay on ourbond payment this month, I knew
enough to know that wassomething to be worried about.
It was like for that month itwas like $600,000.
Oh my gosh.
And you know now we just hadour record month.
This last reporting we were upalmost 10%, 9.6% over last
(04:32):
February and it was $2.3 million.
So big difference.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Big difference.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Big difference, big perspective shift.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So, but things were really, really tight and so,
yeah, that was a heck of a timeto come in, and then, of course,
the ice storm really added tothat.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Trail us off just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I know we're getting off the real estate side of
things I love it, but I mean theice affects a lot of real
estate.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
What was that like?
Jumping into office andimmediately getting hit with an
ice storm?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You know, I'll tell you we in a lot of ways, as I
look back on it, as bad as itwas and as much damage as was
done for me and for the yearsahead of me as mayor, it was
probably I think it was probablyone of the best things that
could have happened to me.
Elaborate on that In myleadership?
(05:23):
Yeah, Because, look, I had beena small business owner.
We had a small business inSpringdale for 35 years Sprouse
Upholstery very successful asupholstery shops go.
But you know it supported myfamily, it raised my kids.
You know I'll never.
I'm proud of that background asa small business owner.
But I remember weeks when Ididn't know if I was going to,
(05:45):
if somebody was going to walkthrough the door so I could make
payroll and not have to sendsomebody home.
But from that background intobeing thrown into that and
having to realize, I realizedhow many professionals
(06:05):
surrounded me our fire chief,our police chief, our public
works director that even thoughthey'd not been through that
before either, but they wereseasoned, they knew their roles
and they knew it wasn't all onme, it wasn't decisions that I
had to make.
I could lean on thoseprofessionals that surrounded me
(06:27):
and that really set the stagefor me, I think, to have more
success in the subsequent yearsbecause I just I didn't.
I can remember there was a fewdays there.
I can remember getting a callfrom my fire chief we were about
(06:48):
two weeks in and so a lot ofSpringdale was still out of
electricity and still out ofpower and our fire chief at the
time, dwayne Atha, he called meone morning and he said, you
know, we didn't text.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
We had.
You know it takes a long timeto text on a flip phone.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So.
But he called me that morningand he said Mayor, I want to
alert you to something.
We had about 50 people taken tothe emergency room last night
for carbon monoxide poisoningReally.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I said what happened and he said well, we, you know,
we had a lot of people.
They were, we had a lot ofpeople.
They were trying to heat theirhomes with charcoal, with gas
stoves, wow.
And he said thankfully, thankGod, nobody lost their life
there.
There was some sick.
It was a scare though, so wehad to.
We mobilized everybody the nextday Again, we didn't have any
(07:46):
kind of mass notification at thetime and so we got together and
it was in areas of the citywhere it was largely maybe a
largely Hispanic area or a largeMarshallese population there.
Yeah, and we gathered theresources we could, the human
resources we could, to help ustranslate.
Yeah, and you know, marshalleseis still hard to translate.
(08:10):
Right, spanish we can hit aboutout.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, google translate, but back then.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I mean it was a real scare.
We created flyers and ourpolice department, fire
department, other city staff, wewent out and walked door to
door handing out these flyers,trying to get people to
understand.
You know, we've got places.
We had a warming shelter at thesenior center.
We had places for them to go.
Yeah, but getting that word outwas just tough.
(08:39):
Please don't hit your housewith charcoal or something.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Please don't yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And you know from Central America, or you know
much further south, or from theMarshall Islands.
We had people, probably, thatnever had to heat their home any
time yeah.
And so they didn't know.
But that was just a reallearning experience.
But through that experience Imean I can remember on a
Saturday afternoon I mean I'mgoing to cut myself and bleed on
(09:07):
you a little here, totally open, that's fine, but I mean, it
was a Saturday afternoon, Iremember it like it was
yesterday, and Sandy had goneout to do something, and so I
was home alone and I just gotalone with God and I said God,
what have you put me in?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
What am I going to do ?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I get emotional now thinking about it, but hey, it
all worked out and I think thatexperience helped me.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
That really laid the foundation there for your next.
I mean you're still in office.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I mean that's incredible, that's incredible
Went from running against six torunning unopposed just this
last year.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I mean talk about it.
It speaks a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Talk about adversity, like you're going in with all
this adversity.
You know, running against sixpeople, you have a runoff and
then you get thrown into thisice storm.
You're really like you said.
You're going through thisadversity like right when you're
coming in, so almost alldownhill.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It felt like you're in the valley.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah, and the budget implications of that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Tony, it was really tight in Springdale right then.
Not long before I became mayor,we'd lost Sam's Club.
Sam's Club had relocated toFayetteville.
That was about amillion-dollar-a-year hit and
with our budget at the time thatwas a huge hit.
It'd be a huge hit today, right, but we were just struggling.
(10:35):
On top of that, it was kind oflike the perfect storm because
another issue that had happenedlegislatively not to get too far
into the weeds and y'all shutme up.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
No, you're doing great.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
There was a legislation passed called
streamlined sales tax.
And what that did?
It changed the taxing locationwhere you collect, because sales
tax is the bread and butter ofa city, yeah, but it changed
where those taxes are generatedfrom point of sale to point of
delivery, yeah, and, and itchanged, but it changed where
those taxes are generated frompoint of sale, from point of
sale to point of delivery.
(11:09):
Okay, in other words, and I, Iwas a, I was in the upholstery
business, so we deliveredfurniture all over Northwest
Arkansas.
We had to start tracking wherethat furniture was delivered,
because then that city got thesales tax rather than rather
than Springdale getting it all,because Sprouse Upholstery is
located in Springdale and Ididn't really think it was fair.
(11:29):
I still don't really think it'sfair, but we've adjusted.
But that was a huge deal forSpringdale because when you
think about even today not asmuch as it was then but even
today delivery services, typesof retail and businesses that
typically would deliver a lotoutside the city, service
(11:51):
industry, building supply we hadat the time, of course we had
Lowe's Everybody does butnational lumber supply.
But National Lumber Supply Imean everywhere.
Anytime a National Lumber Truckdelivered building supplies now
to a home site and Grabbit well, grabbit got the sales tax.
(12:13):
Wow, it was a huge hit for usand that hit the same time.
Sam's left Springdale, wow.
So it was really difficult.
And then the building sloweddown.
It was happening anyway, andnot to mention other business
and how tough it was reallydifficult.
And then the building sloweddown.
That was happening anyway, andnot to mention other business
and how tough it was, and youguys remember that.
Oh my gosh, but it was just areally tough time.
(12:37):
But hey, you know, it makes youappreciate so much more where
we're at now and not everybodyrealizes that Not everybody
lived here, then you know theway we're growing, with people
from all over the country cominghere.
Not a lot of people willremember that, but it sure
helped me prepare for how toappreciate the better times, but
(13:02):
also how to know that when youtake a big hit, it's not the end
of the world.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, I think that leads us really well into the
next part, which is why in thelast five years it feels like
Springdale's really come up, Iguess just from a not really
looking into it all the time,kind of just local perspective.
It's a place that we talked alittle bit before we hit the
(13:29):
start button.
My wife wants to go to downtownSpringdale all the time.
She loves it there.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Make her tribe, increase.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, exactly, brandon and I played high school
ball for Harbor kind of on.
Tawny Town, what we call TawnyTown Harbor area, whatever, but
in the last five years there'sbeen almost like a change in the
atmosphere.
It feels like Would you concurwith that Absolutely, and then I
guess to follow up on that iswhy Let me okay let me delve
(13:57):
into that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
When I, you know, I grew up in Springdale right.
So in the 60s and 70s when Iwas in school, downtown was
where everything was.
It was a long haul to go toBentonville.
It was even a fairly long haul.
It was a big deal to go toFayetteville, even though we
shopped there a lot.
That was kind of the retailcenter of Northwest Arkansas at
(14:18):
the time.
But downtown Springdale wasvery vibrant.
That's where mom bought my CubScout uniform, that's where you
know all those things.
That's where we barred.
That's where Mom bought my CubScout uniform.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
That's where you know all those things.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's where you go to Western Auto or Otasco and
buy your bicycle.
Yeah, so and places to eat downthere, yeah, and a movie house,
the Apollo, you know, yeah.
And so that's just where lifewas kind of centered until, as
in a lot of downtowns, thingsmoved out, things went west, and
(14:49):
then, through the late 70s andthrough the 80s, you know, we
had banks and law offices downthere, and other than that there
wasn't a whole lot.
You know, we had a few stalwartclothing stores that wrote it
out.
Ryan's was successful downthere for years.
Clothing stores that that wroteit out Ryan's was successful
down there for years.
Um uh, spring Street Grill wasa restaurant that fought, fought
(15:12):
through all that and and andand succeeded.
But but other than that it wasjust really tough down there and
and so through that time,through the eighties and
nineties, I was raising Sandyand I were raising our young
family and and you know, uh, youcan look back and can look back
and I remember a lot of verywell-intentioned efforts to
bring downtown back and bringmore businesses downtown.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But it just wasn't happening.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
It wasn't sticking, it just wasn't.
And everybody tried hard andthen finally, I think, it got to
the point that people justwrote downtown off.
They said it's not going tohappen.
And then something reallyinteresting happened right after
I became mayor, and it's calledthe Northwest Arkansas
(15:57):
Razorback Greenway.
And I can remember going toearly meetings in the greenway
planning with Patsy Christie,our longtime planning director,
who is about to retire,effective March 31st.
And you talk about leaving ahole.
I mean but she deserves and shedeserves any accolades she can
get Right For that long tenureand all she's done to help shape
(16:20):
Springdale.
But we've got.
You know, we went to earlymeetings and we were all adamant
that the Greenway needs to runthrough downtown Springdale and
follow Spring Creek and runthrough downtown Springdale.
And that's what ended uphappening.
Of course, yeah.
But then we had a real choiceto make and I can remember
(16:44):
talking to groups and say, look,we can, we can be the ugly spot
on this, on this trail, andeverybody's going to be coming.
But but whatever we do, they'recoming.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
And they're going to go right through downtown.
And I think, more than anythingelse I think more than anything
else, there are a lot ofcatalytic projects that have
happened, but I think what'sreally started it off was the
realization that that Greenway,that major project, was going to
run right through our downtown.
And what are we going to dowith that?
(17:18):
How are we going to make thebest out of that.
Then other things happened.
Turnbow Park was developed andwe opened up that section of.
Spring Creek with a lot of that.
Then other things happened.
Turnbow Park was developed aswe, as we and we, we opened up
that section of Spring Creekwith a lot of help, and I know
you want to talk about probablycommunity partners and you know,
Tyson's been huge.
Uh yeah, the Walton family'sbeen huge, um, and and a lot of
smaller groups too that thathave that have poured not only
(17:41):
money but also, uh, but alsoeffort and of effort of all
kinds into our downtown.
And you know then, when Tyson,another big, big shoe to drop
was when Tyson decided to savethe old Jeff Brown hatchery
(18:02):
building.
I mean that thing that we hadthe big red X on it where the
fire department wasn't going togo in if it caught fire.
But Tyson, I remember thosemeetings and talking with them
and Tyson stepped up and theyspent probably a lot more on
that than anybody should spendon an old building, but they
(18:23):
wanted to do it.
Johnny was very supportive ofthis.
Johnny said I'll never forget.
After the ribbon cutting andthat office building opened,
johnny just said well, mayor, Ihope it helps.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Well, I do too, Johnny.
It wasn't about the money.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It certainly did, but that put people down there that
put people down there, which isthe secret.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And now what we're seeing is obviously the growth
with Luther George Park and allthat cool development down there
and all the multifamily that'sgoing in.
