This year has so far brought with it several new enterprises in El Dorado and Union County, as well as upgrades and expansions for existing businesses and promises for increased economic activity.
Downtown
Rexayn Tribble, chairperson of the Downtown Business Association, said the DBA will continue to work at driving consumer traffic to downtown shops and restaurants. Today, businesses are getting promotion at Shamrockin’ On the Square, an event the DBA organized with Main Street El Dorado. The event will include a poker run, live music, family games and crawfish.
“We just have an event every month. Something — I don’t want to say small. Like March is Shamrockin’ on the Square … in May, we’ll be doing Cinco de Mayo. June, July (and) August, we’ll be piggybacking with Main Street for the Summer Concert series,” Tribble said. “We just try to do something every month along with our First Thursday.”
Main Street El Dorado has several projects in the works that are designed to drive traffic downtown. In January, Beth Brumley, MSE executive director, said an ambient music system the organization has considered adding to downtown had a bid at $35,000, which will include equipment and installation.
Additionally, MSE is working with the El Dorado Historic District Commission to bring a crosswalk art project to Main Street. Business owners downtown have spoken on the need for downtown art installations, and they have long been a staple of the square, from barrels painted with abstract faces to sculpted guitars on the corners of the courthouse.
The Murphy Arts District’s Phase II is stalled as fundraising continues. In February 2018, at the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Outlook Luncheon, MAD CEO Terry Stewart said the company was working to finish fundraising for Phase II; he said then that MAD had raised $70 million of the $100 million goal for Phase II.
Bob Tarren, chief marketing officer for MAD, said last month that MAD is still focused on raising the remaining $30 million of the $100 million goal, adding that he could not comment on how much of that had been raised. He said he could not comment on any aspects of Phase II or upcoming programming at MAD.
In November, a locally-based ownership group announced that they would be building a new hotel downtown called The Haywood, which may be a reference to Charles Haywood Murphy, founder of the Murphy Oil Corporation.
Earlier this year, the group added a wrap around the site of the hotel, near Washington Avenue and Locust Street, directly next-door to the MAD compound.
Tarren said that the wrap reveals the make up of the ownership group, which had previously not been named by officials. According to the wrap, the group is made up of Newmark Moses Tucker Partners, a real estate company based in Little Rock; AMR Architects Inc., an architecture firm based in Little Rock, some of whose previous work includes Mullins Library at the University of Arkansas and The River Market in Little Rock; Clark Contractors, a contracting firm based in Little Rock; and Beechwood Hospitality, a hospitality firm based in Little Rock.
The Haywood is expected to open by March 2020, with a final cost of over $14 million. The hospitality industry has expanded in El Dorado since MAD’s opening. Last year, the Candlewood Suites held the grand opening for their 77-room extended-stay hotel.
Earlier this month, the Fairfield Inn & Suites held a grand opening after officially opening for business in January. The hotel boasts 75 rooms with amenities such as streaming capabilities in each room, complimentary Wi-Fi and valet laundry service.
MAD officials expect these hotels to benefit the arts district.
“The Haywood is critical to the overall success of the (Murphy Arts) District. The collective MAD experience is what matters and the Haywood will be an important part of that,” said former MAD President Austin Barrow in a previous News-Times report.
Medical marijuana
Over two years after the passage of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission released a list of the state’s first licensed dispensaries in early February. On their list was one dispensary for El Dorado; at the time of the commission’s announcement, the dispensary was going to be called Noah’s Ark and would be located at 3955 Mt. Holly Road.
Later that month, representatives from Verano Holdings, the company that will own the dispensary, visited the El Dorado City Council to talk about their plans for the facility.
Wes McGowan, Verano’s Vice President of Real Estate, said the company had changed plans for the dispensary’s location, now considering a piece of property located at 2511 Calion Road.
Residents that live near that area have since expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s plans. At a town hall meeting earlier this month, most Ward 1 residents who attended were there to complain about and look for ways to change the dispensary’s plans again.
“I’m upset about it. I don’t think it needs to be there,” said Mike Rice, Ward 1 council member, at the town hall meeting. “There are some things we are looking at to try to help. Hopefully, they find a better location.”
The Denver Post reported this time last year that a taxed and regulated cannabis industry had a net positive impact of $35 million to the local economy of Pueblo County, Colorado, in 2016. A study by the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research predicts that the state’s annual medical marijuana sales will surpass $1.6 billion by 2020.
It is unclear now what challenges Verano Holdings will face as it tries to open up shop on Calion Road. Residents and city officials at the town hall meeting suggested re-zoning the area so only residential properties would be allowed and encouraging the company to find a new location in a commercial area.
Residents expressed discomfort with having a cash-only business that sells what was previously, and in some cases still is, an illicit substance. McGowan said during his visit that the dispensary would have very tight security, including 24-hour video surveillance, a security guard on scene at all times and strict restrictions on how many customers can be on the dispensary sales floor at a time.
