I arrived at Pinnacle Hills Promenade at 9 a.m. on Friday—an hour before the state’s first LEGO storefront opened its doors. I was early, although the line wrapping the block made me feel like I was running late.
“I've been waiting in line since 5:30 a.m. to be one of the first people to get in,” Kevin Durden said. “I've been waiting for a LEGO store to open in Arkansas for almost my entire life. So, pretty excited.”
Kevin Durden’s been building LEGO since he was 2 and woke up with a clear goal that day.
“I just love everything about LEGO,” he said. “It allows you to be creative, allows you to build things. It's my favorite thing in the world. And I got here at 5 a.m. because there is a really, really, really long line of people, and I wanted to be one of the first. They give out exclusive items when stores first open. I wanted to make sure I was guaranteed to get one.”
Durden also had prior commitments later in the afternoon. He said he had to leave early to make a lecture at the University of Arkansas. In fact, most of the people in line for the grand opening were college-aged or older.
Store manager Josh Willems-Rosas said this reflects the changing intentions of the LEGO brand.
“You know, I think LEGO right now, we believe children are our future,” Willems-Rosas said. “We really want to make sure that we have a really great experience for children, families, fans of all ages. It's so exciting because we have over 500-plus sets that will appeal to anyone, anyone of all ages, from zero to 99.”
The store features a wide range of licensed and original LEGO sets, a pick-a-brick wall where shoppers can select individual pieces for purchase and even a custom Minifigure building tower where you can make a small, LEGO-fied likeness of anyone you know.
“Our customers have told us they want to get their hands on the bricks,” Willems-Rosas said. “So that's really the benefit of having a physical LEGO store, is that our customers can come in and really do some build activities. Every month, we'll be doing something called make and take, or creativity workshops that we will invite customers in and build with us. And in some of those situations, they can take that build home for free, which is really exciting.”
Across the street, another hands-on activity was taking place. Patrons were given the chance to help create a LEGO mural featuring a postcard-style “Welcome to Rogers” graphic.
More adult LEGO fans were setting up shop near the mural. The northwest chapter of the Arkansas LEGO User Group was busy preparing their MOC, or My Own Creation, builds for display during the opening.
I caught up with the group’s leader, Jason Hall, who was reconstructing a 12-story-tall LEGO apartment building. He said the group has members across Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, and everyone was excited about the new physical location. The LEGO Corporation supports the User Group, or LUG, members through discounts. Plus, if you’re into the custom building scene, it helps to have a source for any specific piece you might need.
“Just grab a scoop of this and a scoop of that,” Hall said. “And you can't do that, really, in person anywhere else. I mean, you can do that online, on LEGO’s website, or there's other retailers that do that, but I think probably the best value is to do it at their store.”
JT: That must be very helpful for people creating MOCs.
“Absolutely,” Hall said. “Yeah, because, I mean, if you just need, like, 1,000 of one part to do something really large, it's way more effective to just grab it from the pick-a-brick wall than it is trying to buy 25 sets to get a few parts out of each set.”
Back at the line, Tres Rainbolt was holding down his spot near the middle. He told me he wanted to check out the pick-a-brick wall to find pieces for his MOC builds and experience the event. He’s not part of the state’s LUG, but he said he still loves to craft LEGO builds in his free time.
“LEGO, to me personally, stems definitely from my childhood,” Rainbolt said. “I grew up in a very, very small town in Louisiana, in the middle of nowhere, and I only ever got one LEGO set as a child. And so now that I'm an adult, I get to do what I love, and that's build LEGO sets. It brings a peace to me. And after I got out of the military, I struggled a lot with PTSD, and it just calms me. So this is my very first LEGO store, the first opportunity I've ever had to actually go to a physical place and put my eyes on LEGO. So that's why I wanted to be here so early this morning.”
Once the store was open, the line happily moved forward through the multicolor LEGO doorway. I ended up running into Durden again, the very first customer inside, who might also have been the happiest.
“So I went straight to the pick-a-brick wall,” Durden said. “I am getting one, one-by-two-by-five panels in transparent clear so that I can do, like, windows for buildings. I'm also going to get some heart tiles because I like to make pins out of the heart tiles, and I sell the pins to help me make money so I can buy LEGO sets. So, the heart tiles sell really well. I'll probably get some of the ladders and some of the foliage, too, because these are all really great, and the white jumper plates because those are just super useful.”
JT: Describe your emotions.
“I am more excited than I have been, maybe at any other point in my life,” he said. “And I'm having a really hard time thinking of words because the excitement is just like screaming in my head.”
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
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