Yeah, we're going to havepeople in downtown Springdale
now yeah, and already do, andyou can go down there any night
(19:04):
of the week and it's busy, it'sbustling, it is exciting to be
down there, and when I hear whatyou told me before this about
your wife, you know, and whereyou all like to go down there,
that's music to my ears.
Yeah.
Because, that's, and I find thatwhen I go down there, when
Sandy and I go down and go outto eat and we try to eat a lot
(19:25):
in downtown Springfield when weeat out to support those
businesses and when we're downthere, we'll be in the odd soul
and there will be a couple therethat just happen to be sitting
there and we find out they'refrom Bentonville or Rogers or
Fayetteville or out in thecounty somewhere, and they drive
(19:48):
in to go Nine times out of ten.
They're younger than me andthat's okay, In fact that's
really good yeah that's fine.
But something they always talkabout that never, that I never
take for granted.
They talk about theauthenticity, they talk about
(20:09):
the grit.
They talk about.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
it's real and I love that man.
You use that word, grit.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, it's the same word I.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Now I use it to describe downtown Rogers, like
that we've said.
I can't think of a word fordowntown Rogers, but like grit.
That sounds right and it's thesame thing for Springdale it
feels very authentic, and I'mnot going to say other downtowns
, don't no, but it feels soauthentic it's like somebody's
like put some.
It was more than the money,like this was time, energy,
(20:40):
effort put into this it's cool.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's cool to see, though, because I think, uh,
growing up, my parents alwaystalked about how you know, when
northwest arkansas was kind ofat its infancy, it was
Springdale and it wasFayetteville, and that was
really it.
And everything else wasn'treally built and so it's cool to
kind of see the revitalizationstarting to really happen and I
think, and I think we'll getinto this as well.
But I think the more denselypopulated we can get that area
(21:04):
with apartments and stuff, whichis what happened, what is
happening, and there's someamazing anchors down there with
the restaurants, and I saw OnyxSign just go up.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, my wife is pumped.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I was like man.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
That is huge because that's an anchor as well.
I mean when you start to havethose businesses that buy into
kind of the vision and what youwant to do, then yeah.
I mean, there's unlimitedopportunity.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So would you say, we're seeing.
So know, I asked you a questionearlier, like why is it
happening?
We're seeing like it, it wasplanned a long time ago for this
to happen and so we're fine.
We're seeing it like come intorealization now finally, and
that's really cool.
It's something I love havingpeople like yourself on, because
you get insight that I mean.
I don't know like this wholethought process of like let's
(21:48):
make downtown Springdale happenagain, like started when that
Greenway thought happened.
That's super, super cool.
Let's dig into a little bit on.
We kind of talked about likewhy it's happening.
Oh also, have you tried theFrench restaurant downtown?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh yeah, that was really good.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's really good.
My wife and I, we love thatplace.
We're like we're going to comeback.
It's not somewhere I'm going togo every week.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
But it's really good and it's an experience that you
don't get around here.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, that's why we love it.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Before we move on to something else about like okay,
the greenway was key.
What about opportunity zones?
How do you?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
think that's something.
That's a great point.
That's a good catch.
Thanks for bringing that up,because we push hard for that,
and I've got to give credit toPerry Webb, our former chamber
president, and Lance Eads, who'sa former state senator who
actually worked for the chamber.
And President Trump signed thattax bill in 2017, and part of
(22:51):
it was something calledOpportunity Zones, and Perry was
the first one that I heard fromthat, picked up on that and
realized what that could be andwhat was going to happen was
each state was allotted so manybased on population, so many and
(23:15):
based on population and but itwas up to the governor to decide
how those would be allottedthroughout the state and
springdale got four and they'reall contiguous.
We got as many as any other cityin the state.
That's pretty good.
That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah, and, uh, and, and,and.
They're all for us.
They're all contiguous.
Our entire downtown is includedin Opportunity Zone and much of
(23:36):
East Springdale, and we've seenwhat that's done and it
incentivized also more localinvestment too, which is cool.
People like you guys that grewup in Springdale and love
Springdale and want to supportSpringdale we've got Opportunity
Zone funds that are Springdalefolks.
(23:57):
We'll welcome any of them.
That's certainly not exclusiveto Springdale investment but it
does give a vehicle.
It did give a vehicle for thatto happen.
I hope they get extended.
I ask that question every timeI go to DC.
I'll go again next week.
I'll ask again next week Justto make sure.
I think it's a nonpartisanissue or a bipartisan issue is a
(24:18):
better way to say it, because Ithink everybody realizes it's
good.
It could have done more if morepeople had known about it and
as the time got extended andthose opportunities got extended
, I look for that to happenagain.
I don't know if there will bean opportunity to open up more
(24:41):
zones or hopefully the oneswe've got we get to keep.
I don't know how that will allwork, but I do know there's
bipartisan support to extendthat.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
You brought up a great point which is not a lot
of people knew about, like whatis even an opportunity?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Something like me knew and didn't understand.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It's a word that was thrown around.
In the investor sphere,investing community, we
primarily represent investorsand I'm sure we I had one
investor mention to me.
I'm like I got to figure outwhat this means.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Like what does this even mean?
You got to go do your researchand stuff.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
But that is a really good point is like I think if
more people knew it might havebeen even more effective.
Yeah, we can touch onopportunities If you don't know
what opportunity zone is.
You hold a development orproperty in an opportunity zone
and you don't have to paycapital gains tax if you're
holding that for 10 years.
So it really makes itincentivizing for developers to
come in.
If you're not having to paycapital gains, that's a huge
(25:40):
incentive for you to invest andespecially if you're selling a
business, you sell anotherproperty, you can roll that into
an opportunity zone fund andyou not need a 1031.
So yeah, huge tax advantage forinvestors thanks for
remembering all right ouraudience.
You do a great job working withOmar on market seem about 200
(26:03):
unit development right acrossfrom Luther George Park and that
is an opportunity zone andwatch makes it so attractive for
investors.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Super attractive Not having to pay that.
I'm excited about that Speakingon that topic over the last 5,
10 years.
What does the planning red tapelook like?
As we press forward and thingsget taller and bigger and more
complex, has the city planninghad to adapt to that?
Has there been more red tape,less red tape?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
They have adapted but we're not finished adapting
Okay.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
That's a good answer.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, we've got our form-based codes in place, which
I think is all the feedbackwe're getting.
Is that's been a good thing.
Yeah, it's been good fordevelopment.
We try and be, but those thingsare going to have to be
adjusted by the real world,market and how we and we can do
that.
But we always want to know, wewant to ensure quality, we want
(27:04):
to ensure to protect everyone'sinvestment.
And the feedback, by and largeat least, anything that's gotten
to me has really been goodabout our form-based codes, and
not to say they're perfect, butwe'll adjust those as we get
(27:26):
better ideas and we've got thatin place.
And the other big topic now andit's even in the legislative
session, you know there's thisconcern about regulation and
about red tape and delays, and Iget all that Right, you know,
(27:49):
and so we're going to be lookingat ways that we can streamline
that process as much as possible.
You've got to have a processand you've got to have those
protections in place.
You know some things you don'thave a choice about fire code
and those kinds of things.
Yeah, for sure, but are thereways that we can work with
(28:10):
developers to better streamlinethat process and the inspection
process and all that?
Now we're pretty fast with ourinspections yeah, we are, and
we're really intentional aboutthat.
Our building inspectiondepartment does a great job, but
still we want to always make itbetter because we know, and
especially in inflationary timeslike we've just been through-
(28:32):
time really is money.
I mean delays really are money,even more than in a normal
economy.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
But we want to do that, we want to do that on our
road projects.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
We want to do that in every way we can and we're
continually looking at that.
I tell you I've got to brag onmy chief of staff, colby Fulford
, and Colby's really consciousof that.
He also was a small businessowner for years and he really
helps me.
We're pretty grounded in thatthat, and we constantly remind
(29:10):
our departments that we'republic servants and we're really
there if there's any waypossible to find a way to, yes,
and so we're going to remainconscious of that.
And this part about streamstreamlining regulations and you
(29:32):
know the legislature is goingto push for it anyway right,
there are bills right now topush for that, right.
I just hope they understandalso the other side of that.
If you go too far yeah you know.
So you know property rights arevery important and they're, they
are.
They are sacred to us asAmericans.
But your property rights onlygo as far as until you step on
(29:54):
somebody else's.
Yeah right, totally.
So it's a balancing act.
It always has been, and that'swhat we're.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
But we're going to be intentional about really trying
to work with developers andfigure out better ways to help
them hit their bottom line RightFor sure On that topic does it
really in your opinion I'm kindof playing devil's advocate does
it really matter, like how adeveloper if a developer is
(30:23):
listening to this podcast rightnow how they approach the city?
Is it hey, the city's my enemyversus hey, how can I work with
the city and get this done?
How can we be a team on thisand help accomplish a goal?
Do you see the difference inthat?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
and different outcomes.
I do because we've you know,there are developers that are
tougher to work with, just likethere are cities that are
tougher to work with.
And I would encourage anydeveloper and hold us
accountable to this same thing,because our staff needs to be
doing it the same way.
We can't watch everything andwe can't regulate everything.
(31:00):
There has to be anestablishment of some trust that
the developer is going to dowhat the plans say they're going
to do.
The developer is going to dowhat they, what the plans say
they're going to do, whatthey've agreed to do, and the
city is not going to pile onother.
You know we're not going tocome in at the end, at the end
(31:20):
of the planning process, and sayoh, by the way, we need you to
do this too, or you can go.
I've been in planningcommission meetings y'all, and
we've got a great planningcommission.
But I've been in planningcommission meetings where a
commissioner would startbasically designing at the table
, you know, with things thataren't necessarily required but
(31:43):
would say something I've heardthis out of their mouth and this
has been years ago but wouldsay I'd like this better if
you'd do this.
You know, never mind that itmay that what's going on in the
developer's head is how many youknow how many dollar signs is
that going?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
through my head now.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, you know, and it's just not the best way to
treat people and to do that, andyou know, let's make it clear
what's required required makesure it makes sense, yep, and
then stick to that.
But at the same time, on thedeveloper side, we've got to
have that trust that thatthey're, because we can inspect
things but we can't inspecteverything, yeah, you know, but
the thing, and we won't catcheverything, yeah, do what you're
(32:26):
comfortable saying you'll do,yeah, and don't try and do
something to cut that's going tosignificantly change the value
or the quality of the project onthe back end.
And our part of that commitmentis we don't need to be adding
things beyond what's requiredand beyond what the initial
(32:49):
requirements were.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So a big level of trust there.
Big level of trust yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
It makes sense too.
I think it's just interesting,you see, with red tape and with
all these different buzzwords ofif the process has become
really difficult, and you havescenarios where, if a developer
has to hold it for a longerperiod, of time and the interest
rate environment changes withina year and you've seen, over
the past couple of years atleast, that deals just falling
(33:15):
apart because it no longer makessense, right, or developers
backing out stuff like that, andI'm sure that's what you want
to avoid.
Anybody wants to avoid, so Ilove how you all are kind of
thinking about streamliningthere, yeah, and we need help,
we need feedback.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
In fact, you know, and with a new planning director
coming in, and it's probably agreat time to really open that
dialogue and not that Patsywasn't open to that, but you
know, with change you've gotsome built-in new opportunities
and new ways of getting inputabout what we need to do.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Do you see to where, if that trust is earned on the
first project with a developer,do you see the second project
being a lot easier a lot of thetimes, or is it?
It shouldn't be.
It should be the same everytime.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
But we are all human beings, right, and we remember
things, and I don't thinkthere's any.
You can't take the humanelement out of this.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You're like hey, you did what you said you would do
yeah, exactly.
Time one, two, three, four fiveRight, all right, all right.
