Kyle Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large for Friday, Feb. 5, 2026. I’m Kyle Kellams. We’re going to begin this Friday with Michael Tilley from Talk Business & Politics. Michael, you survived the winter chill.
Michael Tilley: Yep. Survived. Stayed indoors, bundled up. And I hear there’s a little bit more coming, but hopefully it’s not as bad.
Kellams: Well, you know what else is coming? A $30 million plan to operate a center for health innovation. What do we know?
Tilley: Well, one thing we know is a couple of weeks ago, we had a story. You know, we talked about several federal funding packages, and there was no big money for Fort Smith projects. Well, I guess the moral of the story is just wait a week or two. Yeah. And there’ll be some more big federal funding packages coming along.
So that’s what we had. The biggest for the Fort Smith area was $15 million, as you said, federal funds to support what is estimated to be a $30 million health innovation center. Sen. John Boozman was the leader on getting this money through the various committees and then on the floor and House approval and all of that. So kudos to him.
But the $15 million, the first part of this, I’ve been told through the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, is for their Center for Mother and Infant Care. $15 million would be about on the first floor of this two-story building, 16,000 square feet. They don’t yet know when they’ll begin construction. They know where it’ll be on campus. But, you know, they were kind of in a hole. They’ve been in a holding pattern for a while to see if they’re going to get this money. So now they’ve got it. Now they can, in earnest, get working with architects on design, that kind of thing, get the project out to bid and get going.
But it’s, you know, I don’t have to tell you. You guys there at KUAF have covered a lot of these maternal and infant health care stories. It seems like in the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of focus because Arkansas has been dead last or right next to dead last in terms of maternal and infant health care. So this is a part of what is a broader effort in Arkansas to improve those statistics.
And so this facility they will have, I’ve learned, are now called high-fidelity simulation labs to teach people. And this is not just for nursing students or incoming students. This also has facilities and programs for physicians who are in that line of medical care.
And one of the programs also that I thought was interesting is they would have the opportunity for new parents, both parents, to come in and with these labs experience not only the pre-birth process but birth process and then postpartum. So, you know, here’s what it looks like. Here’s what you’re going to go through. I mean, I know being a parent, the second one, not so much. But the first one, you’re just like, what the hell is fixin’ to happen, you know? And then the crazy thing, like two days, day or two later, they send that thing home with you and you’re like, holy cow. Now, what do I do with this?
So I think that’s a very interesting part of this new program. And it’s also like Dr. Theresa Riley, the UAFS chancellor, said that she had several kids in the space of just two or three years. It’s one of those, being a set of twins she gave birth to, what was it, four babies in less than three years. And so she says, you know, I get it. It’s natural to be concerned, to be scared, to not know. So a part of this program will try to, as much as you can, I don’t think you can completely erase all of the anxieties, but I think this will help in a big way.
So that’s the first part. And then, of course, eventually, when they get, they’re going to start working now that they’ve got this $15 million. They’re going to start working on the facility and hope they begin to get the rest of the money to build out the entire center for health innovation.
One other part of this quickly: the Wingate Foundation gave them almost $10 million a few years back to expand their nursing and other programs to get more people into that workforce because there’s a high demand for them. And it’s been a good problem now that they’ve developed, the program has been so successful that they’re running out of space. So this facility will help them free up space in some existing facilities they have that are used for that instruction in the nursing programs.
Kellams: Last week I started our conversation rather facetiously by saying, sorry, we don’t have something about Parrot Island Water Park because we talked about those water slides for a few weeks in a row. Well, guess what? Back in the news.
Tilley: When I started this company, Kyle, back in 2008, my goal was to eventually become the senior Parrot Island Water Park reporter. And so I think I can in a couple of weeks, I think I’m going to retire. I think I’ve reached the peak of my career. No. They’re back in the news. Joey McCutchen, Fort Smith attorney who’s been opposed to this project the whole time, has now filed a lawsuit, essentially saying, well, I guess I should back up a little bit. The Fort Smith Board of Directors voted recently to go with this plan, almost a $3 million plan to go ahead and install these slides.
You know, the project cost went from $2.1 million into $4.2 million. Now that’s going to be close to $7.5 million when it’s done. And what he takes issue with is that they did this without competitive bidding. They went with Rural Ridge Construction and they did it without competitive bidding. So he’s filed a lawsuit that essentially is asking, he filed it in Sebastian County Circuit Court, essentially asking them to block construction, to block movement on this and to go back and do it the right way.
