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Main Street, Downtown Little Rock.


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The west side of the 400 block of Main will start coming down in about 3 weeks. Three buildings on the east side of the same block will soon follow, including the Center Theater.

What is planned for the east side? I thought the demo and building was only planned for the west side of Main.

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Just read on the Arkansas Times blog that, according to someone posting, Stephens has claimed that the Kempner facade will be saved. I don't think that any of the other facades on the west side of Main are salvagable but only the next few weeks will tell. I hope someone is able to take pictures during the demolition and post them here.

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Just read on the Arkansas Times blog that, according to someone posting, Stephens has claimed that the Kempner facade will be saved. I don't think that any of the other facades on the west side of Main are salvagable but only the next few weeks will tell. I hope someone is able to take pictures during the demolition and post them here.

I 2nd and encourage the photogs to document and post photos of the demolition.

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The old facade on the building at the corner of Main and Capital is now exposed. They have torn down the material that was covering it. I didn't get that good of a look at it to see what kind of shape it was in because I was driving.

There is some machinery on site now.

Edited by ndark
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Linda Caillouet's Paper Trails column in the Demozette today shares a couple of memories of Kempner's dating to the 1940s. At one point she reports ...

Former employee Ruth Andrews Keopple of Little Rock, now 81, worked on the store's first floor in the shoe department from 1943 to 1946 as a high school student. Back then, she lived in her family's home at Sixth and State and worked in the store after school and weekends. "The whole first floor was the shoe department, and there were ladies' dresses and suits on the second floor. But that wasn't Kempner's; they leased that area out to another business.

I'm not an LR native and that last bit confused me. I thought that part of the business was also owned by the family and was called Ike Kempner and Bros. Women's Clothing.

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I am a little worried about how this development will take shape. Usually with a high profile project such as this, at least a preliminary rendering or some clue about what the building will look like as well as its mixture of uses will be released well in advance of any demolition on the proposed site.

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I could be wrong... But I worry about another lifeless building like the one constructed a few years back in the 700 block of Main Street -- all offices, no mixed-use and NOTHING at street-level. If you're going to buy up as much of downtown as Stephens has... I think there is some sort of obligation to do right by the community in addition to lining your pockets with money.

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I could be wrong... But I worry about another lifeless building like the one constructed a few years back in the 700 block of Main Street -- all offices, no mixed-use and NOTHING at street-level. If you're going to buy up as much of downtown as Stephens has... I think there is some sort of obligation to do right by the community in addition to lining your pockets with money.

I agree about the building you are talking about. That along with the skywalks that connect the buildings and the parking deck(another mistake) and none of these workers even have to be on the sidewalks. UALR did a study some years ago on how to develop Main Street but it has been ignored.

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KATV 7 reported tonight that Main St. is shut down due to the demolition by Stephens on the east side of the street. They said a new office building and a parking deck would be constructed. They did not say the parking deck would be part of the office building. Will this end up being the third parking deck located on Main?

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