Posted on 11/29/2001 3:44:42 PM PST by Sloth
In about four years, the warehouse graveyard that borders eastern downtown Little Rock will be transformed into a 60-acre urban park, with a presidential library on one end and a global village on the other.
Representatives of Heifer Project International, the Little Rock-based world relief organization, said Tuesday that their multimillion-dollar vision would ride the momentum of the future Clinton Presidential Center and create green space and glass walls where dirt piles and empty buildings sit today.
The area, which has known only industry, is projected to become one of Arkansas' largest tourist destinations.
After outlining what the charity is doing to alleviate poverty in Afghanistan, the charity's president and chief executive officer, Jo Luck, told members of the Little Rock Rotary Club that 22,000 people visited Heifer Project's ranch in Perryville last year.
Some observers, including Mayor Jim Dailey, predict visitors to Little Rock will exceed that number tenfold once Heifer Project's global village and museum on world hunger concerns is complete. Official projections, time frames and cost estimates will come early next year.
"We want to bring all these people to this state and to this place we call home," Luck told about 200 Rotarians, packed into a ballroom at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Little Rock.
The site of Heifer Project's future headquarters is warehouse land adjacent to the undeveloped William J. Clinton Presidential Center on the eastern edge of the River Market District.
The 25 or so acres hug the future park and wrap around its eastern tip, touching the Arkansas River. Heifer Project has not acquired all of the land -- including the riverfront parcel, which it has options to buy, said real estate broker Rett Tucker, who is working with Heifer officials on the acquisition.
Design plans by Little Rock architect Tommy Polk of Polk Stanley Yeary Architects depict the museum and office building as a four-story semicircular structure made of brick in front and glass in back, with a global village stretching to the river behind it.
Huts and houses from all corners of the world would compose the global village, where visitors would learn about living conditions and economic development solutions for the poor.
Trees would fill the parking lot, and flags and more trees would line its entrance along East Third Street.
Along with the $104 million Clinton library, Heifer Project's plans represent a phase of economic development that Little Rock has not experienced before. Highway signs to Central High School and the Little Rock Zoo mark some of the city's tourist sights. But the library and global village are expected to put the city on the map internationally.
Heifer Project already attracts overseas visitors to the city for training. Recently, Luck played host to the Uganda's ambassador to the United States. And occasionally, foreign visitors can be spotted at lunchtime wandering through the River Market wearing Heifer Project name tags.
When the global village and world headquarters open, sometime after the Clinton library is built, the city will attract international tourists, said James Schimmer, executive director of the Downtown Partnership. A groundbreaking for the Clinton library is scheduled for Dec. 5.
"This opens up a whole new sector of the market economy that we have not really worked on," Schimmer said. From teaching restaurant workers how to communicate with foreign visitors to teaching area corporate executives how to entertain them, "It's going to take a major shift in our thinking."
Heifer Project operates 32 field operations in 46 countries and provides the poor with income-producing livestock.
The organization's income increased from $8 million in 1995 to more than $33 million in fiscal 2001, which ended June 30.
In July, Dailey, the Little Rock mayor, endorsed Heifer's plans in a grant application for $1 million from the Economic Development of Arkansas Fund Commission under the state Department of Finance and Administration.
The money would help pay for the charity's plans, thereby retaining 159 full-time jobs for the city and creating at least 237 new ones between 2002 and 2005, Dailey wrote. Heifer received $485,000 from the commission this fall.
Unsolicited endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell, as well as a call last week from ABC news anchorman Peter Jennings, are among a number of indicators that Heifer Project is gaining national and international attention.
The charity remains active in Afghanistan, where its 3-year-old program there has helped 1,500 families receive more than 8,000 poultry, dairy cattle and dairy goats, said Robert Pelant, the charity's Asia and South Pacific program director.
About 17 Afghan refugees run the program, which is directly funded by an Afghan organization that partners with Heifer Project.
In Little Rock, officials at Heifer Project expect partnership possibilities with the future Clinton library. One possibility is working with the library and the University of Arkansas in offering a new fellows program and master's degree at the Clinton School of Public Service, which will be a component of the Clinton center.
"That's certainly a possibility," said Skip Rutherford, president of the foundation raising up to $200 million to build and endow the Clinton library and its components. "I don't think we've gotten all the details worked out about the school."
But Heifer Project no doubt will be part of those plans, he added.
"There are numerous resources in the field of international humanitarianism that make it a perfect fit," Rutherford said. "How you do that and how that works is clearly to be seen."
I predict sooner ... they BOTH need to get out of NY town before the tar and feathers are dragged out of storage.
Welcome to Bizarro World. People will not cross the street for this attraction.
Imagine...
Child - Mummy, Daddy, are we going to DisneyWorld for vacation?
Mummy - No honey, we've got something better planned.
Child - Mummy, are we going to Six Flags?
Mummy - No sweetkins, someplace better than that.
Child - Where are we going Mummy?
Mummy - We're going to the World Hunger Expo next to ClintonLand!
Child - But Mummy, that's just a bunch of mud huts and pictures of people with flies on their faces.
Mummy - Hush now, or we'll just let you stay at the Global Village with Hillary's nanny's.
Child - Sniff, sorry Mummy
BTW, would someone PLEASE tell me what the Heifer Project has done to eleviate HUNGER in Afghanistan? Maybe I have missed something but the last time I looked they were STILL STARVING! It makes SO much sense to build a multimillion-dollar structure for "teaching restaurant workers how to communicate with foreign visitors to teaching area corporate executives how to entertain them" instead of just FEEDING STARVING PEOPLE!!!
It sounds as if they already know how the Clinton fix to a problem works. Build a monument to yourself, tell the public you're "helping" people and then take credit for something that you have NOT done.
Maybe they should rename this outrageous fiasco "The Hill's Cattle Futures" located next to "Willie's Wonka" which is adjacent to "Bubba's Brothal" across the street from "Chel's Thrills" around the corner from "Circus Circus". WELCOME TO LITTLE ROCK!
Here is what OUR governor thinks of raising taxes on Arkansans...
"I'm as serious as I can be," Huckabee said. "It's put-up-or-shut-up time. Either put up the money, write the check and let us see you're serious or quit telling me Arkansans want their taxes raised. Because I'm convinced that Arkansans would say today, 'My taxes are high enough.' "
For those who believe that tax increases provide the answer -- "the liberal tax-and-spenders," Huckabee called them in an interview after his speech -- the state Department of Finance and Administration at the governor's behest set up the Tax Me More Fund. Its address is P.O. Box 8054, Little Rock, Ark. 72203.
Later Wednesday the governor's office issued a news release announcing the account. "There's nothing in the law that prohibits those who believe they aren't paying enough in taxes from writing a check to the state of Arkansas," the release said. "Maybe this will make them feel better."
Now if we could get the MORONS in DC to set up a similar fund.
The prestigious Onan sink chair.
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