Conway, Arkansas; Waves of Change.

[photoLith]

So my last thread got quite a bit of attention and I wanted to show you guys that no I do not think all of Arkansas is a shithole. I drove to Conway today which is about 35 miles east of Russellville. I drove through the towns of Atkins and then Morrillton before getting to Conway although and these towns are very depressed economy wise. Conway however, is a town of around 55,000 and its growing a lot. Its a very progressive town and has three universities located there. It is very different from most other Arkansas towns in that its semi liberal and has many people form all around the country living there; since Southwestern Energy is HQ there.

But Ill take you guys on a tour from Russellville to Conway.

First up is Atkins, AR. Pretty much nothing left in this town industry wise so its fairly screwed. It has around 5000 people living there now. Its a very well preserved town historically speaking though, so I like it.


















On the way to Morrilton you see lots of this stuff on the sides of the roads.



Morrilton Arkansas, a town that is very much screwed also. It had a big I believe tire plant shut down ten years ago or so and with it most of the towns jobs were lost. It used to have a population around 12,000, now it only has 6000 some odd residents.






Downtown Morrilton






Half a city block burnt down recently in Morrilton and with it went 5 historic buildings that will be replaced with a parking lot. All that was left of the buildings were piles of brick and a bank vault.






On to Conway


The Village at Hindrix is a new urbanist development in Conway that is incredibly well done, probably one of the best Ive ever seen. Its still in its very early stages of completion but when finished will contain the new headquarters for Southwestern Energy and include around 270 some odd custom made homes and brownstone style apartments. It is incredible to say the least. The following photos are form this new development.






The future headquarters for Southwestern






Still more photos of the village at Hindrix College




Hindrix College in Conway, ranked one of the nations best liberal arts colleges. It has an incredibly beautiful campus and most of the buildings were built post 2000 and they are done in an historic style. Very cool place that I drive to often to just chill and talk to all of the foreign students.




More stuff form Hindrix College






Downtown Conway, one of the few cities in Arkansas whose main street is doing quite well and a lot of effort has been put in by the city to preserve its historic core.



















Getting back out towards Morrilton you get into this kinda stuff again.






Driving back through Morrilton I found this amazing art deco hospital that appears to be in incredible condition compared to the rest of the town, it was quite the impressive structure.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Like you said, really hard to tell what buildings at Hindrix College were built post-2000

[KevinFromTexas]

Nice tour. Great shots.

[Nightsky]

Nice pictures, with a good photographer grit always look good on pictures!

[hellachans]

The art deco hospital reminds me of Pacific Medical Center (PacMed) on Beacon Hill in Seattle (Also home to Amazon's World HQ).

It's interesting to see the differences that exist between towns and the difference that small colleges can make. I've heard a lot about Hendrix College's efforts to revitalize Conway as an example of good strategies for liberal arts colleges in the midwest and south to attract more urban students. Hopefully the town-gown relations will remain close and lead to more revitalization, both historic and new construction. It seems to me that, although there are many liberal arts colleges in small towns across the country, very few of them manage to maintain good relations with the townies. In my experience it is a mixture of townies resenting the presence of a thousand or so upper middle class college students and the college students looking down on the rural, somewhat hickish townies.

[photoLith]

Heres the plans for The Village at Hindrix, its a huge project and will be very dense once completed.



The plans for Southwesterns headquarters.

[Chicago Shawn]

Thanks for the photos. The village at Hendrix looks really well done. I don't know why people feel compelled to always do a historicist design aesthetic; but they seem to have pulled it off. The material choices, scale and proportions look good, and the density looks to be pretty high for typical greenfield development.

[Thundertubs]

Cool tour. It's neat to see real small-town AR, and Conway looks alright.

[Alemaria]

I like your style. Please continue to do more tours.

[Shantytown Architect]

I dig it. I've been to Conway a couple of times and took a tour of Hendrix's campus when I was senior in high school. It's no Fayetteville but even Fayetteville isn't Fayetteville these days.

[BG918]

I've driven through Conway many times but never stopped, thanks for the tour. You should do a photo thread of the mountain areas north and south of I-40 between Russellville and Conway. There are some really scenic spots especially along SH 7 and the tallest waterfall between the Rockies and Appalachians off SH 43 near Ponca.

[ue]

Looks like a nice town. Good to hear some revitalization, it has the potential to be a cool little town. That was a cute dog.

Still a lot of pick-ups though . Although more moderate.

[OhioGuy]

Nice to see some Conway on here - the home of cutie American Idol winner Kris Allen.

[Chelsea Spy]

keep showing us arkansas - these pics are great, although all the shacks are shocking - and does everyone have a pick up truck?

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. This was an interesting mix of nice new stuff, nice old stuff, and ugly stuff.

Regarding my comment in your other thread, to which you responded but then it all got buried, all photothreads are biased toewards what you want to show. My comment was a statement that the bias of looking for the worst was strong, yet at the same time just because you had a bias in your pictures does not mean that the places don't exist. But think about how bad a place is when instead of looking to show the worst, you look to show the best, and it still looks like a bad place. Actually, by mixing the good in with the bad, this really shows some contrast and gets you to notice the run-down trailer homes in a different way.

[pobjeda]

Good to see more Arkansas. I went to Hendrix 2002-2006 and the college was just starting to develop some of these plans- they even got DPZ to host a charrette in Conway. I was always surprised that they wanted to develop on the other side of Harkrider, rather than on the lots to the south towards downtown, because it's close to the interstate and the Walmart schlock. I used to go jogging in the woods over there and walk by on late-night Waffle House treks.

Looks like the college and Conway have changed a lot since I went there. I liked Arkansas and still do, though I don't think I'm eager to live there again. Little Rock is a great little city. The poverty, trash, etc. weren't any surprise, having grown up in Oklahoma. I was shocked the first time I saw how nice little towns in Iowa could be.

Do they have bus service to LR yet? Did they get the Harkrider/Siebenmorgen traffic circle approved by ADOT?

[photoLith]

^^^
The roundabouts there on Harkrider are already under construction and yes Conway has changed a lot since 2006, and Hendrix has also changed a ton. I have only lived in Arkansas though since 2008 and have only been to conway a handful of times, so I dont really know too much about it. I dont think they have bus service to LR but I could be mistaken. I wish they would have it from Russellville to LR or even better, a commuter train, that will be the day.

[TonyAnderson]

Love the new developments ...those houses are incredibly unique looking.

[WEMO]

Like the last few pictures...

[urbanactivist]

Another nice thread... and you snapped a photo of a mural for Toad Suck Daze!!!!

BTW... it may be worth noting too that eventhough Conway and Russellville aren't that far apart, the towns/schools have a very different dynamic. Conway is a "suburb" of Little Rock for all intents and purposes. Some might call it an exurb b/c it's a little farther out than the other major burbs, but still it has a very strong connection to Little Rock. Russellville is 80 miles away, so it's less connected with any of the state's metropolitan areas.

College population of Russellville-- 8,000 students (just Arkansas Tech)

College pop of Conway-- 13,000 (UCA, CBC and Hendrix)