Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Chicken City 2.0
Technology transforms downtown Springdale
Iwas a high school student in the 1970s when the citizens band radio craze was at its height. C.W. McCall came out with his song “Convoy” in 1978. Television programs such as The
Dukes of Hazzard in 1979 and movies such as Smokey and the Bandit
and Breaker! Breaker! in 1977 helped fuel the CB craze.
My father purchased a new Oldsmobile, and it came with a CB radio. A friend and I were invited to accompany our fathers on a fishing trip to Lake of the Woods in western Ontario, and the Oldsmobile was our mode of transportation. We drove the first day from Arkadelphia to Des Moines, Iowa, and the second day from Des Moines to Kenora, Ontario. We adopted handles and stayed on the CB the entire trip. I became familiar with CB slang, including the names of towns along the way. It didn’t take us long to figure out that when the truckers talked about Chicken City, they were referring to Springdale.
If someone were to draw a caricature of the Chicken City mascot more than four decades later, he would be surrounded by modern technology. After years as Chicken City—the grittier industrialized neighbor of the cultured academic enclave of Fayetteville to the south— Springdale is becoming high-tech. Dare we say hip?
It’s late afternoon, and I’m sharing political war stories with Archie Schaffer in downtown Springdale. Schaffer has become such an institution through the years that you
simply have to say “Archie” and most people in the Arkansas business and political establishments will know immediately who you’re talking about.
This newspaper’s Paul Greenberg once described Schaffer as “everybody’s favorite Arkansas lobbyist. Even when arguing with him over some petty political matter, I’ve always found him candid, convivial, convinced—the way everybody in politics should be. OK, maybe a little cantankerous on occasion, but who isn’t? I certainly am. … Life would be so much poorer without its Menckens and even Carvilles. And certainly without its Archie Schaffers.”
We had picked up soft tacos at Taqueria Don Guero, an authentic Mexican taqueria at 332 E. Emma Ave. in downtown Springdale, and taken them across the street to Black Apple Crossing, which became the state’s first maker of hard ciders when it opened in July 2015. Founding partners Leo Orpin, Trey Holt and John Handley decided to piggyback on the state’s growing craft beer scene by producing English-style ciders.
Buying tacos and taking them to a taproom with locally made cider is the type of experience one expects to find in cities such as Austin or Nashville. We’re having that experience in downtown Springdale, a neighborhood that languished for years even as the downtowns of Fayetteville to the south and Bentonville to the north thrived.
Earlier in the afternoon, we had toured the 56,000-square-foot facility at 319 E. Emma Ave. that houses about 260 information technology workers for Tyson Foods Inc. Schaffer announced his retirement in the fall of 2012 as Tyson’s executive vice president for corporate affairs but said he would continue to work as a consultant to the company with which he had been associated since 1991. At the time, former U.S. Sen. David Pryor described Schaffer as “the eyes and ears of that company” and added that “I can’t imagine that John Tyson will let him go too far.” Almost six years later, Schaffer seems busier than ever.
There are no private offices in the IT facility. There are instead open spaces, couches to sit on, small conference rooms, an outdoor garden with areas for bocce ball and baggo, and places for employees to hang their bicycles and take a shower if they commute to work along the Razorback Regional Greenway. In short, it has a Silicon Valley rather than a Chicken City feel.
The facility ties together the company’s original headquarters and the adjacent Brown Hatchery building in an attempt to bring life to downtown Springdale. The complex, which features wood reclaimed from the Brown Hatchery building, was dedicated last fall. John Tyson called it another step toward “achieving our collective vision of transforming downtown Springdale.”
Large public and private investments earlier had led to construction of Walter Turnbow Park down the street along the Razorback Regional Greenway. Those investments in turn attracted the likes of Black Apple Crossing, a bar named The Odd Soul, a Core Brewing taproom and Phat Tire bike shop.
The IT facility was the second recent project for Tyson Foods in downtown Springdale. In 2016, the company moved about 100 employees into a 28,000-square-foot building at 516 E. Emma Ave. It’s known as the Tyson Foods JTL Building in recognition of its former use as the first truck terminal for Jones Truck Lines. In 2014, Tyson Foods gave $1 million to the Downtown Springdale Alliance to develop a master plan for the neighborhood.
