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STUTTGART ADDING COMMUNITY CENTER

By Erin France/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 10:01 AM CST

Stuttgart — Stuttgart is expected to break ground on its Grand Prairie Center this May.

But don’t turn green with envy, Pine Bluff residents.

Southeast Arkansas has enough opportunities to fill niches and auditoriums of all the convention and community centers in the region, said Don Wales, president of El Dorado’s Chamber of Commerce.

“That’s just another piece of infrastructure for Southeast Arkansas,” Wales said. “I think that’s great.”

He said his community’s multi-purpose center also is a part of the local college.

“It looks to me like they had the same idea we had over here,” he said.

Stephen Bell, the executive vice president of Stuttgart’s Chamber of Commerce, said the center has been a long time coming.

“It’s kind of a project we’ve been working on for several years,” he said.

Slated to cost more than $15 million, construction is expected to start in May and end in fall 2010. Bell said he doesn’t see the center as a direct threat to Pine Bluff, or other convention centers popping up in Southeast Arkansas during the last decade.

Greg Gustek, director of Pine Bluff’s Convention Center and Visitors Bureau, said Pine Bluff’s facility is large and flexible, details which attract organizations.

“I never even felt before that we were in competition,” he said, of the new Stuttgart building. “We’re just the perfect size.”

Bell said that some competition for events could occur between Brinkley and Stuttgart facilities.

As the project materialized funding proved daunting, Bell said.

“It just seemed like an impossible dream,” he said.

While there’s still more fundraising efforts in the works, Bell said he is confident the goal can be reached.

“It’s going to be the center of the community,” he said. “We hope everyone uses it.”

Randy Zook, president of the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, said he’s pleased with the plans.

“A town that size needs some sort of gathering place,” he said.

Zook said that while community centers are being constructed around Southeast Arkansas, he did not think they would regularly compete with each other to host events.

“They each serve different markets and different areas,” he said. “You could draw a circle probably 40 miles around it ... That’s the area it’s going to serve.”

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