johnnydr87

Yeah, I guess I wasn't familiar with the issue. Does seem odd that they would worry about crime increases considering they're elevated.

No worries. Rebsamen road, you mean where literally my favorite destination in Little Rock, the Big Dam Bridge, sits? You may have been right, but I'd like to think that the area took a much better turn with more trails and the longest pedestrian bridge in the world. Where else can you get such gorgeous views of a river and small mountains in the background, all while being in city limits? Certainly not anywhere else in middle america. My family took our out-of-country visitors (my parents are immigrants, after all) to the bridge. So I'm looking at Google Maps to see where this Rebsamen road extension would go--and I have to say, it seems like an awful idea on paper. The riverside area past Big Dam Bridge is very narrow--its width goes from the river until you hit the steep hillsides. And that narrow strip of level park is where the pedestrian trail goes. I'm not sure how extending Rebsamen would be possible without wrecking that awesome trail. Here's a street view of what I mean: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=34....,117.07,,0,2.18 Past that yellow pike is the old road which is used by bikes and pedestrians. The trail is literally one of the best things going for Little Rock. It's a must see if you live in LR. I've built up a love affair with it---it's really gorgeous and so surprising that it's in a major city metro.

Let me just state upfront: I have no realistic expectations of this happening, ever. I was just mulling it over. No, 100' wouldn't make it a world class park, but developing it would. Right now the riverfront park towards the western edge is really just enough space for a walkway with some buffer. It's nicer at the east end with the river market, but it tapers off and dies pretty quickly once you start heading west. Unfortunately, parks don't work quantity-demand scale. You can't simply turn things into parks--as this discussion shows. Great parks are built by foresight--land set away from development--or luck of circumstances. When enough people move in to start "demanding" a park, chances are the property values have risen and the area's too developed for a large park. Per your suggestion to "go to a larger city and observe how that works": It just happens that I live in a pretty large city (St. Louis), and I live by one of the greatest urban parks in the nation, right up there with Central Park in NYC: Forest Park. It's 2 square miles and right in the middle of the city--it hosts museums, a zoo, and lots of other public recreational activities. It borders a major university, which I attend. Obviously, St. Louis is tons bigger than LR, so we can't compare them straight up. But there are some key differences. First, your point that major urban thoroughfares interact with "great parks" is obviously true--but it's not true for the way Cantrell interacts with the Riverfront Park. Cantrell is a chute, interstate-like highway that constitutes about as much land as the park itself. There are no broad boulevards lined with trees and the park is pretty much sealed away. The park as it stands is a walkway with some lawn on either side. And while we're on the topic, Little Rock seems to be pretty lacking in a broad-sized park, although it has some pretty awesome river front around the big dam bridge. MacArthur Park is the closest I can think of, and War Memorial. MacArthur Park is undersized, underdeveloped, and suffocated by the Interstate. War Memorial is mostly concrete and unimaginative. Was Rebsamen always a golf course? Was it purchased by the city? It seems strange that the largest portion of prime park lands along a river would be devoted to an esoteric sport enjoyed mostly by people in the upper incomes. Murray Park, on the other hand, is size of three holes on Rebsamen. Anyways, my (other) point is that Little Rock lacks great boulevard-style park, and it's too bad that there was not enough foresight to develop one. And there's basically no chance that a great one will be injected into the urban fabric--unless a billionaire pops in and decides to buy property/convert it to a park. As many of you whizzes here would keenly observe, "That is highly unlikely!!" (That said, it would be amazing if said billionaire bought up some land east of I-30, connected to Heifer/Clinton Center, and built a heretofore fictitious park with museums and such. Highly unlikely, however.) Another Q to jog the ole' melon: how unlikely is it to remove the interstate ramp that splices the downtown Little Rock area, from 1 unlikely to 5 unlikelies, where 5 unlikelies is exactly 5x as many unlikelies as 1 unlikely. I don't like it, personally.

I agree with Skirby--I sort of wish the La Harpe area was added to the park as well. That's prime real estate and it's a shame that the western downtown of LR is laid out so that the river is basically off limits beyond the Peabody. I think building a world-class park would be good reason to explore alternatives to Cantrell. Just imagine that ugly concrete turned into world-class greenspace with excellent landscaping--an extension of the incredible work at the children's park they already built. Is there an alternative to the Cantrell thoroughfare? I don't know, but it's worth exploring.