Yeah, totally I love it.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah.
So I think the next part wekind of want to roll intodale.
But of all of Springdale, youknow Blue Crane, the Walton
family, you know Tyson, as youmentioned, what have those
partnerships looked like for youall and kind of helping your
(34:39):
revitalization?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, you've named a couple of them and Blue Crane
continues, or the Runway Group.
You know that all continues.
We just broke ground about twoweeks ago on Via Emma which.
Via is a large retail andmultifamily just north of Luther
George Park.
They're going to overlook thebeautiful park and, for our part
(35:04):
, one of our bond projects iscontinuing our new streetscape
on mi avenue, uh to the to theeast and uh, and we're also
going to get the.
You know there are power lineson park street that we want to
get underground and that isgoing to be, part of that
project and yeah, and reallyclean that up and make that,
make that nice and uh so.
(35:25):
But but those partnerships youwe've talked about Tyson, we
know about Walton's family andall their groups that have been
so significant.
I'm going to tell you when youhave, the most important
partnership has been with ourresidents and our voters.
(35:46):
Yeah, I've been through threebond issues now in my 15 years
16 years as mayor and each bondissue is a collection of
different ballot titles indifferent categories and they're
all pass-fail, they all standon their own and of all those
(36:09):
ballot titles probably 15 or 16in those three bond elections
last one being in 2023, they'veall passed by a margin of an
average of over 80% Wow and thatsays a lot about the trust that
your residents place in theability of the city to be good
(36:31):
stewards with that money and todo what they say they're going
to do with it, and I won't evertake that for granted either.
At every ribbon-cutting that hasanything to do with the bond
project, at every groundbreaking, I always try and have the
presence of mind to remember tothank the citizens of Springdale
, the voters of Springdale, fortheir strong support.
The lowest in all those ballotquestions was 74 point something
(36:53):
percent and that was our animalshelter, which many people told
me would never pass 74 percentis pretty good.
City Hall was over 80 percent.
Wow, and I'll never forgetgoing to people when I was
talking about putting themunicipal campus on a bond issue
(37:13):
question and we wanted to bedowntown.
We didn't want to move anywhereelse.
We knew City Hall needed to bedowntown, our police department
needed to be downtown.
We had strong beliefs in thatand we needed to help be an
anchor down there to keep peopledown there.
And we needed to help be ananchor down there to keep people
down there.
And we had a design excellencegrant from the Walton Family
(37:34):
Foundation.
I think it was the firstmunicipal building that was
awarded a design excellencegrant.
We went through that wholeprocess but that was about look,
that was over $3.5 million ofdesign for that.
It was about a $40 millionbuilding, which the day we
opened it and we came in rightat budget, and the day we opened
(37:59):
it three, four years later, itwas probably a $75 million
building.
Wow, crazy and so, but we paid$40 for it.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I don't want to make that clear.
I see one-on-one right there.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, so but I can't say enough about the voters.
There are a lot of businesses,large and small, For example
Luther George Park.
What a bargain for theresidents of Springdale in
northwest Arkansas.
What a bargain for the residentsof Springdale in northwest
Arkansas Wonderful 16-acre parkredesigned with a structure like
(38:40):
nowhere else in the world for aperformance venue, and
taxpayers have about $2 millionin that.
The rest was privately raised,Large donors, small donors I
could certainly name all thedonors.
Everybody in northwest Arkansaswould guess and they'd be right
.
But there are significant giftsgiven to that park from people
(39:01):
from names you would neverrecognize People that just
believed in their community andwanted to do that.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I'm talking about large sums of money, large and
small and they're all important,but that was you know.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
so when we talk about partners, there's a lot of them
that aren't the normal namespeople think of, but just as
important.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, I think it's easy to look at Northwest
Arkansas and all the cities andjust say, yeah, this is all
fueled by the Waltons and theHunts and everybody, but really
it's.
I mean especially in Springdaletoo you know it takes the
community and I think that'swhat we love about exactly what
you said and there's names thatnobody would ever know in there
(39:45):
that are really behindSpringdale and want to continue
to see it grow and flourish,which is amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, well, and you know, sorry but the and the
Waltons know something veryimportant.
Yeah, and they understandsomething, and Tyson does too.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, that, that community, that you have to have
community buy-in, yeah, they'rethere to help, they're.
They're there to help any waythey can.
But they want to see thatcommunity buy-in too they want
to see and, and and that that'simportant, and it's important
for a project to succeed thatthe community have buy-in.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, so, yeah, yeah but yeah, so we, we love that.
We we want to kind of get alittle bit into some of the
unannounced projects inSpringdale.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
You're not going to announce me.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
I've heard a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I don't need to be making announcements, but I'll
talk about what I can.
We can at least ask.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
We'd love to just kind of get a little bit more
insight on what residents can beexcited about maybe some things
.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Maybe some things that were already announced that
might not be out there yet,right, okay, things like that
We'd love to.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Just Maybe some things that were already
announced that might not be outthere yet.
Right, things like that.
We'd love to just kind of hearwhat Springdale is Obviously
downtown, but even outside ofthat Sure.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Because we've got development going on all over,
Absolutely, you know, and that'sI don't ever want to, you know,
you can, I'll never forget wegot our first Chick-fil-A right
Come on.
I guarantee you we were thelargest city in the country
without a Chick-fil-A, becausewe had Chick-fil-A's all around
us, but not in Springdale.
We got that Chick-fil-A andit's in the top ten in the
(41:19):
country.
If people will give Springdalea chance, we're going to make
you proud Because Sam's Clubwhen it opened in Springdale,
and Jean George again.
That was able to open therebecause the residents of
(41:40):
Springdale voted in 2012 a bondissue to allow us to build that
first section of Jean GeorgeBoulevard.
So now we have ArkansasChildren's Northwest also
because of that.
But when that Sam's Club came,I thought, man, I'm mayor for
life if I want to be.
(42:01):
That was the biggest thing thathad happened since we got the at
the old Allen Canning buildingon Springdale, we got the Popeye
statue back.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'll never forget how big a deal that was.
Praise God.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, it's gone now, but when Sam's Club opened and
you know I don't have the recentnumbers, but I know 2019, they
were the top performing Sam'sClub in their whole network.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
And they're busy all the time.
Yeah, and so talk about somefoot traffic over there.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I love what you said, though I'm going to be using
that one a lot.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
When you give Springdale a chance, we'll make
you proud Right, and I promiseyou that won't be our last
chick-fil-a.
Absolutely Agreed.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Love that.
So I'd like to get a little bitmore into downtown too.
With the multifamily projectand that the Waltons I think are
a part of, and some of theretail down there Is the idea
for downtown Springdale and EmmaStreet to become more densely
populated in there, to becomesort of a, you know if you, if
(43:11):
you look at a, you know adowntown Fayetteville or a
downtown Rogers or evenBentonville or any of those.
It seems like when you go therein the evenings there's always
people kind of walking around,sitting around, right, you know,
kind of a nightlife if you willjust kind of family spending
time is.
Is that kind of the goodquestion?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Absolutely, and that's actually you know.
I just gave my state of thecity address last Tuesday.
We're required by statute asmayors to give a state of the
city before the end of Marcheach year.
And I usually give mine inFebruary.
And a year ago at my state ofthe city address, I talked about
density, and our council hascome a long, long way, and I
(43:53):
have too.
You know, when I became mayorin 2009, we had a moratorium on
multifamily, and there were alot of reasons for that.
I think one of them was thatthey just didn't have a very
good reputation in Springdale.
We didn't have minimum designstandards for multifamily at the
time, and so, until theprevious administration, there
(44:20):
was a moratorium placed onmultifamily while they worked on
design standards formultifamily, and so we went
through a period where the notin my backyard idea really made
it difficult to rezone formultifamily for a while because
(44:45):
of the legacy we had.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So you saw a lot of pushback from had in the
community.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
If you were putting it near a single-family
neighborhood, those residentswould come out in droves because
there was a certain perceptionabout the kind of people who
lived in multifamily.
Of course that's changed too.
I mean now people prefer.
I mean, you know it's ourpolice officers, our firemen,
our teachers, you know, plus somany in the community.
The generation that's not mygeneration, you know they don't
(45:18):
want a two-acre lot, you know,with a mansion on it.
They want to be able to walk tothings.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
They want to be able to build a community around
where they live, not have to mowtheir lawn.
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
And so we talked about density.
I talked about density, andnothing has changed.
I encouraged the council tocontinue.
Now there will be times thatresidents have a good argument,
but it's not that my property agood argument is not.
Well, you're going to cause myproperty values to go down
because we know that doesn'thappen.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, right, yeah, it's going up and I think people
are starting to get that.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
And so it's much easier now, not to say it's a
cakewalk, but it's much easiernow.
And the council and ourplanning commission is much more
open and sees the need to buildmore density, yeah, and not
just multifamily, smaller lot,single family, you know.
Build more density and not justmultifamily, smaller lot,
single family, you know.
Uh, so, uh, it's, it'shappening, it needs to continue
to happen and there's a lot ofreasons for that.
Certainly it's.
(46:23):
I think it's what people wantnow.
But Springdale's, you know,we're a city of over 90,000
people and we're pretty spreadout and we've got not just in
our downtown but on our old andall a lot of our established
areas around today, around our,and we've got not just in our
downtown but in a lot of ourestablished areas around our
city.
We've got a lot of developableland, yeah, and we don't have to
keep pushing out.
That's inevitable, it's goingto happen.
But that is certainly not themost efficient delivery of
(46:49):
services, whether you're talkingabout water and sewer, other
utilities, you're talking aboutpolice coverage, fire coverage,
you know we've got a lot ofdevelopable land and it's as
expensive as it can be toupgrade a water line or a sewer
line upsize in an older part oftown.
(47:09):
As expensive as that is, it'sstill much more efficient than
continuing to push thatinfrastructure out and spread it
out, and so I think everybodygets it.
I think we've still got somework to do.
Everybody gets it.
(47:30):
I think we've still got somework to do.
Sometimes it's hard to say yesto a multifamily rezoning when
you're sitting in a council roomor at a planning commission
meeting and you've got a roomfull of angry residents.
It's just hard and I understandit.
I mean, the biggest investmentanybody has, most always is in
their home, and so I get thatand I'm sympathetic to that.
(47:52):
But as long as we can ensurequality and know that they're
not going to get hurt by that,then we need to continue to push
it forward.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Real recapturing of trust in the last 10 years.
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
And they have reason.
You know, if they've been inSpringdale a long time back in
you know the 90s and the early2000s they've got reason to be
concerned.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Until they realize what, but they can see what's
being built now, right, and it'snice and you just look around
at the other cities as well, intheir downtown areas, and people
are wanting to buy houses closeto downtown too, and those home
prices are going insane.
Because they're able to workdown there, they can play down
there, they can live down there,being able to walk to things is
(48:37):
a huge attraction.
We bought our home.
We don't have a walkable home,but we bought our home because
it's as close to everything aspossible and I think that's what
people will continue to want isto be able to live in a
community where they can walkdown to Casa Alejo and have a
meal and hang out at the parkdown there.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
How would you contrast the revitalization of
downtown Springdale to Rogers,because I feel like it's on a
similar playing field.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I think we're probably maybe a year or two
behind where Rogers is.
Yeah, well, when we were firstreally beginning to get serious
about downtown redevelopmentback in 2010, 2011.
Bentonville had already, youknow, theirs was 15 years in,
(49:33):
yeah, you know, yeah, and Rogerswas kind of always tracking
close to where we were maybe alittle ahead.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And they're probably still there.
Rogers has a very differentdowntown than Springdale.
Yeah, I do agree that the feelis a lot the same, but they've
got more streets.
