This project requires the parking deck stay operational during construction due to revenue generated from leased parking. The deck currently only has three small retail bays at the East end that under serve the demand. Several retailer and restaurants approached the owner and developer about potentially adding lease space to the South elevation of the first floor due to the pedestrian counts. The developer is also property manager who receives weekly calls trying to locate affordable apartment units in the River Market District.

The onus of this project is to re-use the existing parking deck in a way that is minimally invasive, keeping the parking counts high while gaining valuable retail and dining space on the first floor and providing compact affordable apartments on the upper floors. The high level of activity on 3rd Street, including foot traffic, parade routes, human scale foosball, and dodge ball tournaments, and street fairs, means this project has very small windows where the street will be allowed to close during construction. The use of pre-fab living units attached to exposed metal frames will drastically reduce the construction time. The abundance of shipping containers at the Little Rock Port Authority and the capability of our local manufactured home industry will allow for these pre-fab units to be more cost effective.