Project aims to revitalize Pine Bluff through more than $500,000 in federal grant funding

Tylisa Hampton
·2 min read
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Project aims to revitalize Pine Bluff through more than $500,000 in federal grant funding

PINE BLUFF, Ark. – Officials with Go Forward Pine Bluff said they, along with other partners, were awarded more than $500,000 in federal grant funding for a project aimed at revitalizing downtown Pine Bluff.

According to the University of Arkansas, a project team co-led by the U of A Community Design Center and Go Forward Pine Bluff has been awarded a $548,492 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2024 Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhood Grant Program.

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The Pine Bluff project is one of 132 planning or capital projects to be funded through $3.33 billion in grant awards in the 2024 program, and the only one from Arkansas.

Go Forward Pine Bluff CEO Ryan Watley said they are working to see if they can address some of the traffic patterns that will result in “economic prosperity.” He said one focus will be one of the main traffic areas that leads downtown.

“There’s South Olive Street from about Jefferson Square, that’s going south, to I-530,” Watley said.

In 2021, Pine Bluff was designated America’s “fasting shrinking city,” according to U.S. census data.  Watley said the decline in population needs to be fixed.

“We will study the area not necessarily the roadways by itself but the 280 blocks, the housing capacity, housing value, the services in the area. Again, the traffic patterns of how traffic impacts business,” Watley said.

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Randy Green, who has owned Shoe Express in downtown Pine Bluff for years and grew up in the area, said he has seen downtown go from having a vibrant traffic flow to hardly any.

“I’ve been downtown pretty much all my life. I started working in the shoe shop in 1978 and downtown has gone down quite considerably,” Green said. “It’s kind of sad.”

Green said he hopes the grant will begin to help revitalize downtown.

“As downtown gets better, more businesses will come, more people will come, and the area will start growing,” Green said.

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Watley said hopefully they will begin in the fall and get the community involved.

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