Planning department announces design awards

The Conway Planning Department handed out awards for four recent local developments that stand out as examples of good design Tuesday night.

The idea to create the Conway Planning Awards came from city planner Wes Craiglow, who is currently serving in Iraq. Fellow planner Donald Anthony picked up the reins when 1st Lt. Craiglow was deployed with the 688th Mobility Augmentation Company, a component of the 890th Engineering Battalion.

As chosen by subscribers to the Conway Planning Department's online newsletter, the winners of the inaugural Conway Planning Awards are the renovation of the Steel Chevrolet building at Main and Court streets, the new Hendrix student housing development on Front Street, the Downtown Conway Streetscape project and Caldwell Toyota's new "green" dealership on Exchange Avenue.

The old Steel Chevrolet building was renovated and redeveloped as Old Chicago Pizza, which opened earlier on Sept. 29, and Doe's Eat Place, which will open in coming weeks. The property was developed by John Harwood, Dr. Mark Wilson and Maury Sanchez.

It won the contextual design award, explained by Anthony as an award "given in recognition of their efforts to redevelop that portion of downtown in a manner that's consistent with the area's traditional architecture.

"They took an old, dead corner of downtown and turned it into a lively, active place that's filled up every day," he said.

Conway Downtown Partnership director T. J. Johnston accepted the Aesthetics Award for the downtown streetscape project.

"You know it's definitely encouraging to be recognized for something you're trying to do," Johnston said. "Our board and partners are def excited. From the aesthetic standpoint people were more than pleased to see that it was happening, and you saw lots of folks, more people now, sprucing up their stores, whether it's repainting or minor repairs. It's an overall improvement not from just the aesthetic standpoint but the investment side of the game; people re-investing in their property and taking pride in downtown."

The new Hendrix College student housing development received the Historic Neighborhoods Award

"That award was given to Hendrix for their efforts to enhance one of Conway's historic neighborhoods, in this case that's kind of the edge of the historic Pine Street neighborhood," Anthony said.

Usually, multi-family development draws criticism from surrounding neighborhoods, Anthony said.

"What was different about these is they're much more traditional; not just the standard cheaply made duplexes that get thrown into historic neighborhoods. It's the same kind of idea of pulling it up close to the street, and they were able to make the best use of the space that they had. They went vertical instead of spreading out and created a nice pubic space on the corner."

Scott Schalhorn, CEO of the Village at Hendrix development, which is under construction north of the Hendrix campus, said that the college entered into the project "wanting to maintain a consistent and attractive transition from the downtown urban setting into our campus, and also maintain the look and integrity of the neighborhood in which we are located.

"What that necessitated is properties that were built close to the street to create an enclosed, comfortable space suitable for pedestrians, like downtown."

And Caldwell Toyota won the Special Contribution Award in recognition of being the first car dealership in Arkansas to seek Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

"We just felt like it was the right thing to do and frankly there's some misconception about the expense of it," Jay Caldwell said, explaining that building an environmentally friendly commercial structure does not add significantly to the cost.

Of the money that was spent on "green" features and materials, Caldwell said, "we will earn that money back quickly through lower energy usage.

"One of the misconceptions to building a green building is that there's going to be bamboo everywhere and bland, flat painted walls. But what our dealership shows is that it can be as nice, or, really, a bit nicer than the other dealerships in the state."

An honorable mention, Anthony said, was the EM Jeans building, which was only a few votes short of the Steele Chevrolet development for the Contextual Design award.

(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)