Michael Tilley, executive editor of Talk Business and Politics, discusses the latest updates on the Peak Innovation Center, enplanements at Fort Smith Regional Airport and a possible stadium coming to downtown.
Kyle Kellams: With me to start our Friday edition of the program is Michael Tilley from Talk Business and Politics. Michael, August used to be a very slow month when it came to news, that is no longer the case, is it?
Michael Tilley: No, it's not even been a slow summer. Typically, summers are slow. I don't know who decided that it wasn't going to be slow this year but it has not been.
No responses for Peak Center flooding investigation request
KK: Part of the reason it hasn't been slow is because there have been some stories that keep on going. I'm thinking of the Fort Smith Public Schools' Peak Innovation Center, which you and I have talked about how valuable that can be to the community. But there have been flooding problems and last I checked, there was a call for a separate investigation independent into possible flaws with the construction where are we with that?
MT: Well, we are kind of nowhere, we're all back on a Plan B. They put out this request for qualification, there's several places they commonly advertise these things. Well, they got zero response.
Tina Alvey Dale, our reporter, talked to Dalton Person, he's the school board president. His take was that they either did a poor job advertising, which he doesn't think is the case, or this is such a unique request because it's the request is made on behalf of the school board to investigate all parties involved including the school administration staff. So, it's kind of a unique type of protocol, and so Dalton thinks that maybe that's part of it.
So, their Plan B is he's going to work with a person within the school district they're going to try to just individually go out and search out some possible firms, talk to them and see if they're interested. So again we're kind of at a Plan B.
I should back up a little bit: the Peak Innovation Center is this regional workforce education facility that has flooded three times since it's opened and there are some issues going on. Based on our reporting, there was not appropriate or adequate water analysis or water study done before construction began. There are just some issues about what kind of materials were used. Was it the right use? Who made decisions on what to use? Who didn't make those decisions?
It's a more than $20 million facility, and they need to figure why it's flooded, they're trying to fix it, but I think there's enough consternation both at the school board and the community that they kind of want to just figure this out why this is all a problem to make sure it doesn't happen again.
KK: Well, and there's an interesting sort of request in this: be thorough, but also be done in three months.
MT: Yeah, be done in 90 days. I'm ignorant of the type of investigation this would require, obviously, we've never reported on anything like this and I doubt there are few media outlets in Arkansas that have, but I don't know I don't know if 90 days is enough.
They may have to pony up some money. They have not set a budget for it, because they said whenever they found a firm that was willing to do it, they would have to negotiate the price, so we don't know that either.
Decline in Fort Smith airport traffic
KK: We have numbers of enplanements at Fort Smith Regional Airport and so far this year, it’s down a little bit. I guess that's not too much of a surprise because we know there's fewer flights than there were before the pandemic. What do we make from these new numbers?
MT: I had an email exchange with airport director Michael Griffin—who I should note is always amenable to talk, I wish board directors of public facilities where as open as him—but anyway, he said it's kind of a good news bad news thing. American Airlines brought in this much larger nicer regional jet that customers like more.
It's 75-seat jet and they took out the 50-something-seat jet. But when they did that, they reduced the number of flights. Even though they have a larger jet, it reduced the the total amount of planes that fly in and out every day. And remember, two or three years ago Delta took their single flight out and just stopped that flight. So, American Airlines is the only airline servicing Fort Smith.
So director Griffin is kind of caught in what I'm calling maybe a vicious cycle—that may not be the best way to describe it—because there would be more traffic out of the airport if you had more flights. But to prove to the airline that they need to bring more flights you have to prove that there's more traffic, and so you know it's a chicken and egg kind of thing.
I do not envy the job that Mr. Griffin and others at the airport are doing to try to convince American and other airlines to add service to Fort Smith, but between January and July the number of flights were down 2.7% compared to the same period in 2022.
Now the July numbers popped up, and they’re kind of optimistic that maybe that's the beginning of a trend, we'll see. But the July numbers out of Fort Smith were up 8%. And by comparison, U.S. Department of transportation reported that all domestic passenger flight traffic was up 4% in July, so maybe that is a good sign for Fort Smith. The airports recovering, obviously the traffic took a big hit during COVID and it's slowly growing back to just under 62,000 enplanements last year, that was up 30%.
Frankly, I was surprised to see that decline between January and July but, Griffin says it's primarily just the flight frequency, so if you're trying to fly out and it's already booked—and he said those flights are often booked, too—and there's no other flights, you got to fly out somewhere else.
KK: I think it was maybe a year ago or so, you and I talked about a possible grant or some federal money to help lobby for other flights—and you said at the time that was no guarantee—has there been any sort of other traffic on that?
MT: They're still involved in using that grant. In fact, when I was emailing and texting back and forth with Mr. Griffin, he was out of town making visits and I'm assuming that maybe that was it. But no they've got this consulting company who has a presentation about their market and how many flights they could support if they bring in more jets, but he did not have an update on that when I talked to him last.
Study approved for multi-use stadium in downtown Fort Smith
KK: Finally, there's about $75,000 that the Fort Smith Board of Directors is approving to study whether a multi-purpose sports stadium that could include baseball and maybe some other sports, even soccer, that could be on the riverfront maybe someday joining the U.S. Marshals Museum and these other amenities that are growing. We're in the very early stages of this, correct?
MT: Correct. it's kind of a building on the momentum, it’s $75,000 from the city. Now the Westphal family, who owns most of that property—kind of between Harry Kelly park and downtown Fort Smith and down to the RV park—they’re also going to pitch in $75,000. So it'll be $150,000 total funding for the study.
It's Mammoth Sports Construction out of Kansas City, they’re going to work with National Sports services, who has already been working with the city.
I think there's kind of an attitude of striking while the iron’s hot. You’ve got the Riverfront Park, Greg Smith River Trail, the U.S. Marshals Museum opened recently and the Community School for the Arts. If you haven't been to the riverfront, that's coming out of the ground and looking very nice, it's going to be open later this year.
This RV park—when they told me it was an RV resort park I thought they were being silly, but if you go look at it, it's a nice facility. The Fort Kid’s Children's Museum just announced that they're going to be down there.
Bennie Westphal and the Westphal family have set aside not an entire 30 acres, but they have 30 acres there and possibly 15 (acres) could be used for what they're calling just a basic stadium and parking. They’ve talked about baseball, they’ve talked about other sports for a multi-use stadium, so maybe for concerts, even.
I know that there have been in the past efforts by folks to bring a Minor League Baseball team to town. There was a time I was very skeptical about that, but I've learned in recent years—and I don't have to tell you, being a big baseball fan you are—that there's a wide variety of minor league teams.
KK: Oh, there are independent teams, teams owned by Major League clubs, all sorts, yeah.
MT: Yeah, and some are based in markets smaller than Fort Smith.
I'm not smart enough to know whether a baseball team or any other type of team could financially make it. So we'll see if this study provides some clarity on that, but just something else to keep that momentum rolling on downtown and along the riverfront.
It could sit there vacant for decades and then it's like bam, all of a sudden everything's coming out of the ground. It’s nice and it'll be interesting to see what this study tells us.
KK: We'll keep following that of course like we're following the other stories. You can follow all of these stories at TalkBusiness.net. Michael, enjoy these somewhat cooler weather this weekend and I'll talk to you next Friday.
MT: All right, thank you, sir.
