LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - With holiday shopping traffic picking up by the old Sears location at University and I-630, developers of the forthcoming The District at Midtown say demolition is set to begin in December.
“There still some design work to be done that we are working on,” said Chris Anderson with Provident Realty Associates of Dallas. “We are close to finalizing the plans and we plan to submit them to the city.”
Those plans should take what is currently an external eyesore and create what Anderson, and plans filed with the city, call an “internal access retail development.”
The old Sears store sits idle today, as does what used to be a Sears tire center. Fences have gone up, but soon the old buildings will be coming down.
“Demolition is part of the plan that we will send to the city,” Anderson said. His company is working with Development Consultants Inc. of Little Rock and Fayetteville. Shop Companies of Dallas and Houston are also part of the proposal.
The city approved a zoning change back in July after a public meeting. The nearly 30-acre space will be divided into 15 lots, perfect for restaurants and shops, with plans for two four-story hotels.
Private roads will tie the lots together with access on University, but there will also be big changes with the Interstate 630 widening project already underway. Sketches now show an access road replacing the current on-ramp. That will make the process more complicated, but Anderson doesn’t expect that to slow down the project.
Back in the spring, the developers mentioned several potential restaurants that would be new to the area are prepared to be involved. If these plans remain in place, it likely rules out any kind of big box store moving in. Most Costco stores are more than 100,000 sq.ft. An Average IKEA is 300,000 sq.ft. No buildings in this project will be bigger than 7,800 sq.ft.