Their downtown has always been alittle more spread, yeah, and
even in the old days, becausethose are old buildings too yeah
, they are, so they're a littledifferent.
(50:03):
I think that's so neat, though,whether you're talking about
Bentonville, fayetteville,rogers, springdale, even the
smaller communities aroundnorthwest Arkansas, isn't it
neat that you're here?
You've got a young family,maybe you've moved here or grew
up here, it doesn't matter.
But maybe you've moved here andyou really don't care what city
(50:24):
you live in.
You may not even know if it'snot on your return address,
right, because you see it as aregion.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
But you can experience things.
You can take your wife out oryour family every weekend to a
different downtown, in adifferent area and have a
completely all good but acompletely different experience.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
I think that's really cool.
That's so cool about this area.
I think my wife can speak for alot of other wives.
She's like I don't know, I feellike a Bentonville tonight.
I feel like a downtownSpringdale, I feel a little more
funky.
Let's go to Fayetteville.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Let's see some college kids, I feel a little
more funky.
Let's go to.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Fayetteville.
Let's see some college kids.
It's a really.
I think we spoke on it beforeon this podcast.
It was like, you know, you havea Dallas, an Austin, a Houston.
It's like there's one main huband then it's like out and then
here it's like the main veininterstate, north and south, and
you've got like all thesedifferent hubs across the
totally different fields and Ithink it's great and I mean
really hats off to you and theleadership around you.
(51:30):
I know you probably won't takefull credit but there's been so
it's been really cool being alocal kid growing up here seeing
investors calling and like, hey, what about Springdale?
And me be like, yeah, I thinkthat's a great spot to look at,
so really hats off.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That's so great to hear and I always appreciate it
when people say boy.
I will tell you that it's stillmy perception that residents in
Springdale know less aboutdowntown Springdale than
residents around the rest ofnorthwest Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
We I'll.
I'll hear it very often whensomebody finally comes downtown
from another part of the anotherarea of the city and they'll
say wow, I didn't know this.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
What happened when?
Speaker 1 (52:17):
you been, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
And and uh.
So I I hear that all the timeand it's fun, but I love hearing
that because we, you know, it'skind of like being a.
I remember going to see.
I had an aunt most of my auntsand uncles lived in Fort Smith
and my grandparents and I'd seean aunt and uncle maybe that I'd
(52:41):
see, maybe just at Christmastime or you know, maybe once a
year, and she'd talk about myyou've grown.
You look so different and whenyou're in that situation where
you're not living it every day,it's kind of like watching your
kids grow up.
You don't notice all the changeall at once, like somebody who
(53:03):
doesn't see them every day, butyou're in the midst of it.
Yeah, you're right in themiddle of it, and so sometimes I
need to just step back and say,boy, look at that.
If I could go in my WaybackMachine to 2009 and look at
pictures from around Springdale,I would be shocked at how much
has changed.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, that's crazy.
I think what I'm seeing is youhave a real good heartbeat on
the community and what thepeople need, what they want a
real good future planning forthe community.
So again, hats off to you.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, speaking of that?
Speaker 4 (53:36):
where do you think you see Springdale in the next
five, ten years from now?
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Wellued growth.
You know we're planning for it.
We're we'll continue to have.
I may not be the mayor becausethis is my last term and I've
made that clear, but I know theleadership that could be in
place and I know that they'llcontinue and improve.
(54:05):
You know they'll continue andimprove.
They'll have new ideas too, butSpringdale will continue to
grow.
I see downtown continuing togrow.
I see the overlay districtaround the ballpark continuing
to.
It's really starting to takeoff.
You know it took some time.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
It took a lot of time .
Speaker 2 (54:23):
But I'm excited about that, especially around health
care.
Even with all that AliceWalton's doing in Bentonville
that's going to require, youknow, springdale's.
We've got a lot of great landout there and we're providing
the infrastructure to continueto watch that area grow.
I know of some plans out therethat are going to be just really
(54:44):
, really huge for Springdale butalso add value to the quality
of life in northwest Arkansasaround health care and around,
certainly, education.
Nwac someday will expand andhave those plans and so that
area is going to continue togrow too.
(55:06):
But there will be others.
We've got I talked at the Stateof the City address we'll have
another interchange someday.
We've got room for one more,you know they have.
Our DOT requires one-mileintervals, yeah, at a minimum,
between interchanges, andsomeday County Line Road is
going to have an interchangethere.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
And now we'll start the first phase of County Line
Road improvements, hopefullywith this bond issue Okay.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
So, it will be a multi-year.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
It will be like Gene George has done we build some
with each bond issue.
Speaker 4 (55:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
But we're going to start around Thompson this year
and maybe not this year but next, but with this bond issue, this
current bond issue, right.
And then I am confident thatonce you build phase one, phase
two will continue to the westand pretty soon we'll have
another east-west corridor fromThompson to Highway 112.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
That's amazing to.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Highway 112.
So with an interchange at I-49,I announced at the city council
meeting at the State of theCity that I would like to name
that for Mayor Van Hoose and I'msure they'll support that.
He did a lot of great things inhis 10 years as mayor, but the
things he'll probably be mostremembered for are this ballpark
(56:25):
, arvest Ballpark, but more thanthat, those three east-west
corridors, don Tyson Parkway,the improvements to Huntsville
and the improvements to WagonWheel.
And I think if we build anothereast-west corridor it would be
only right to name it Van Hoose.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
So County Line as it's improved will become.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
That's it, yeah, yeah , and, and so We've, we've got.
We've got a lot happening talkabout in the next 10 years.
And I talked about the overlaydistrict.
But as, as Don Tyson Parkway isextended to Highway 112, as 112
is, parkway is extended tohighway 112 as 112 is improved,
which is state project roundup,there'll be a roundabout at Don
(57:11):
Tyson Parkway and 112 yeah,there will be.
We are currently under design is64th Street.
We've improved it from fromhighway 412 to Watkins, but the
next phase will be from Watkinsto the extended Don Tyson
Parkway.
It will intersect with DonTyson Parkway, apple Road.
(57:35):
We've got an agreement with thedevelopers of Teslar, who's
building their building on AppleRoad, and we're going to help
them with full improvements onboth sides to Apple Road.
So we'll continue to build thatgrid out in the overlay
district.
We're real excited about theoverlay district that had
(57:56):
landowner buy-in.
The good part and I think thepart that made that easier was
we had landowners, some verylarge landowners.
Part that made that easier waswe had landowners, some very
large landowners, but thesmaller ones too, who saw the
value of creating an overlaydistrict with minimum standards.
that would ensure quality and sothat area is going to continue
(58:19):
to thrive.
But I hope downtown and I havefull confidence that downtown
will continue to develop in sucha way that we can be conscious
of cost of living down there.
I hope, of course the marketdictates this more than anything
(58:40):
, but I hope we can have adowntown where people that work
there can afford to live thereyeah and, and that takes that
takes a lot of it takes a lot ofsacrifice on on the part of a
lot of people, including thedevelopers, to to see the value
(59:02):
in, in maybe pocketing a littleless, and that's hard to ask
people to do.
And ultimately it will be tothem.
You know, if they're going tobuild what's allowed to be built
down there and if we driveproperty values up to thousands
of dollars a square foot, so beit.
But I hope we can avoid thatRight, and we want to encourage
(59:24):
avoiding that.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
You've gotten the ball rolling in the right
direction for sure.
And let me ask you a questionas we kind of wind down here.
What do you see, or can youspeak to?
What do you see the next phaseof your life looking like?
Next?
Speaker 2 (59:38):
phase of my life.
Yeah, next phase of your lifeafter being a mayor?
Speaker 1 (59:40):
are you just going to serve in the community?
Yes, I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
you know when I retire?
I will, I won't.
Our senior center has a mottoyou rest, you rust, and I don't
want to rust and I feel good, Ifeel good.
I live two miles from downtownand I walk it often, that's
great.
You know, depending on what mymeetings are, if I don't need a
vehicle or if I do need avehicle the next day for my
meetings.
Sometimes I'll walk home thatnight and leave my vehicle there
(01:00:07):
at.
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
City.
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Hall.
So I try and work it out.
I've got a bike.
I enjoy biking too, but Ialways prefer to walk if I can,
and so I'm going to stay busy.
I'll be the old guy that showsup downtown with walking his
German shepherd.
But you know I want to servesomewhere and I'd love to get
(01:00:29):
paid too for what I do.
So you know I'm not ready tohang it up yet, but I do think
you have a shelf life as a mayorand I don't want to overstay my
welcome.
And there are other things Ican do.
And I know we've got peoplewaiting in the wings that would
do a tremendous job inleadership, and you know they'll
(01:00:51):
have to get elected.
But I think we've got a greatfuture and I'm going to move
from coach to cheerleader.
Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
You know, and.
But I want to serve, I want tobe involved, I want to help any
way I can.
Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
And I'll probably you know honestly.
Sometimes I you know again Iran a small business that can be
hard on your body, right For 35years I ran it small business
that can be hard on your body.
For 35 years I ran it for 25.
Then I became mayor.
Then we were open for another10 years while my wife ran it.
She actually did a lot betterwith it than I did.
(01:01:35):
So, I've asked her never to runfor mayor.
But there's a part of me thatyou know driving a school bus
seems real attractive to me.
Yeah, and that's not a knock.
The part that scares me alittle bit is I think kids will
be involved, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Or mowing a park, you know just that kind of stuff
Getting out and serving, justgetting out.
Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
That really appeals to me, but I don't know what it
will hold exactly.
But I'll stay busy as long as Ifeel good.
I feel great right now and youknow we're talking about a few
years away, but anything canhappen.
But I want to stay busy andsupport whoever is leading the
community.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
And well, the community thanks you for your
time and your service inSpringdale and continue service.
So thank you so much.
This was a great episode, Oneof the more authentic episodes
we've had.
We really appreciate your time.
Thank you, Doug.
I appreciate you, Doug.
See you guys.
Thanks, guys.
If you enjoyed the show, makesure to give us a follow on your
favorite podcast platform soyou never miss an update.
Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Don't forget to connect with us on Instagram,
facebook and LinkedIn for morereal estate insights and behind
the scenes content.
Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Have a question you want us to cover, send it our
way, and if you're interested insponsoring the show, visit
nwainvestingcom to get in touch.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
Welcome to North List Arkansas Investing Podcast.
We have a great guest heretoday, Mayor Doug Sprouse of
Springdale.
Thank you for being with us,Doug.
We really appreciate your time.
We value your time.
We just kind of wanted to getin here so we wanted to jump
right in.
You've been the mayor since2008.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, I was elected in 08, took office in January of
09.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, how did that come about?
Were you like hey, let's runfor mayor?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, I was 51 years old when I was actually at a
Sunday school fellowship and thediscussion started about Mayor
Van Hoos not seeking re-electionand you know, somebody said
something stupid at a party andsaid you know what you ought to
run for mayor.
And everybody kind of laughs,you know, and I laugh it off,
(00:58):
but I was currently serving onthe school board at the time.
I'd been on the school boardfor almost 10 years and really
enjoyed that service and so youknow, sometimes somebody plants
a seed, you know, and God won'tlet you let it go.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, I started.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
you know, I started talking with my wife, sandy, and
my kids, because I knew if Ijumped into this it would affect
them probably more than anybody.
My kids they were all growingout of the house but they'll
hear all the stuff and all thatand have to deal with that and I
wanted to be sure they wereokay with it.
(01:34):
Of course they were all verysupportive.
And then I started talking withthe Chamber of Commerce and
with people in the community.
I certainly went and talked.
I met with Jerry Van Hoose andhe encouraged me and I talked to
my pastor, just all kinds ofthings.
I took a few months and then,by May of 08, because this was
(01:55):
in late 07.