C'mon, bchris. Don't project.

I figured when I saw the building frames...... I'd say they're decent, but they are way out of context in downtown NLR. Too suburban of a look.

I wonder how these projects will age. They don't look the same quality as similar types of development in Fayetteville. Granted, I'm looking at pictures prior to completion.

That is SO rad.

Those are bike racks? They look neat, but it looks like at max they fit two bikes each, one on either side, which would be pretty impractical. Plus, it looks like the bodies of the bikes would extend out into the sidewalk and possibly obstruct it.

I don't know....maybe I need to see the final product, but that design looks like it will go out of style fast.

Courtesy of Hanke Bros, Siding and Windows, Inc. "Buy Siding and Get Windows FREE" Deal. This bodes well for the stereotype of Arkansans as cultureless, unsophisticated boars: a ramshackle "nature center" on the most prime real estate in the state. I must say though, the windows do add a nice touch to the classy siding. (But what's with the gap in windows--did they run out of money two fifths along the length of the back?)

That looks sharp... I like it..

Yeah, I'm very underwhelmed. And that walkway is an eyesore. ew.

Wow, that is impressive. For some reason, I always conceptualized Des Moines as being a step above Little Rock as far as quality of life...

Was that my cue? Where did this E-STEM school come from? It seems like it came out of nowhere--and I thought I read AR news decently regularly. Anyways, I don't think it will make too much of an impact in the race for students (with respect to ASMSA). Probably only a handful of ASMSA students come from Little Rock anyways because most can still go to excellent schools like Central, PA, or whatever. This new school only solidifies that fact. Most ASMSA students come from podunk towns. I'm interested in knowing what classes the "Engineering" component of the name signifies. I'd say ASMSA covers the other three (Science, Technology, Math) pretty well, in addition to the humanities. If anyone's interested, here is the course listing at ASMSA: http://asmsa.org/Academics/CourseCatalog.pdf . In its first few years, I doubt E-STEM will be able to recreate the breadth and depth of ASMSA, but that's fine b/c it serves a smaller population (LR Metro), not the whole state. Comparing my WashU course listing to the one at ASMSA: those kids are lucky as hell. Documentary Film Making? Studies in Genocide and Human Rights? Literature of the Contemporary South? That's just the humanities.... I'm a homer, I know.

Ugh. Motor coach? Like RV?? I'm not too keen on that idea in an area like downtown Little Rock. I suppose that area East of I-30 is underutilized...but still, it's proximity to the epicenter of Little Rock means it should be aiming for something grander. Motor Coach and Entertainment Park. What the hell does that mean? I was under the impression that a Motor Coach park amounts to a parking lot for RVs. Would it have been too obvious that it's a parking lot for RVs if they hadn't added "entertainment" to the name?

I'm not overly impressed... I guess once the gaps between the stores fill in with more stores, main street will be a pretty lively place. I don't really get a sense of density or pedestrian traffic. The sidewalks are too narrow too, but that's a problem in downtown Little Rock as well. One step at a time...

Nice pics. I'm excited about the Butler Center as well. Did they REALLY need to give the nature center that long ass walkway just so that it has storefront property? It just seems like a lot of wasted space, but I guess they were worried about getting enough visitors without the streetfront property. Hopefully they'll do something with all the dead space from the beginning of the walkway to the nature center--plaques, murals, something.

Awsome! Little Rock "international" Airport.

Well I definitely disagree about the downtowns. Look at Main Street. Bennett's military supply is the busiest store. Much of the other storefront property is vacant. Huge parking lots/ parking decks break up main street (I use main street as an example b/c it's where the next major revitalization of downtown LR is supposed to begin, the first being Clinton Ave.) Some of main street are offices, which have little pedestrian value for people other than employees, whereas downtown Hot Springs is geared more towards visitors, with chocolate shops, coffee shops, restaurants, eclectic stores, etc. Downtown hot springs gets more pedestrian traffic than anywhere in downtown little rock, other than the river market. Main street is one of the better streets in downtown Little Rock. ASMSA does have research labs, although I agree that if we were on the UAMS or UALR campus, we'd have better research labs. If the new school were put downtown, it would be far from UALR or UAMS, meaning using those facilities would require transport, which is another hassle. If the school were put on UALR, students wouldn't be able to go downtown or to parks as easily. Downtown Hot Springs is really what makes ASMSA unique compared to even other math and science schools, with its National Park and other unique amenities. Like I said, going downtown after school was a daily affair for many kids. After classes, head downtown. After classes, head to Linden Park soccer field/tennis court/basketball court--just a good 10-20 min. walk away. After classes, head to the multiude of parks around. This google map shows a little about what I'm talking about: I'm not sure what you mean about the commute from central AR to Hot Springs being too much. It's 45 min-1hr from Hot Springs to Little Rock. All students stay in dorms, no commuting daily allowed. So, like every other student, they just need to commute to school at most once every weekend (and many students don't go home for multiple weeks). Students come from all four corners of the state, some traveling around 4 hours or more.

