Businesses Brace for Dickson Revamp

The money is finally in place, and demolition has begun for the renovation of Dickson Street’s sidewalks.

The $3 million project includes a total of 6,200 linear feet of sidewalks along both sides of Dickson Street from College Avenue to Arkansas Avenue.

A strip of red brick, about 18 inches wide, will be placed in the sidewalk next to the curb to help define the area as Fayetteville’s entertainment district. The project also includes landscaping, new street lights (like those around the Walton Arts Center), benches, kiosks and trash cans. The parking meters along Dickson will be removed for aesthetic reasons, and the spaces there will have a two-hour parking limit.

At the corner of Arkansas Avenue and Dickson Street, on the edge of the University of Arkansas campus, a red brick Razorback inlay will be embedded in the intersection, courtesy of a $30,000 donation from the Razorback Foundation, a private organization that supports athletics at the UA.

Keith Franklin of Land Plan Consultants in Tulsa is the architect for the Dickson Street project, although his initial design has been altered a little to cut costs. Gone are proposed brick “doormats” in front of businesses and a mortar-and-pestle brick inlay in front of Collier Drug Store.

Township Builders of Fayetteville is the contractor. Atkins Benham Inc. of Lowell did the design engineering.

Hog-Sized Effort

The work began in early June in front of George’s Majestic Lounge to improve drainage underneath before the new sidewalks are built.

Construction is expected to be completed by April. The next phase, if money is available, would likely replace the sidewalks on Block Street from Dickson to the downtown Fayetteville square and from there west on Mountain Street to the proposed site of the new Fayetteville Public Library at the corner of Mountain and School streets.

“I’ve been working on this for seven years,” said Bootsie Ackerman, executive director of Fayetteville’s Downtown-Dickson Enhancement District and a candidate for state senate from District 7. “Suffice it to say, they haven’t proceeded on it as fast as I would have wanted them to, but it has been well worth the wait.

“From the get-go, it was a matter of funding.”

The breakdown of funding includes a $1.5 million federal grant, a 20 percent match from the city (or $300,000) and the rest (about $1.2 million) from the Dickson Street Improvement District.

“It will greatly enhance the historic buildings on the street,” Ackerman said.

Keeping Business Going

Six parking spaces in the 500 block of Dickson are in a no-parking zone while construction is under way in front of George’s.

Ackerman said the contract with Township Builders says all businesses on Dickson Street must remain accessible during the construction period.

Fayetteville’s Advertising and Promotions Commission has appropriated $21,500 to help promote businesses along Dickson during the construction period. The money will pay for radio advertising and perhaps billboards and a “hard-hat party,” Ackerman said.

Daryl Rantis, a Fayetteville architect, said Main Street beautification projects haven’t proven to be a panacea for businesses.

“In most cases, pedestrian malls were a disaster,” Rantis said, “but they’ve worked in a few places … [The sidewalk renovation] can’t hurt. Is it a silver bullet? I just don’t think you can make a claim that beautifying the street is as valuable a use of that money as organizing the street.”

Organizing the street would require some businesses to move from one location to another on Dickson to take better advantage of retail and restaurant spaces.

Bruce Walker, who has owned The Flying Possum leather shop at 524 and 526 W. Dickson St. for the past 27 years, thinks the renovation will pay off in the long run.

“At this point, all the work they’re doing is demolition,” he said. “It’s pretty ratty looking now, but you have to go through that to get to the good stuff. It just takes a little while.”

Walker said he believes the demolition will attract business at first because people will be curious to see what’s going on. Then, he suspects, business might taper off a little because of the inconvenience, but it will pick up later when the project is completed.