Right, and in May of 08, Iannounced, and then, of course,
there were six of us in the racebeing an open seat, and I won
it then in a runoff Wow, mikeOverton, who's still on our
council he was a council memberat the time and I were in a
(02:20):
runoff and then I won it andtook office in January of 2009.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Wow, what an interesting time to get into
politics too.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, 07, 08, 09.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, it was tough, it was tough then.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know I can remember well, I'll get into
that in a minute, but I rememberone of the first things as a
mayor and it was during the icestorm and I'm happy to talk
about that too that happenedabout three weeks after I took
office and I was like hey,welcome to my room and we had a
(02:51):
new mayor in Fayetteville too.
I can remember Lionel and Isitting with a new county judge,
judge Edward, judge MayorEdwards, down in Washington
County, and I can remember ussitting across the table from
each other with all this stuffgoing at the EOC down in
Washington County and alllooking at each other like what
in the world are we doing?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But through that honestly that was a tough, tough
time.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The economy was in the tank anyway, as in the tank
as it gets in northwest Arkansas.
And we, I can remember I'd beento an event in Bentonville and
Wyman Morgan, my chief of staffchief of staff wasn't really his
title, he was director offinancial services for
Springdale, but he was my righthand at the time and we were
(03:43):
coming back.
I was driving, wyman was in thepassenger seat and he got our
sales tax numbers in for the forthe month, yeah, and uh and I
about ran off the road, I mean,and I didn't know enough to be
scared.
But yeah, when wyman got off,got that message and got off his
(04:03):
phone and called our financialdirector in Springdale and said,
are we going to be okay on ourbond payment this month, I knew
enough to know that wassomething to be worried about.
It was like for that month itwas like $600,000.
Oh my gosh.
And you know now we just hadour record month.
This last reporting we were upalmost 10%, 9.6% over last
(04:32):
February and it was $2.3 million.
So big difference.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Big difference.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Big difference, big perspective shift.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So, but things were really, really tight and so,
yeah, that was a heck of a timeto come in, and then, of course,
the ice storm really added tothat.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Trail us off just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I know we're getting off the real estate side of
things I love it, but I mean theice affects a lot of real
estate.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
What was that like?
Jumping into office andimmediately getting hit with an
ice storm?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You know, I'll tell you we in a lot of ways, as I
look back on it, as bad as itwas and as much damage as was
done for me and for the yearsahead of me as mayor, it was
probably I think it was probablyone of the best things that
could have happened to me.
Elaborate on that In myleadership?
(05:23):
Yeah, Because, look, I had beena small business owner.
We had a small business inSpringdale for 35 years Sprouse
Upholstery very successful asupholstery shops go.
But you know it supported myfamily, it raised my kids.
You know I'll never.
I'm proud of that background asa small business owner.
But I remember weeks when Ididn't know if I was going to,
(05:45):
if somebody was going to walkthrough the door so I could make
payroll and not have to sendsomebody home.
But from that background intobeing thrown into that and
having to realize, I realizedhow many professionals
(06:05):
surrounded me our fire chief,our police chief, our public
works director that even thoughthey'd not been through that
before either, but they wereseasoned, they knew their roles
and they knew it wasn't all onme, it wasn't decisions that I
had to make.
I could lean on thoseprofessionals that surrounded me
(06:27):
and that really set the stagefor me, I think, to have more
success in the subsequent yearsbecause I just I didn't.
I can remember there was a fewdays there.
I can remember getting a callfrom my fire chief we were about
(06:48):
two weeks in and so a lot ofSpringdale was still out of
electricity and still out ofpower and our fire chief at the
time, dwayne Atha, he called meone morning and he said, you
know, we didn't text.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
We had.
You know it takes a long timeto text on a flip phone.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So.
But he called me that morningand he said Mayor, I want to
alert you to something.
We had about 50 people taken tothe emergency room last night
for carbon monoxide poisoningReally.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I said what happened and he said well, we, you know,
we had a lot of people.
They were, we had a lot ofpeople.
They were trying to heat theirhomes with charcoal, with gas
stoves, wow.
And he said thankfully, thankGod, nobody lost their life
there.
There was some sick.
It was a scare though, so wehad to.
We mobilized everybody the nextday Again, we didn't have any
(07:46):
kind of mass notification at thetime and so we got together and
it was in areas of the citywhere it was largely maybe a
largely Hispanic area or a largeMarshallese population there.
Yeah, and we gathered theresources we could, the human
resources we could, to help ustranslate.
Yeah, and you know, marshalleseis still hard to translate.
(08:10):
Right, spanish we can hit aboutout.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, google translate, but back then.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I mean it was a real scare.
We created flyers and ourpolice department, fire
department, other city staff, wewent out and walked door to
door handing out these flyers,trying to get people to
understand.
You know, we've got places.
We had a warming shelter at thesenior center.
We had places for them to go.
Yeah, but getting that word outwas just tough.
(08:39):
Please don't hit your housewith charcoal or something.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Please don't yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And you know from Central America, or you know
much further south, or from theMarshall Islands.
We had people, probably, thatnever had to heat their home any
time yeah.
And so they didn't know.
But that was just a reallearning experience.
But through that experience Imean I can remember on a
Saturday afternoon I mean I'mgoing to cut myself and bleed on
(09:07):
you a little here, totally open, that's fine, but I mean, it
was a Saturday afternoon, Iremember it like it was
yesterday, and Sandy had goneout to do something, and so I
was home alone and I just gotalone with God and I said God,
what have you put me in?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
What am I going to do ?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I get emotional now thinking about it, but hey, it
all worked out and I think thatexperience helped me.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
That really laid the foundation there for your next.
I mean you're still in office.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I mean that's incredible, that's incredible
Went from running against six torunning unopposed just this
last year.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I mean talk about it.
It speaks a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Talk about adversity, like you're going in with all
this adversity.
You know, running against sixpeople, you have a runoff and
then you get thrown into thisice storm.
You're really like you said.
You're going through thisadversity like right when you're
coming in, so almost alldownhill.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It felt like you're in the valley.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah, and the budget implications of that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Tony, it was really tight in Springdale right then.
Not long before I became mayor,we'd lost Sam's Club.
Sam's Club had relocated toFayetteville.
That was about amillion-dollar-a-year hit and
with our budget at the time thatwas a huge hit.
It'd be a huge hit today, right, but we were just struggling.
(10:35):
On top of that, it was kind oflike the perfect storm because
another issue that had happenedlegislatively not to get too far
into the weeds and y'all shutme up.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
No, you're doing great.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
There was a legislation passed called
streamlined sales tax.
And what that did?
It changed the taxing locationwhere you collect, because sales
tax is the bread and butter ofa city, yeah, but it changed
where those taxes are generatedfrom point of sale to point of
delivery, yeah, and, and itchanged, but it changed where
those taxes are generated frompoint of sale, from point of
sale to point of delivery.
(11:09):
Okay, in other words, and I, Iwas a, I was in the upholstery
business, so we deliveredfurniture all over Northwest
Arkansas.
We had to start tracking wherethat furniture was delivered,
because then that city got thesales tax rather than rather
than Springdale getting it all,because Sprouse Upholstery is
located in Springdale and Ididn't really think it was fair.
(11:29):
I still don't really think it'sfair, but we've adjusted.
But that was a huge deal forSpringdale because when you
think about even today not asmuch as it was then but even
today delivery services, typesof retail and businesses that
typically would deliver a lotoutside the city, service
(11:51):
industry, building supply we hadat the time, of course we had
Lowe's Everybody does butnational lumber supply.
But National Lumber Supply Imean everywhere.
Anytime a National Lumber Truckdelivered building supplies now
to a home site and Grabbit well, grabbit got the sales tax.
(12:13):
Wow, it was a huge hit for usand that hit the same time.
Sam's left Springdale, wow.
So it was really difficult.
And then the building sloweddown.
It was happening anyway, andnot to mention other business
and how tough it was reallydifficult.
And then the building sloweddown.
That was happening anyway, andnot to mention other business
and how tough it was, and youguys remember that.
Oh my gosh, but it was just areally tough time.
(12:37):
But hey, you know, it makes youappreciate so much more where
we're at now and not everybodyrealizes that Not everybody
lived here, then you know theway we're growing, with people
from all over the country cominghere.
Not a lot of people willremember that, but it sure
helped me prepare for how toappreciate the better times, but
(13:02):
also how to know that when youtake a big hit, it's not the end
of the world.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, I think that leads us really well into the
next part, which is why in thelast five years it feels like
Springdale's really come up, Iguess just from a not really
looking into it all the time,kind of just local perspective.
It's a place that we talked alittle bit before we hit the
(13:29):
start button.
My wife wants to go to downtownSpringdale all the time.
She loves it there.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Make her tribe, increase.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, exactly, brandon and I played high school
ball for Harbor kind of on.
Tawny Town, what we call TawnyTown Harbor area, whatever, but
in the last five years there'sbeen almost like a change in the
atmosphere.
It feels like Would you concurwith that Absolutely, and then I
guess to follow up on that iswhy Let me okay let me delve
(13:57):
into that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
When I, you know, I grew up in Springdale right.
So in the 60s and 70s when Iwas in school, downtown was
where everything was.
It was a long haul to go toBentonville.
It was even a fairly long haul.
It was a big deal to go toFayetteville, even though we
shopped there a lot.
That was kind of the retailcenter of Northwest Arkansas at
(14:18):
the time.
But downtown Springdale wasvery vibrant.
That's where mom bought my CubScout uniform, that's where you
know all those things.
That's where we barred.
That's where Mom bought my CubScout uniform.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
That's where you know all those things.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's where you go to Western Auto or Otasco and
buy your bicycle.
Yeah, so and places to eat downthere, yeah, and a movie house,
the Apollo, you know, yeah.
And so that's just where lifewas kind of centered until, as
in a lot of downtowns, thingsmoved out, things went west, and
(14:49):
then, through the late 70s andthrough the 80s, you know, we
had banks and law offices downthere, and other than that there
wasn't a whole lot.
You know, we had a few stalwartclothing stores that wrote it
out.
Ryan's was successful downthere for years.
Clothing stores that that wroteit out Ryan's was successful
down there for years.
Um uh, spring Street Grill wasa restaurant that fought, fought
(15:12):
through all that and and andand succeeded.
But but other than that it wasjust really tough down there and
and so through that time,through the eighties and
nineties, I was raising Sandyand I were raising our young
family and and you know, uh, youcan look back and can look back
and I remember a lot of verywell-intentioned efforts to
bring downtown back and bringmore businesses downtown.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But it just wasn't happening.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
It wasn't sticking, it just wasn't.
And everybody tried hard andthen finally, I think, it got to
the point that people justwrote downtown off.
They said it's not going tohappen.
And then something reallyinteresting happened right after
I became mayor, and it's calledthe Northwest Arkansas
(15:57):
Razorback Greenway.
And I can remember going toearly meetings in the greenway
planning with Patsy Christie,our longtime planning director,
who is about to retire,effective March 31st.
And you talk about leaving ahole.
I mean but she deserves and shedeserves any accolades she can
get Right For that long tenureand all she's done to help shape
(16:20):
Springdale.
But we've got.
You know, we went to earlymeetings and we were all adamant
that the Greenway needs to runthrough downtown Springdale and
follow Spring Creek and runthrough downtown Springdale.
And that's what ended uphappening.
Of course, yeah.
But then we had a real choiceto make and I can remember
(16:44):
talking to groups and say, look,we can, we can be the ugly spot
on this, on this trail, andeverybody's going to be coming.
But but whatever we do, they'recoming.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
And they're going to go right through downtown.
And I think, more than anythingelse I think more than anything
else, there are a lot ofcatalytic projects that have
happened, but I think what'sreally started it off was the
realization that that Greenway,that major project, was going to
run right through our downtown.