“[The Calion Road location] is the best option we have here,” McGowan said at the meeting. “People are always surprised at how formal everything is. … it’s a very uniform brand, and as a high-end lifestyle brand, we want it to be an inviting, welcoming experience that doesn’t feel like you’re doing something illegal when you go in there.”
Industry
Roseburg Forest Products completed their purchase of PotlatchDeltic subsidiary Del-Tin Fiber LLC earlier this year. The purchase included a medium density fiberboard plant, which makes the third point in an operational triangle for the company; they purchased two other MDF plants, in Oregon and Canada, last year.
Rebecca Taylor, Roseburg corporate communications director, said the company plans to invest in the facility as well as the community.
“We will be investing several million dollars in upgrades to the facility and its equipment to ensure efficiency and consistent product quality. We want the El Dorado MDF employees to have the tools they need to make the best product possible,” she said.
Standard Lithium Ltd.’s lithium extraction pilot plant is set to open at LANXESS’ South Plant. El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce CEO and President Mike Dumas said the plant is set for an opening at the end of the third quarter and that 12 to 15 jobs could be available there.
“To move to the next level, to a permanent facility, you’re talking about tripling that at each facility,” he said. “And we’re talking about all three plants, as they expand … it could be a real kick in the seat of the pants to the community. Could be some good jobs.”
Dumas noted that the pilot plant will be testing an experimental process for extracting lithium. He said Standard Lithium engineers have designed a computer model that mapped out the process of extracting lithium from the brine produced at LANXESS; according to a previous News-Times report, the company tested the process at a prototype pilot plant before heading to El Dorado.
If the process is a success, the company may open a full-sized plant here, Dumas said. With LANXESS having three sites in El Dorado that produce the brine the lithium is extracted from, there could possibly be even more than one full-size plant.
Dumas said the chamber has communicated with two manufacturing corporations in recent months about prospective locations in Union County. He said the chamber is currently working with the El Dorado Development Corporation and the Union County Industrial Board to prepare for prospects from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
As part of the AEDC’s Competitive Communities Initiative, the department has directed communities in the state to take steps to make themselves more competitive against other states for economic investment. According to a press release, the program uses best practices in the field of economic development to create its standards.
“[It’s about] the local community and the Chamber working with our economic development partners and El Dorado Works, all of us working together in order to be prepared when those prospects come to town,” Dumas said. “The Arkansas Economic Development Commission and Entergy is working with us to have us local communities have “shovel-ready” sites. … We’re working, developing our site out at the Champagnolle business park, which is out there on the other side of the County Shop on Champagnolle Road. We’re developing a 50-acre site out there that will hopefully be certified by the state, and that’s what we’ve got to have.”
Going forward
Murphy USA CEO Andrew Clyde spoke at the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce’s first Economic Outlook Luncheon of 2019 in February. He talked about the results of a survey he took of local business owners’ outlooks on the economy in Union County.
He said 29 percent of companies with between 11 and 50 employees expected the economic outlook of Union County to improve in 2019, while most other companies of that size as well as most of the survey-respondents in smaller and larger companies expected economic conditions to stay the same.
“It’s more upbeat than downbeat,” Clyde said at the Luncheon. “Generally, what I would say from your feedback … is we’ve got a strong economy here. … And as we get more diversified, that’s a good thing as well.”
Moving forward, Dumas had several suggestions for how the El Dorado and Union County communities can continue to grow.
Since last year, the Chamber has partnered with local industry and public school systems to expose high schoolers to the career opportunities available locally. They held their second Manufacturing Day this week, with every ninth-grader at El Dorado High School attending a career fair at South Arkansas Community College, where industry professionals held workshops and demonstrations about their various jobs, highlighting SouthArk’s programs of study like Process Technology, Industrial Technology Mechatronics and Welding.
“We found that youngsters are not aware of that, they don’t know it’s out there,” Dumas said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do with industry and the educators.”
Dumas said he thinks it is important that workforce development continue to be emphasized to students and others in the community. He said with a trained workforce, more industry may consider the area more seriously when looking for locations for industrial sites.
Dumas also noted that he thinks El Dorado could use more affordable, modern housing. He said the cost of living in El Dorado can be higher than other cities with larger areas and more amenities and that it discourages potential transplants from moving here.
“The things that I hear the most is that real estate is more expensive here than it is elsewere and we do not have the housing,” Dumas said. “Our real estate, our housing, we must address that issue. … We can talk about prospects and jobs all day long, but if we don’t have the workforce, we don’t have the housing, we can’t meet the needs and they’re going to go elsewhere.”
He concluded that El Dorado and Union County is on the rise economically, though he stressed that those who wish to see it continue to grow should not get complacent.
“We’re being forced to move forward, and we’ll continue to do that and we’ll pull everything together,” he said. “As long as we recognize our problems and address those problems, we’ll solve those problem,” he said.
Caitlan Butler can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].