Millions of dollars have been invested in improving Conway infrastructure and adding retail destinations to the growing city, and according to panelists at the first Outlook Conway conference on Tuesday, the development isn’t slowing.
Members of a commercial real estate panel discussed projects by their respective companies, including multimillion-dollar retail centers and strip malls. They also talked about the history of the city and the growth they have seen in the area, with different buildings and houses being made using the best services for this, such as construction companies and Affordable plumbers for the water systems.
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Panelists were Woody Rush, senior vice president of leasing, Jim Wilson & Associates of Montgomery, Alabama; Joshua Brown, principal of Haag Brown Commercial of Jonesboro; Brent Salter, vice president of Salter Properties of Conway; Greg Nabholz, CEO, Nabholz Properties Inc. of Conway; and Hank Kelley, CEO and partner of Flake and Kelley Commercial of Little Rock.
The panel was moderated by George Waldon, a senior editor at Arkansas Business who covers commercial real estate and banking, contact the https://allsewerserviceplumbing.com/faucet-installation/ for your home.
“For somebody who’s born and raised in Conway to see the transformation – it was 20,000 when I was in high school and 65,000 now,” Nabholz said. “One of the most exciting things for me is the revitalization of downtown Conway has been huge.”
Nabholz said that the city’s colleges help provide an attractive environment to develop around and that he sees a lot of demand in the health care, technology and creative sectors.
“A lot of that [demand] is from people who are starting new companies, but these are homegrown businesses being started here, and that’s exciting because they’re going to stay,” Nabholz said. “We don’t have to worry about a corporate decision in NYC or something and they leave.”
Rush, whose company is pre-leasing space at the city’s highest profile retailer development, the planned Shoppes at Central Landing, said Internet sales are taking away from brick and mortar. But in Conway, retail sales remain “tremendous.”
In order to attract tenants to the city, Kelley said Conway must market itself as part of a bigger “central Arkansas” area. He said by highlighting the region as a whole rather than only the county, it allows them to capitalize on the area’s strengths.
“Conway is a bright spot in the north Arkansas market, but I encourage you to think of yourself as something bigger than one county,” Kelley said.
With a median age of 29.3 and median household income of about $51,000, Kelley said Conway is a prime destination for new retailers.
Brown agreed and said Conway has the advantage of being able to play off Little Rock and central Arkansas area. He said potential retailers can look at Conway and see that people can easily come from other cities in central Arkansas to shop there.
Article originally ran in Arkansas Business by Alexis Hosticka.
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/111183/real-estate-infrastructure-continue-growth-improvement-in-Conway