And what are we going to dowith that?
(17:18):
How are we going to make thebest out of that.
Then other things happened.
Turnbow Park was developed andwe opened up that section of.
Spring Creek with a lot of that.
Then other things happened.
Turnbow Park was developed aswe, as we and we, we opened up
that section of Spring Creekwith a lot of help, and I know
you want to talk about probablycommunity partners and you know,
Tyson's been huge.
Uh yeah, the Walton family'sbeen huge, um, and and a lot of
smaller groups too that thathave that have poured not only
(17:41):
money but also, uh, but alsoeffort and of effort of all
kinds into our downtown.
And you know then, when Tyson,another big, big shoe to drop
was when Tyson decided to savethe old Jeff Brown hatchery
(18:02):
building.
I mean that thing that we hadthe big red X on it where the
fire department wasn't going togo in if it caught fire.
But Tyson, I remember thosemeetings and talking with them
and Tyson stepped up and theyspent probably a lot more on
that than anybody should spendon an old building, but they
(18:23):
wanted to do it.
Johnny was very supportive ofthis.
Johnny said I'll never forget.
After the ribbon cutting andthat office building opened,
johnny just said well, mayor, Ihope it helps.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Well, I do too, Johnny.
It wasn't about the money.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It certainly did, but that put people down there that
put people down there, which isthe secret.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And now what we're seeing is obviously the growth
with Luther George Park and allthat cool development down there
and all the multifamily that'sgoing in.
Yeah, we're going to havepeople in downtown Springdale
now yeah, and already do, andyou can go down there any night
(19:04):
of the week and it's busy, it'sbustling, it is exciting to be
down there, and when I hear whatyou told me before this about
your wife, you know, and whereyou all like to go down there,
that's music to my ears.
Yeah.
Because, that's, and I find thatwhen I go down there, when
Sandy and I go down and go outto eat and we try to eat a lot
(19:25):
in downtown Springfield when weeat out to support those
businesses and when we're downthere, we'll be in the odd soul
and there will be a couple therethat just happen to be sitting
there and we find out they'refrom Bentonville or Rogers or
Fayetteville or out in thecounty somewhere, and they drive
(19:48):
in to go Nine times out of ten.
They're younger than me andthat's okay, In fact that's
really good yeah that's fine.
But something they always talkabout that never, that I never
take for granted.
They talk about theauthenticity, they talk about
(20:09):
the grit.
They talk about.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
it's real and I love that man.
You use that word, grit.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, it's the same word I.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Now I use it to describe downtown Rogers, like
that we've said.
I can't think of a word fordowntown Rogers, but like grit.
That sounds right and it's thesame thing for Springdale it
feels very authentic, and I'mnot going to say other downtowns
, don't no, but it feels soauthentic it's like somebody's
like put some.
It was more than the money,like this was time, energy,
(20:40):
effort put into this it's cool.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It's cool to see, though, because I think, uh,
growing up, my parents alwaystalked about how you know, when
northwest arkansas was kind ofat its infancy, it was
Springdale and it wasFayetteville, and that was
really it.
And everything else wasn'treally built and so it's cool to
kind of see the revitalizationstarting to really happen and I
think, and I think we'll getinto this as well.
But I think the more denselypopulated we can get that area
(21:04):
with apartments and stuff, whichis what happened, what is
happening, and there's someamazing anchors down there with
the restaurants, and I saw OnyxSign just go up.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, my wife is pumped.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I was like man.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
That is huge because that's an anchor as well.
I mean when you start to havethose businesses that buy into
kind of the vision and what youwant to do, then yeah.
I mean, there's unlimitedopportunity.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So would you say, we're seeing.
So know, I asked you a questionearlier, like why is it
happening?
We're seeing like it, it wasplanned a long time ago for this
to happen and so we're fine.
We're seeing it like come intorealization now finally, and
that's really cool.
It's something I love havingpeople like yourself on, because
you get insight that I mean.
I don't know like this wholethought process of like let's
(21:48):
make downtown Springdale happenagain, like started when that
Greenway thought happened.
That's super, super cool.
Let's dig into a little bit on.
We kind of talked about likewhy it's happening.
Oh also, have you tried theFrench restaurant downtown?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh yeah, that was really good.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's really good.
My wife and I, we love thatplace.
We're like we're going to comeback.
It's not somewhere I'm going togo every week.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
But it's really good and it's an experience that you
don't get around here.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, that's why we love it.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Before we move on to something else about like okay,
the greenway was key.
What about opportunity zones?
How do you?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
think that's something.
That's a great point.
That's a good catch.
Thanks for bringing that up,because we push hard for that,
and I've got to give credit toPerry Webb, our former chamber
president, and Lance Eads, who'sa former state senator who
actually worked for the chamber.
And President Trump signed thattax bill in 2017, and part of
(22:51):
it was something calledOpportunity Zones, and Perry was
the first one that I heard fromthat, picked up on that and
realized what that could be andwhat was going to happen was
each state was allotted so manybased on population, so many and
(23:15):
based on population and but itwas up to the governor to decide
how those would be allottedthroughout the state and
springdale got four and they'reall contiguous.
We got as many as any other cityin the state.
That's pretty good.
That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah, and, uh, and, and,and.
They're all for us.
They're all contiguous.
Our entire downtown is includedin Opportunity Zone and much of
(23:36):
East Springdale, and we've seenwhat that's done and it
incentivized also more localinvestment too, which is cool.
People like you guys that grewup in Springdale and love
Springdale and want to supportSpringdale we've got Opportunity
Zone funds that are Springdalefolks.
(23:57):
We'll welcome any of them.
That's certainly not exclusiveto Springdale investment but it
does give a vehicle.
It did give a vehicle for thatto happen.
I hope they get extended.
I ask that question every timeI go to DC.
I'll go again next week.
I'll ask again next week Justto make sure.
I think it's a nonpartisanissue or a bipartisan issue is a
(24:18):
better way to say it, because Ithink everybody realizes it's
good.
It could have done more if morepeople had known about it and
as the time got extended andthose opportunities got extended
, I look for that to happenagain.
I don't know if there will bean opportunity to open up more
(24:41):
zones or hopefully the oneswe've got we get to keep.
I don't know how that will allwork, but I do know there's
bipartisan support to extendthat.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
You brought up a great point which is not a lot
of people knew about, like whatis even an opportunity?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Something like me knew and didn't understand.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It's a word that was thrown around.
In the investor sphere,investing community, we
primarily represent investorsand I'm sure we I had one
investor mention to me.
I'm like I got to figure outwhat this means.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Like what does this even mean?
You got to go do your researchand stuff.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
But that is a really good point is like I think if
more people knew it might havebeen even more effective.
Yeah, we can touch onopportunities If you don't know
what opportunity zone is.
You hold a development orproperty in an opportunity zone
and you don't have to paycapital gains tax if you're
holding that for 10 years.
So it really makes itincentivizing for developers to
come in.
If you're not having to paycapital gains, that's a huge
(25:40):
incentive for you to invest andespecially if you're selling a
business, you sell anotherproperty, you can roll that into
an opportunity zone fund andyou not need a 1031.
So yeah, huge tax advantage forinvestors thanks for
remembering all right ouraudience.
You do a great job working withOmar on market seem about 200
(26:03):
unit development right acrossfrom Luther George Park and that
is an opportunity zone andwatch makes it so attractive for
investors.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Super attractive Not having to pay that.
I'm excited about that Speakingon that topic over the last 5,
10 years.
What does the planning red tapelook like?
As we press forward and thingsget taller and bigger and more
complex, has the city planninghad to adapt to that?
Has there been more red tape,less red tape?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
They have adapted but we're not finished adapting
Okay.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
That's a good answer.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, we've got our form-based codes in place, which
I think is all the feedbackwe're getting.
Is that's been a good thing.
Yeah, it's been good fordevelopment.
We try and be, but those thingsare going to have to be
adjusted by the real world,market and how we and we can do
that.
But we always want to know, wewant to ensure quality, we want
(27:04):
to ensure to protect everyone'sinvestment.
And the feedback, by and largeat least, anything that's gotten
to me has really been goodabout our form-based codes, and
not to say they're perfect, butwe'll adjust those as we get
(27:26):
better ideas and we've got thatin place.
And the other big topic now andit's even in the legislative
session, you know there's thisconcern about regulation and
about red tape and delays, and Iget all that Right, you know,
(27:49):
and so we're going to be lookingat ways that we can streamline
that process as much as possible.
You've got to have a processand you've got to have those
protections in place.
You know some things you don'thave a choice about fire code
and those kinds of things.
Yeah, for sure, but are thereways that we can work with
(28:10):
developers to better streamlinethat process and the inspection
process and all that?
Now we're pretty fast with ourinspections yeah, we are, and
we're really intentional aboutthat.
Our building inspectiondepartment does a great job, but
still we want to always make itbetter because we know, and
especially in inflationary timeslike we've just been through-
(28:32):
time really is money.
I mean delays really are money,even more than in a normal
economy.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
But we want to do that, we want to do that on our
road projects.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
We want to do that in every way we can and we're
continually looking at that.
I tell you I've got to brag onmy chief of staff, colby Fulford
, and Colby's really consciousof that.
He also was a small businessowner for years and he really
helps me.
We're pretty grounded in thatthat, and we constantly remind
(29:10):
our departments that we'republic servants and we're really
there if there's any waypossible to find a way to, yes,
and so we're going to remainconscious of that.
And this part about streamstreamlining regulations and you
(29:32):
know the legislature is goingto push for it anyway right,
there are bills right now topush for that, right.
I just hope they understandalso the other side of that.
If you go too far yeah you know.
So you know property rights arevery important and they're, they
are.
They are sacred to us asAmericans.
But your property rights onlygo as far as until you step on
(29:54):
somebody else's.
Yeah right, totally.
So it's a balancing act.
It always has been, and that'swhat we're.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
But we're going to be intentional about really trying
to work with developers andfigure out better ways to help
them hit their bottom line RightFor sure On that topic does it
really in your opinion I'm kindof playing devil's advocate does
it really matter, like how adeveloper if a developer is
(30:23):
listening to this podcast rightnow how they approach the city?
Is it hey, the city's my enemyversus hey, how can I work with
the city and get this done?
How can we be a team on thisand help accomplish a goal?
Do you see the difference inthat?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
and different outcomes.
I do because we've you know,there are developers that are
tougher to work with, just likethere are cities that are
tougher to work with.
And I would encourage anydeveloper and hold us
accountable to this same thing,because our staff needs to be
doing it the same way.
We can't watch everything andwe can't regulate everything.
(31:00):
There has to be anestablishment of some trust that
the developer is going to dowhat the plans say they're going
to do.
The developer is going to dowhat they, what the plans say
they're going to do, whatthey've agreed to do, and the
city is not going to pile onother.
You know we're not going tocome in at the end, at the end
(31:20):
of the planning process, and sayoh, by the way, we need you to
do this too, or you can go.
I've been in planningcommission meetings y'all, and
we've got a great planningcommission.
But I've been in planningcommission meetings where a
commissioner would startbasically designing at the table
, you know, with things thataren't necessarily required but
(31:43):
would say something I've heardthis out of their mouth and this
has been years ago but wouldsay I'd like this better if
you'd do this.
You know, never mind that itmay that what's going on in the
developer's head is how many youknow how many dollar signs is
that going?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
through my head now.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, you know, and it's just not the best way to
treat people and to do that, andyou know, let's make it clear
what's required required makesure it makes sense, yep, and
then stick to that.