The city maintains that they had to move quickly because the summer season is coming up, and they didn’t have time for the regular bidding process that entails. So we’ll see. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday. So, you know, the city will have, I guess, 30 days to respond. You know, here we go again.
Kellams: Yeah.
Tilley: You know this. If the lawsuit, for example, if the lawsuit is successful and they have to go back to competitive bidding, then it’ll come back to the board for another vote. So just about the time you think, OK, it’s done whether you like it or not, they’re moving forward—more uncertainty in what’s been, I mean this could be a three-year uncertainty process.
Kellams: A couple of elementary schools in Fort Smith are going to close, both built in the 1960s. What’s the story behind this?
Tilley: Well, this is another one of those, they’re kind of both sides to it. What the Fort Smith Public School District is up against is a decline in enrollment. And we’ve seen that it’s not just Fort Smith. We’re kind of seeing it across the state, and we’re going to probably see it more as the state’s opened up this voucher program. So that is pulling students out of public school systems in some areas.
So this planning committee, this long-range planning committee, made up primarily of citizens and some district staff, have been looking at this issue. How do they rightsize—that’s their term—how do they rightsize their resources?
Previous efforts, they’ve closed two other schools, two other elementary schools. This vote that they took this week—or excuse me, late last week? No, it was this week. I’m sorry. There was a delay in the meetings because of the weather and it threw me off. But yeah, it was this Monday.
They voted to close two elementary schools, Carnall and Spradling, consolidate those students in other schools. Their goal is to try to get close to 500 students per school. Carnall, for example, had 152, Spradling had 275. There were some of what were the lowest enrolled elementary schools.
So that’s moving forward. It was not unanimous. There was a 6-1 vote on both of the projects. School board member Maria Martinez had concerns about it. Some parents talked about, you know, now my kids can walk to school. When this happens, they can’t, and so there’s concerns about working families who can’t drive their kids to school. Or if the bus routine just doesn’t work for them, that could be a hardship.
But on the other side, you know, that district, any school district, has to stay focused on what’s the most efficient use of resources and the best long term for all students. So that’s how the school district pitched this vote.
Kellams: I see. And finally, talking about resources, we know that Main Street Fort Smith is going to get $150,000 a year from the city. That did come into, I guess, a slight bit of question because there was a meeting about that.
Tilley: Yeah, there was a little bit… There’s, I think it’s a vocal minority, but there’s a small group of folks in Fort Smith. They’re on social media, they attend the board meetings. They’re really advocating that Fort Smith cut all, if it’s not just for roads and sewer and water, just basic infrastructure, police and fire, then the city doesn’t need to be spending on it. And I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. That is their push.
And so I think part of that push for review, Main Street Fort Smith has been receiving $150,000 a year to support the Main Street Fort Smith program, which is focused obviously in downtown Fort Smith. There was a time when the city had somebody on staff and spent more internal resources on that. They decided back in 2023, I believe, if not sooner, to outsource that.
And so that was supposed to be a Jan. 20 vote. City Director Neal Martin wanted to slow the roll on that and have it be looked at in a study session. So to her credit, Main Street Executive Director Amanda Hager, I watched the study session. She presented the Main Street case at a Jan. 27 board study session. If I ever—she should have been a lawyer. Because, I mean, if I ever was being tried for something, I would want her to make my case. She put on an excellent case for the program.
And there was even at the voting board meeting this week, one gentleman got up who was against damn near everything, got up and said, you know what, I kind of liked it. I think we need to go ahead and do this. So it turned out to be a unanimous vote. But Amanda explained a lot of things they’re doing. They’re working with the Central Business Improvement District, and talked about their mini grant program, where they’re helping people with facade and other type of work to improve the look. Talked about programs, talked about their upcoming mini incubator project that they’ve got working.
I mean, I'm not doing a good job explaining everything they do because we don’t have enough time. But the board meeting turned into a brag fest about the organization. So kudos to Amanda.
That will continue. It's a one-year—they’ll have to renew it every year. But I think, Amanda, you know, it’s one of those things where it turned out to be a good thing that they delayed it because I think a lot of people got an education about what they really do that wouldn’t have taken place without pushing it through a study session first.
Kellams: And you can find out more about Main Street Fort Smith and all of the things we’ve talked about and more by checking out everyday talkbusiness.net. Michael Tilley, thanks as always.
Tilley: You’re welcome, sir.
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