The Tech Park does it again. Tries to lowball a property owner with an offer below the value appraised for taxes after paying a fat amount above tax value for Stephens property downtown.
Little Rock Technology Park
Posted inMax Brantley
Look who’s talking about fairness
Arkansas Business reported recently that because of bankers’ objections, the Arkansas Federal Credit Union has not been allowed to participate in a lender consortium financing $17 million in initial property acquisition and development for the Little Rock Technology Park.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Banks propose collaboration to make Tech Park loan
A consortium of banks led by Centennial Bank has sent a letter of intent to the Little Rock Technology Park Authority to enter into “good faith negotiations” on a proposed loan of $17.5 million for the construction of Phase 1 of the tech park. Centennial would be the “Lead Lendor”; other participating banks include the Arkansas Federal Credit Union, Arvest Bank, Bear State Bank, First Security Bank, Simmons Bank and “other to be determined banks.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Tech park to seek loan to buy Stephens properties
Though the original idea was to get the Little Rock Technology Park off the ground without debt, the park authority today heard from board member Dickson Flake that it will need to get financing to buy the properties it wants on Main Street. The park expects to borrow some $30 million, putting up $6.8 million in equity from city sales receipts.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Board to hear tech park update today
Brent Birch, the director of the Little Rock Technology Park, will address the City Board of Directors soon after the meeting starts at 4 p.m. today. If you are interested in a summary of what the Tech Park Authority has been doing of late and the timeline for development of the park, you can watch at the link on the littlerock.org home page.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Tech companies want space now; park can’t oblige
The Little Rock Technology Park Authority board on Wednesday night heard from park Director Brent Birch that two large tech companies and several small ones are eager to move into space on Main Street that the park is negotiating to buy. However, the buiilding, the annex to the Exchange Building at the northeast corner of Fifth and Main, probably won’t be ready for occupation until the last quarter of 2015, Birch said.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Venture Center new Tech Park tenant
The Arkansas Venture Center will be the Little Rock Technology Park’s tenant in its temporary space in the Block 2 Building on Markham, where it will offer its pre-accelerator and incubation programs for early-stage businesses and its coding classes. Brent Birch, director of the park, said the arrangement will sustain the current momentum of interest in tech startups while the Tech Park works toward a permanent home and “show the tech park is happening.”
Posted inArkansas Blog
Downtown design district draws detractors
That bomb you heard going off around noon at the Lafayette Building at Louisiana and Sixth Street was dropped by the Little Rock Downtown Partnership, in the form of a proposed design overlay district for Main Street and its neighbors.
Posted inArkansas Blog
The coalescing of the tech park
The Little Rock Technology Park has slowly been evolving from a porridge of ideas in the minds of its Authority board to something in three dimensions. It has office space on Markham, currently leased by the Central Arkansas Challenge. It has a director, Brent Birch. Soon, Birch will be sending out a brochure outlining the goals of the park, the advantages of locating in downtown Little Rock, and images of what the park will look like when build-out is complete.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Park drawing interest of local companies, director says; also, a clarification
Brent Birch, the newly hired director of the Little Rock Technology Park, told the board this afternoon that he’d had a “volume of interest” by local companies interested in the park.