I don't like the idea of a second campus either. I'm not sure how it would work, but if students were given the choice of either campus, most would choose Little Rock (including me). The status of the Hot Springs school would decline.... If it were limited to a certain region, more schools of the same type should be planned for other regions... Little Rock already has a sleu of good schools--if ASMSA can't get those kids, that's fine. ASMSA caters mainly to sharpminds from the backwaters of the state--kids who don't have access to calculus, let alone vector calculus or quantum mechanics. We do have brilliant minds from LR too, but not in the proper ratio to LR's population of whiz kids. I really like the Hot Springs location. It spreads the state's academia away from one centralized location, and almost seems to add a level of sophistication to Hot Springs' downtown by being there. The geographic and cultural location is like noneother. My dorm on othe eastern side of the building had a view down Central ave. It really was an awe-inspiring sight: the canyon of mid-rise/high-rise buildings embraced the boulevard, and the mountains (err, very large hills) embraced the buildings. On the western end of campus, in the academic building, a pristine view of the often cloudy/foggy mountain valley unrolled through the windows. Students could then take an elevator ride down, and walk through a bustling, eclectic downtown promenade, with hikin trails not more than a few hundred yards away in the valley and whittington park. Charter field, our multipurpose sports/recreation field, was on the side of a cliff above the school, and when we played soccer around 9pm at night, it was awsome to see the car lights thread through the mountainside roads and just to play on this plateau of a field. If charter field is too small, there's Linden park just a block down, with a large soccer field/basketball courts/tennis courts. Where in LR would you have this suitable of a location? Only downtown Little Rock, but it would not come near the natural beauty of downtown hot springs. In addition, it's downtown is rather mature-minded and much more limited/vacant/spread out than downtown Hot Springs'. There are no good parks in downtown Little Rock, comparable to Hot Springs' parks. I love downtown Little Rock, but it just wouldn't be suitable for a high school like this. 70% of downtown is still run-down/empty. I get greeted by panhandlers sometimes when I visit. Rivermarket district is where it's all at, everything, and river market district is smaller than downtown hot springs. Macarthur park (the only nearby one) is fairly dilapidated, there are way too many shady places downtown that it would be hard to keep track of students (In hot springs there is only one street of downtown, through the valley). I think it would be much harder to attract the parents of kids who live in the backwaters if they knew their kid would be able to wander a place like downtown LR. The alternative would be some suburban type place, and that would just be like solitary confinement for students without cars (90%). It would be a cultureless, mass produced location like any other in the USA, and that would be a detriment (compared to the HS location) the the student's learning. I say spend the investment on expanding the existing school. It's in a valley, so it'll be hard to expand. Start by remodeling that old building (former St. Joseph's hospital). It reeks of old, and it's aged hallways really do get a bit depressing after a while. I'm certain the turnover rate would be much lower if the appearance was more inviting. Update it, make it more inspiring than a place where people used to go to die. Expand charter field. Expand the academic departments. Expand the arts department. Enlarge the student body size. Etc.

Very cool. I just typed in the address into google maps, and it looks like it's a block down from my Alma Mater, ASMSA. I doubt that....but for some reason google maps converts Office Park Drive into Park Ave.

Oh, Walmart. New York LaGuardia? I am jealous.

Great to hear. I remember touring the Cyber College back in high school, and I was quite impressed. As was mentioned before, all the computer gurus at my high school seemed to go to UALR (the ones that beat out Arkansas colleges in programming competitions). The Coleman Creek project sounds promising too.