Dickson Street Re-Tux: Six-Story, $7 Million Building to Replace Mr. Tux

The building that houses Mr. Tux at 608 W. Dickson St. in Fayetteville may soon be the site of a six story, $7 million mixed-use development.

Rogers architect Collins Haynes and two silent partners bought the 3,142-SF building and quarter-acre property in February for $900,000 from Terry Gulley and Carol Swonger-Gulley.

Carol Swonger bought the tuxedo rental business and building in 1990. The property appraised in 2004 for $357,650.

The three developers, incorporated as Mr. Tux Holdings LLC, plan to raze the existing structure and construct a 65,143-SF building, which they are calling The Dickson for now. The new building’s 100-by-100-foot footprint will take up almost the entire quarter-acre lot, so two floors of parking will be provided under ground (about 25 feet deep).

(Click here and here for 3D illustrations of how the building might look.)

If approved by the Fayetteville Planning Department, construction could begin within a couple of months and be completed in a year, Haynes said.

No large-scale development plan has been submitted to the Planning Department because the lot at the corner of Dickson and Gregg streets is smaller than one acre. At 84 feet tall, the building falls within the city’s new height regulations and will be two stories shorter than the planned Lofts at Underwood Plaza across Dickson Street.

The Tux Holdings building will have retail on the first floor and condominiums on the other five floors.

Haynes said The Dickson will be made of “very traditional, historic materials,” and the first floor will resemble other buildings along the main street through Fayetteville’s entertainment district.

“We’re trying to match what we’ve found on Dickson Street as far as brick type and stone type,” he said.

About 40 percent of the building’s exterior will be tinted glass, facing primarily the east and south. Haynes added decks and recessed balconies to the design for the upper floors after the Planning Department expressed concerns that the glass facades looked too plain.

Haynes said the first floor has room for two retail businesses, each about 2,000 SF in size. David James Salon of Rogers has already committed to one of those spaces.

The second, third and fourth floors will each have 6,000 SF of condominium space, with 4,500 SF on the fifth floor and 3,600 SF on the sixth (the penthouse). The condos can be designed to suit tenants as far as space is concerned. They could range from 900 SF to 5,000 SF in size. The building could accommodate 20 bedrooms.

“The whole idea is this is a nice property,” Haynes said. “We’re not trying to be 80 condos and a hotel.”

As of June 26, Haynes said six people had expressed interest in buying one of the condo units.

“We think we’ll probably pre-sell everything,” he said. “We’ve had that kind of interest in it.”

Haynes & Associates Ltd. of Rogers is the architect for the new building. Meyers Engineering of Van Buren is the structural engineer. Morrison Shipley of Bentonville is the civil engineer, and EWI Inc. of Rogers is the general contractor.

Haynes said the building will be equipped with two Gen 2 elevators made by Otis. The Gen 2 elevators, which run on rails, are twice as fast as traction elevators, he said.

Towers of Dickson

If all the proposed buildings for the Dickson Street area are constructed, the Tux Holdings building would be the fourth largest building in the entertainment district.

Construction is well under way on The Barber Group’s seven-story Legacy building on Watson Street, one block north of Dickson Street.

On June 26, the Fayetteville Planning Commission rejected revised plans for The Barber Group’s proposed nine-story, 157-foot-tall Divinity Building at the corner of Dickson and Block streets. But Brandon Barber said he’ll appeal that decision before the Fayetteville City Council on July 6.

Height is more of an issue at that location because it’s at the top of a hill on the east end of the entertainment district. Opponents say a building of that size would dwarf all others on the street and simply look out of place in the surroundings.

Initially, The Barber Group proposed a 15-story, 225-foot-tall building at the site, then a 10-story building and now nine stories.

Developers Rob Merry-Ship and Richard Alexander have partnered with jewelers Bill and Craig Underwood (and three investors) to build the Lofts at Underwood Plaza, a $22.5-million, eight-story mixed-use development planned for the lot adjacent to Underwood’s Jewelers on the east side. It was approved by the Planning Commission before the City Council passed an ordinance on May 2 limiting the height of new buildings in the downtown area to six-stories or 84 feet, whichever is less. The ordinance was a reaction to The Barber Group’s Divinity proposal.

All of those buildings will be smaller than the $40 million, 18-story Renaissance Tower being constructed at the site of the former Mountain Inn on College Avenue between Mountain and Center streets. That building — which is being constructed by Rob Merry-Ship, Richard Alexander, John Nock and The Growth Group — was also approved before the height limit was imposed. It is three blocks south of Dickson Street in downtown Fayetteville, where the 15-story Radisson Hotel already juts into the skyline.

History of Tux

Haynes said the earliest deed he could find for the property at 608 W. Dickson St. dated to 1952.

Terry Gulley said the site was home to a gas station in the 1960s. A man named Hollingsworth started Mr. Tux in the early 1970s in the 500 block of Dickson Street, Gulley said. A few years later, the business was moved to the gas station building at 608 W. Dickson. That building was later expanded with an addition.

Brandy Gulley, the daughter of Terry and Carol, is the current owner of Mr. Tux. Terry Gulley said the business will move to a new, but as of yet undetermined, location when the developers are ready to begin construction at the Dickson Street site.

Haynes said environmental tests at the area didn’t detect any problems stemming from buried gasoline tanks.