Retail Academy program to boost business growth in six Arkansas towns

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — The Arkansas Economic Development Commission has selected six towns to participate in a new program that will provide training and assistance to rural communities to help them attract businesses.

“Attracting retail opportunities is a key element for keeping our local communities growing and vibrant,” said Clint O’Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. “The Retail Academy program will provide the resources and knowledge that local economic developers need to recruit retail companies to their communities.”

The participating communities include Crossett, Hope, Marion, Morrilton, Newport, and Stuttgart.

The Retail Academy program gives rural communities resources ranging from training to market research and technical assistance to help them recruit businesses and stimulate growth.

Each of the towns selected for the program are trying to attract residents who will invest and spend in their communities.

“In Newport’s case, we have a lot of people who drive into town to work here, and then they go home somewhere else. They live in a neighboring community,” said Jon Chadwell, executive director of the Newport Economic Development Commission.

“When we poll those people, they want housing, so we’re working on housing, and then they want more retail options…if you talk to most people in town, it’d be restaurants; they want some nice sit-down restaurants, somewhere where you can go have dinner with your family, clothing stores we get asked about a good bit, maybe another grocery store,” Chadwell told KATV.

And it’s a similar story in Hope, Arkansas.

“I think folks go to larger communities if it’s convenient for them; we struggle a little bit with that,” said Anna Powell, president of the Hempstead County Economic Development Corporation.

“We have two interstate exits here and we have many locally owned businesses, but we have never taken a position in the past to work towards recruiting specific chains or specific restaurants, and we do feel that we have a few gaps in that area,” Powell said.

Retail Strategies, the Alabama-based municipal consultancy firm that manages the Retail Academy program, is prepared to equip Newport, Hope, and other towns with the resources they need to overcome these obstacles.

“We do customized market research for each community; we look at key real estate that we believe is viable for either new development, highest and best use, or backfilling existing space. And we also qualified retailers and restaurants that should be in that community but are not,” Lacy Beasley, president of Retail Strategies, told KATV.

The Retail Academy program will give rural communities a year of support as they develop and execute plans for growth.

“The better, more vibrant retail that that rural community has, the more they’re going to attract the human infrastructure, the people to the community, that will help build their workforce and then attract those high-paying jobs,” Beasley said.

And it appears Retail Strategies’ retail strategies have already worked for Newport.

“We actually hired Retail Strategies ourselves several years ago to help us recruit and get a new hotel in town, and they did that,” Chadwell said, “we now have a new hotel that we looked for through their help, through their assistance. And so, we’re pretty excited to be working with them again. We know it works.”

The Retail Academy program launched Tuesday and will run through next September.