But at the same time, on thedeveloper side, we've got to
have that trust that thatthey're, because we can inspect
things but we can't inspecteverything, yeah, you know, but
the thing, and we won't catcheverything, yeah, do what you're
(32:26):
comfortable saying you'll do,yeah, and don't try and do
something to cut that's going tosignificantly change the value
or the quality of the project onthe back end.
And our part of that commitmentis we don't need to be adding
things beyond what's requiredand beyond what the initial
(32:49):
requirements were.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So a big level of trust there.
Big level of trust yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
It makes sense too.
I think it's just interesting,you see, with red tape and with
all these different buzzwords ofif the process has become
really difficult, and you havescenarios where, if a developer
has to hold it for a longerperiod, of time and the interest
rate environment changes withina year and you've seen, over
the past couple of years atleast, that deals just falling
(33:15):
apart because it no longer makessense, right, or developers
backing out stuff like that, andI'm sure that's what you want
to avoid.
Anybody wants to avoid, so Ilove how you all are kind of
thinking about streamliningthere, yeah, and we need help,
we need feedback.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
In fact, you know, and with a new planning director
coming in, and it's probably agreat time to really open that
dialogue and not that Patsywasn't open to that, but you
know, with change you've gotsome built-in new opportunities
and new ways of getting inputabout what we need to do.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Do you see to where, if that trust is earned on the
first project with a developer,do you see the second project
being a lot easier a lot of thetimes, or is it?
It shouldn't be.
It should be the same everytime.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
But we are all human beings, right, and we remember
things, and I don't thinkthere's any.
You can't take the humanelement out of this.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You're like hey, you did what you said you would do
yeah, exactly.
Time one, two, three, four fiveRight, all right, all right.
Yeah, totally I love it.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah.
So I think the next part wekind of want to roll intodale.
But of all of Springdale, youknow Blue Crane, the Walton
family, you know Tyson, as youmentioned, what have those
partnerships looked like for youall and kind of helping your
(34:39):
revitalization?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, you've named a couple of them and Blue Crane
continues, or the Runway Group.
You know that all continues.
We just broke ground about twoweeks ago on Via Emma which.
Via is a large retail andmultifamily just north of Luther
George Park.
They're going to overlook thebeautiful park and, for our part
(35:04):
, one of our bond projects iscontinuing our new streetscape
on mi avenue, uh to the to theeast and uh, and we're also
going to get the.
You know there are power lineson park street that we want to
get underground and that isgoing to be, part of that
project and yeah, and reallyclean that up and make that,
make that nice and uh so.
(35:25):
But but those partnerships youwe've talked about Tyson, we
know about Walton's family andall their groups that have been
so significant.
I'm going to tell you when youhave, the most important
partnership has been with ourresidents and our voters.
(35:46):
Yeah, I've been through threebond issues now in my 15 years
16 years as mayor and each bondissue is a collection of
different ballot titles indifferent categories and they're
all pass-fail, they all standon their own and of all those
(36:09):
ballot titles probably 15 or 16in those three bond elections
last one being in 2023, they'veall passed by a margin of an
average of over 80% Wow and thatsays a lot about the trust that
your residents place in theability of the city to be good
(36:31):
stewards with that money and todo what they say they're going
to do with it, and I won't evertake that for granted either.
At every ribbon-cutting that hasanything to do with the bond
project, at every groundbreaking, I always try and have the
presence of mind to remember tothank the citizens of Springdale
, the voters of Springdale, fortheir strong support.
The lowest in all those ballotquestions was 74 point something
(36:53):
percent and that was our animalshelter, which many people told
me would never pass 74 percentis pretty good.
City Hall was over 80 percent.
Wow, and I'll never forgetgoing to people when I was
talking about putting themunicipal campus on a bond issue
(37:13):
question and we wanted to bedowntown.
We didn't want to move anywhereelse.
We knew City Hall needed to bedowntown, our police department
needed to be downtown.
We had strong beliefs in thatand we needed to help be an
anchor down there to keep peopledown there.
And we needed to help be ananchor down there to keep people
down there.
And we had a design excellencegrant from the Walton Family
(37:34):
Foundation.
I think it was the firstmunicipal building that was
awarded a design excellencegrant.
We went through that wholeprocess but that was about look,
that was over $3.5 million ofdesign for that.
It was about a $40 millionbuilding, which the day we
opened it and we came in rightat budget, and the day we opened
(37:59):
it three, four years later, itwas probably a $75 million
building.
Wow, crazy and so, but we paid$40 for it.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I don't want to make that clear.
I see one-on-one right there.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, so but I can't say enough about the voters.
There are a lot of businesses,large and small, For example
Luther George Park.
What a bargain for theresidents of Springdale in
northwest Arkansas.
What a bargain for the residentsof Springdale in northwest
Arkansas Wonderful 16-acre parkredesigned with a structure like
(38:40):
nowhere else in the world for aperformance venue, and
taxpayers have about $2 millionin that.
The rest was privately raised,Large donors, small donors I
could certainly name all thedonors.
Everybody in northwest Arkansaswould guess and they'd be right
.
But there are significant giftsgiven to that park from people
(39:01):
from names you would neverrecognize People that just
believed in their community andwanted to do that.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I'm talking about large sums of money, large and
small and they're all important,but that was you know.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
so when we talk about partners, there's a lot of them
that aren't the normal namespeople think of, but just as
important.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, I think it's easy to look at Northwest
Arkansas and all the cities andjust say, yeah, this is all
fueled by the Waltons and theHunts and everybody, but really
it's.
I mean especially in Springdaletoo you know it takes the
community and I think that'swhat we love about exactly what
you said and there's names thatnobody would ever know in there
(39:45):
that are really behindSpringdale and want to continue
to see it grow and flourish,which is amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, well, and you know, sorry but the and the
Waltons know something veryimportant.
Yeah, and they understandsomething, and Tyson does too.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, that, that community, that you have to have
community buy-in, yeah, they'rethere to help, they're.
They're there to help any waythey can.
But they want to see thatcommunity buy-in too they want
to see and, and and that that'simportant, and it's important
for a project to succeed thatthe community have buy-in.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, so, yeah, yeah but yeah, so we, we love that.
We we want to kind of get alittle bit into some of the
unannounced projects inSpringdale.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
You're not going to announce me.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
I've heard a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I don't need to be making announcements, but I'll
talk about what I can.
We can at least ask.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
We'd love to just kind of get a little bit more
insight on what residents can beexcited about maybe some things
.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Maybe some things that were already announced that
might not be out there yet,right, okay, things like that
We'd love to.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Just Maybe some things that were already
announced that might not be outthere yet.
Right, things like that.
We'd love to just kind of hearwhat Springdale is Obviously
downtown, but even outside ofthat Sure.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Because we've got development going on all over,
Absolutely, you know, and that'sI don't ever want to, you know,
you can, I'll never forget wegot our first Chick-fil-A right
Come on.
I guarantee you we were thelargest city in the country
without a Chick-fil-A, becausewe had Chick-fil-A's all around
us, but not in Springdale.
We got that Chick-fil-A andit's in the top ten in the
(41:19):
country.
If people will give Springdalea chance, we're going to make
you proud Because Sam's Clubwhen it opened in Springdale,
and Jean George again.
That was able to open therebecause the residents of
(41:40):
Springdale voted in 2012 a bondissue to allow us to build that
first section of Jean GeorgeBoulevard.
So now we have ArkansasChildren's Northwest also
because of that.
But when that Sam's Club came,I thought, man, I'm mayor for
life if I want to be.
(42:01):
That was the biggest thing thathad happened since we got the at
the old Allen Canning buildingon Springdale, we got the Popeye
statue back.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'll never forget how big a deal that was.
Praise God.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, it's gone now, but when Sam's Club opened and
you know I don't have the recentnumbers, but I know 2019, they
were the top performing Sam'sClub in their whole network.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
And they're busy all the time.
Yeah, and so talk about somefoot traffic over there.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I love what you said, though I'm going to be using
that one a lot.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
When you give Springdale a chance, we'll make
you proud Right, and I promiseyou that won't be our last
chick-fil-a.
Absolutely Agreed.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Love that.
So I'd like to get a little bitmore into downtown too.
With the multifamily projectand that the Waltons I think are
a part of, and some of theretail down there Is the idea
for downtown Springdale and EmmaStreet to become more densely
populated in there, to becomesort of a, you know if you, if
(43:11):
you look at a, you know adowntown Fayetteville or a
downtown Rogers or evenBentonville or any of those.
It seems like when you go therein the evenings there's always
people kind of walking around,sitting around, right, you know,
kind of a nightlife if you willjust kind of family spending
time is.
Is that kind of the goodquestion?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Absolutely, and that's actually you know.
I just gave my state of thecity address last Tuesday.
We're required by statute asmayors to give a state of the
city before the end of Marcheach year.
And I usually give mine inFebruary.
And a year ago at my state ofthe city address, I talked about
density, and our council hascome a long, long way, and I
(43:53):
have too.
You know, when I became mayorin 2009, we had a moratorium on
multifamily, and there were alot of reasons for that.
I think one of them was thatthey just didn't have a very
good reputation in Springdale.
We didn't have minimum designstandards for multifamily at the
time, and so, until theprevious administration, there
(44:20):
was a moratorium placed onmultifamily while they worked on
design standards formultifamily, and so we went
through a period where the notin my backyard idea really made
it difficult to rezone formultifamily for a while because
(44:45):
of the legacy we had.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So you saw a lot of pushback from had in the
community.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
If you were putting it near a single-family
neighborhood, those residentswould come out in droves because
there was a certain perceptionabout the kind of people who
lived in multifamily.
Of course that's changed too.
I mean now people prefer.
I mean, you know it's ourpolice officers, our firemen,
our teachers, you know, plus somany in the community.
The generation that's not mygeneration, you know they don't
(45:18):
want a two-acre lot, you know,with a mansion on it.
They want to be able to walk tothings.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
They want to be able to build a community around
where they live, not have to mowtheir lawn.
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
And so we talked about density.
I talked about density, andnothing has changed.
I encouraged the council tocontinue.
Now there will be times thatresidents have a good argument,
but it's not that my property agood argument is not.
Well, you're going to cause myproperty values to go down
because we know that doesn'thappen.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, right, yeah, it's going up and I think people
are starting to get that.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
And so it's much easier now, not to say it's a
cakewalk, but it's much easiernow.
And the council and ourplanning commission is much more
open and sees the need to buildmore density, yeah, and not
just multifamily, smaller lot,single family, you know.
Build more density and not justmultifamily, smaller lot,
single family, you know.
Uh, so, uh, it's, it'shappening, it needs to continue
to happen and there's a lot ofreasons for that.
Certainly it's.
(46:23):
I think it's what people wantnow.
But Springdale's, you know,we're a city of over 90,000
people and we're pretty spreadout and we've got not just in
our downtown but on our old andall a lot of our established
areas around today, around our,and we've got not just in our
downtown but in a lot of ourestablished areas around our
city.
We've got a lot of developableland, yeah, and we don't have to
keep pushing out.
That's inevitable, it's goingto happen.
But that is certainly not themost efficient delivery of
(46:49):
services, whether you're talkingabout water and sewer, other
utilities, you're talking aboutpolice coverage, fire coverage,
you know we've got a lot ofdevelopable land and it's as
expensive as it can be toupgrade a water line or a sewer
line upsize in an older part oftown.
(47:09):
As expensive as that is, it'sstill much more efficient than
continuing to push thatinfrastructure out and spread it
out, and so I think everybodygets it.
I think we've still got somework to do.
Everybody gets it.
(47:30):
I think we've still got somework to do.
Sometimes it's hard to say yesto a multifamily rezoning when
you're sitting in a council roomor at a planning commission
meeting and you've got a roomfull of angry residents.
It's just hard and I understandit.
I mean, the biggest investmentanybody has, most always is in
their home, and so I get thatand I'm sympathetic to that.