Northwest Arkansas’ trademark has become regional cooperation, but a little friendly competition never hurts. One suspects that John Tyson noticed all the positive publicity surrounding
the things happening in downtown Bentonville and decided that it was time for downtown Springdale to thrive once more. For Springdale, it’s the best of all worlds. That’s because the Walton family hasn’t limited its efforts to Bentonville. There’s also Walton activity in downtown Springdale.
“The opening of this complex in our city center, where this company was born, continues to fuel the economic engine Tyson Foods has become,” Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse said at the dedication of the IT facility last fall.
The first headquarters building was constructed in the 1920s to house Springdale Produce Co., owned by John W. Tyson, current chairman John Tyson’s grandfather. A fire destroyed part of that building in 1945. It was rebuilt the next year and became the home of what had become a poultry feed and hatchery company. The headquarters remained there until 1969. Tyson Foods now employs more than 23,000 people across the state with almost 6,000 of them in Springdale.
During a half-day summit in June that focused on the development of downtown Springdale, Tyson Foods CEO Tom Hayes said the company will continue to invest downtown with the construction of a manufacturing and automation technology center. The center will be used for employee training and technology development, including robotics. The facility on Meadow Street is expected to open sometime next year.
“Downtown Springdale will be a focus for technology,” Hayes said. “It will just continue. We see that as a place for us to really center everything having to do with technology.” He said the company’s downtown investments allow Tyson Foods to recognize its heritage while also building “cool places to work.” Hayes said he hopes Tyson investments will lead to additional restaurants and entertainment venues downtown.
“They want to walk around and enjoy lunch,” Hayes said of the almost 400 Tyson employees now working downtown. “Right now, there’s like two or three places they can go. They need a lot more.”
The Tyson investments aren’t the only things happening in downtown Springdale. In June 2014, a limited liability company controlled by Walton family members purchased the building that once housed Ryan’s Clothing (the store closed in 2013) along with adjacent San Jose Manor in the 200 block of East Emma. In June, it was announced that the 5,425-squarefoot Ryan’s building will be renovated and the 24,191-square-foot San Jose Manor will be torn down. It will be replaced with a mixed-used development with retail, restaurant and office space.
Walton-backed Ropeswing Hospitality Group has created a 12,000-square-foot event venue known as Record in the former Benton County Daily Record building along with two restaurants (The Preacher’s Son and
Pressroom) in downtown Bentonville. Ropeswing will create the restaurant and retail concepts for the Springdale space. Given Ropeswing’s record thus far, those concepts promise to add to the growing buzz about downtown Springdale.
Earlier this year, officials from Arvest Bank, First Security Bank and United Bank announced that they would work with the Downtown Springdale Alliance to make $30 million in financing available to small businesses that want to renovate existing structures or construct new facilities. The Downtown Springdale Alliance earlier had announced a facade improvement grant program for buildings facing Emma Avenue with up to $10,000 in matching grant funds available for exterior renovations.
“The banks involved have had individuals showing interest and projects funded as a result,” said First Security’s Mike Morgenthaler. “These are exciting times for downtown Springdale.”
Kelly Syer, the executive director of the Downtown Springdale Alliance, said the financing being provided by the banks “piqued the interest of businesses and developers who had been considering downtown Springdale. We desire a phased approach to bring the right kind of development to the area—opportunities for corporate, retail, housing, green space and infrastructure projects. Timing couldn’t be better for support from these three banks to be available.”
The momentum was evident when almost 300 people showed up at the Jones Center for the half-day event on June 14. It was called “Invest Springdale: A Summit for Downtown Springdale’s Future.” There were local officeholders, real estate developers, business owners, bankers, investors, architects and community activists all in the same room. Perry Webb, who has headed the Springdale Chamber of Commerce since October 1994, said: “I’ve never been to a meeting in Springdale in which every part of the community was represented like this. It was amazing.”
Syer said the summit was a chance for the city to “show where the opportunities exist downtown. We want to shine a light on some of the projects already taking place that are serving as a catalyst. … We know that there are some gaps in our downtown.”
At the current rate, it won’t take long for those gaps to fill in.
“Downtown Springdale was really struggling for many years,” Syer said. “Now we see this momentum as things continue to evolve. The people of Springdale are so encouraged by what they see. It’s refreshing and motivating. We’ve reached the point where we now have a critical mass of activities downtown. There’s not a week that goes by that there’s not something major happening down here. I put out a calendar every Friday for the next week. I once struggled to find things to put on there. That’s not the case anymore. The word is out about downtown Springdale.”