(47:52):
But as long as we can ensurequality and know that they're
not going to get hurt by that,then we need to continue to push
it forward.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Real recapturing of trust in the last 10 years.
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
And they have reason.
You know, if they've been inSpringdale a long time back in
you know the 90s and the early2000s they've got reason to be
concerned.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Until they realize what, but they can see what's
being built now, right, and it'snice and you just look around
at the other cities as well, intheir downtown areas, and people
are wanting to buy houses closeto downtown too, and those home
prices are going insane.
Because they're able to workdown there, they can play down
there, they can live down there,being able to walk to things is
(48:37):
a huge attraction.
We bought our home.
We don't have a walkable home,but we bought our home because
it's as close to everything aspossible and I think that's what
people will continue to want isto be able to live in a
community where they can walkdown to Casa Alejo and have a
meal and hang out at the parkdown there.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
How would you contrast the revitalization of
downtown Springdale to Rogers,because I feel like it's on a
similar playing field.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I think we're probably maybe a year or two
behind where Rogers is.
Yeah, well, when we were firstreally beginning to get serious
about downtown redevelopmentback in 2010, 2011.
Bentonville had already, youknow, theirs was 15 years in,
(49:33):
yeah, you know, yeah, and Rogerswas kind of always tracking
close to where we were maybe alittle ahead.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And they're probably still there.
Rogers has a very differentdowntown than Springdale.
Yeah, I do agree that the feelis a lot the same, but they've
got more streets.
Their downtown has always been alittle more spread, yeah, and
even in the old days, becausethose are old buildings too yeah
, they are, so they're a littledifferent.
(50:03):
I think that's so neat, though,whether you're talking about
Bentonville, fayetteville,rogers, springdale, even the
smaller communities aroundnorthwest Arkansas, isn't it
neat that you're here?
You've got a young family,maybe you've moved here or grew
up here, it doesn't matter.
But maybe you've moved here andyou really don't care what city
(50:24):
you live in.
You may not even know if it'snot on your return address,
right, because you see it as aregion.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
But you can experience things.
You can take your wife out oryour family every weekend to a
different downtown, in adifferent area and have a
completely all good but acompletely different experience.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
I think that's really cool.
That's so cool about this area.
I think my wife can speak for alot of other wives.
She's like I don't know, I feellike a Bentonville tonight.
I feel like a downtownSpringdale, I feel a little more
funky.
Let's go to Fayetteville.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Let's see some college kids, I feel a little
more funky.
Let's go to.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Fayetteville.
Let's see some college kids.
It's a really.
I think we spoke on it beforeon this podcast.
It was like, you know, you havea Dallas, an Austin, a Houston.
It's like there's one main huband then it's like out and then
here it's like the main veininterstate, north and south, and
you've got like all thesedifferent hubs across the
totally different fields and Ithink it's great and I mean
really hats off to you and theleadership around you.
(51:30):
I know you probably won't takefull credit but there's been so
it's been really cool being alocal kid growing up here seeing
investors calling and like, hey, what about Springdale?
And me be like, yeah, I thinkthat's a great spot to look at,
so really hats off.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That's so great to hear and I always appreciate it
when people say boy.
I will tell you that it's stillmy perception that residents in
Springdale know less aboutdowntown Springdale than
residents around the rest ofnorthwest Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
We I'll.
I'll hear it very often whensomebody finally comes downtown
from another part of the anotherarea of the city and they'll
say wow, I didn't know this.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
What happened when?
Speaker 1 (52:17):
you been, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
And and uh.
So I I hear that all the timeand it's fun, but I love hearing
that because we, you know, it'skind of like being a.
I remember going to see.
I had an aunt most of my auntsand uncles lived in Fort Smith
and my grandparents and I'd seean aunt and uncle maybe that I'd
(52:41):
see, maybe just at Christmastime or you know, maybe once a
year, and she'd talk about myyou've grown.
You look so different and whenyou're in that situation where
you're not living it every day,it's kind of like watching your
kids grow up.
You don't notice all the changeall at once, like somebody who
(53:03):
doesn't see them every day, butyou're in the midst of it.
Yeah, you're right in themiddle of it, and so sometimes I
need to just step back and say,boy, look at that.
If I could go in my WaybackMachine to 2009 and look at
pictures from around Springdale,I would be shocked at how much
has changed.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, that's crazy.
I think what I'm seeing is youhave a real good heartbeat on
the community and what thepeople need, what they want a
real good future planning forthe community.
So again, hats off to you.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, speaking of that?
Speaker 4 (53:36):
where do you think you see Springdale in the next
five, ten years from now?
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Wellued growth.
You know we're planning for it.
We're we'll continue to have.
I may not be the mayor becausethis is my last term and I've
made that clear, but I know theleadership that could be in
place and I know that they'llcontinue and improve.
(54:05):
You know they'll continue andimprove.
They'll have new ideas too, butSpringdale will continue to
grow.
I see downtown continuing togrow.
I see the overlay districtaround the ballpark continuing
to.
It's really starting to takeoff.
You know it took some time.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
It took a lot of time .
Speaker 2 (54:23):
But I'm excited about that, especially around health
care.
Even with all that AliceWalton's doing in Bentonville
that's going to require, youknow, springdale's.
We've got a lot of great landout there and we're providing
the infrastructure to continueto watch that area grow.
I know of some plans out therethat are going to be just really
(54:44):
, really huge for Springdale butalso add value to the quality
of life in northwest Arkansasaround health care and around,
certainly, education.
Nwac someday will expand andhave those plans and so that
area is going to continue togrow too.
(55:06):
But there will be others.
We've got I talked at the Stateof the City address we'll have
another interchange someday.
We've got room for one more,you know they have.
Our DOT requires one-mileintervals, yeah, at a minimum,
between interchanges, andsomeday County Line Road is
going to have an interchangethere.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
And now we'll start the first phase of County Line
Road improvements, hopefullywith this bond issue Okay.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
So, it will be a multi-year.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
It will be like Gene George has done we build some
with each bond issue.
Speaker 4 (55:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
But we're going to start around Thompson this year
and maybe not this year but next, but with this bond issue, this
current bond issue, right.
And then I am confident thatonce you build phase one, phase
two will continue to the westand pretty soon we'll have
another east-west corridor fromThompson to Highway 112.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
That's amazing to.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Highway 112.
So with an interchange at I-49,I announced at the city council
meeting at the State of theCity that I would like to name
that for Mayor Van Hoose and I'msure they'll support that.
He did a lot of great things inhis 10 years as mayor, but the
things he'll probably be mostremembered for are this ballpark
(56:25):
, arvest Ballpark, but more thanthat, those three east-west
corridors, don Tyson Parkway,the improvements to Huntsville
and the improvements to WagonWheel.
And I think if we build anothereast-west corridor it would be
only right to name it Van Hoose.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
So County Line as it's improved will become.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
That's it, yeah, yeah , and, and so We've, we've got.
We've got a lot happening talkabout in the next 10 years.
And I talked about the overlaydistrict.
But as, as Don Tyson Parkway isextended to Highway 112, as 112
is, parkway is extended tohighway 112 as 112 is improved,
which is state project roundup,there'll be a roundabout at Don
(57:11):
Tyson Parkway and 112 yeah,there will be.
We are currently under design is64th Street.
We've improved it from fromhighway 412 to Watkins, but the
next phase will be from Watkinsto the extended Don Tyson
Parkway.
It will intersect with DonTyson Parkway, apple Road.
(57:35):
We've got an agreement with thedevelopers of Teslar, who's
building their building on AppleRoad, and we're going to help
them with full improvements onboth sides to Apple Road.
So we'll continue to build thatgrid out in the overlay
district.
We're real excited about theoverlay district that had
(57:56):
landowner buy-in.
The good part and I think thepart that made that easier was
we had landowners, some verylarge landowners.
Part that made that easier waswe had landowners, some very
large landowners, but thesmaller ones too, who saw the
value of creating an overlaydistrict with minimum standards.
that would ensure quality and sothat area is going to continue
(58:19):
to thrive.
But I hope downtown and I havefull confidence that downtown
will continue to develop in sucha way that we can be conscious
of cost of living down there.
I hope, of course the marketdictates this more than anything
(58:40):
, but I hope we can have adowntown where people that work
there can afford to live thereyeah and, and that takes that
takes a lot of it takes a lot ofsacrifice on on the part of a
lot of people, including thedevelopers, to to see the value
(59:02):
in, in maybe pocketing a littleless, and that's hard to ask
people to do.
And ultimately it will be tothem.
You know, if they're going tobuild what's allowed to be built
down there and if we driveproperty values up to thousands
of dollars a square foot, so beit.
But I hope we can avoid thatRight, and we want to encourage
(59:24):
avoiding that.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
You've gotten the ball rolling in the right
direction for sure.
And let me ask you a questionas we kind of wind down here.
What do you see, or can youspeak to?
What do you see the next phaseof your life looking like?
Next?
Speaker 2 (59:38):
phase of my life.
Yeah, next phase of your lifeafter being a mayor?
Speaker 1 (59:40):
are you just going to serve in the community?
Yes, I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
you know when I retire?
I will, I won't.
Our senior center has a mottoyou rest, you rust, and I don't
want to rust and I feel good, Ifeel good.
I live two miles from downtownand I walk it often, that's
great.
You know, depending on what mymeetings are, if I don't need a
vehicle or if I do need avehicle the next day for my
meetings.
Sometimes I'll walk home thatnight and leave my vehicle there
(01:00:07):
at.
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
City.
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Hall.
So I try and work it out.
I've got a bike.
I enjoy biking too, but Ialways prefer to walk if I can,
and so I'm going to stay busy.
I'll be the old guy that showsup downtown with walking his
German shepherd.
But you know I want to servesomewhere and I'd love to get
(01:00:29):
paid too for what I do.
So you know I'm not ready tohang it up yet, but I do think
you have a shelf life as a mayorand I don't want to overstay my
welcome.
And there are other things Ican do.
And I know we've got peoplewaiting in the wings that would
do a tremendous job inleadership, and you know they'll
(01:00:51):
have to get elected.
But I think we've got a greatfuture and I'm going to move
from coach to cheerleader.
Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
You know, and.
But I want to serve, I want tobe involved, I want to help any
way I can.
Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
And I'll probably you know honestly.
Sometimes I you know again Iran a small business that can be
hard on your body, right For 35years I ran it small business
that can be hard on your body.
For 35 years I ran it for 25.
Then I became mayor.
Then we were open for another10 years while my wife ran it.
She actually did a lot betterwith it than I did.
(01:01:35):
So, I've asked her never to runfor mayor.
But there's a part of me thatyou know driving a school bus
seems real attractive to me.
Yeah, and that's not a knock.
The part that scares me alittle bit is I think kids will
be involved, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Or mowing a park, you know just that kind of stuff
Getting out and serving, justgetting out.
Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
That really appeals to me, but I don't know what it
will hold exactly.
But I'll stay busy as long as Ifeel good.
I feel great right now and youknow we're talking about a few
years away, but anything canhappen.
But I want to stay busy andsupport whoever is leading the
community.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
And well, the community thanks you for your
time and your service inSpringdale and continue service.
So thank you so much.
This was a great episode, Oneof the more authentic episodes
we've had.
We really appreciate your time.
Thank you, Doug.
I appreciate you, Doug.
See you guys.
Thanks, guys.
If you enjoyed the show, makesure to give us a follow on your
favorite podcast platform soyou never miss an update.
Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Don't forget to connect with us on Instagram,
facebook and LinkedIn for morereal estate insights and behind
the scenes content.
Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Have a question you want us to cover, send it our
way, and if you're interested insponsoring the show, visit
nwainvestingcom to get in touch.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
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