On the Ouachitas pizzeria, brewery and occasional spot in Mena, close to the deliberate location for an enormous new motorbike park, state officers held a public assembly at the financial perks of a rising outside sport economic system.
A lot of the dialogue desirous about state tax incentives for outside tourism companies, along side updates at the construction of the Trails at Mena motorbike park.
A kind of incentives, The Herbal State Initiative Financial Zone program, gives gross sales tax credit for other folks beginning or increasing companies in a 1-mile zone round 4 state parks, together with Queen Wilhelmina State Park north of Mena. The park sits close to the height of a protracted ridge within the Ouachitas known as Wealthy Mountain, round 12 miles northwest of Mena, a small the town of round 5,000 other folks the place tourism has lengthy been a major characteristic of the economic system. The forested mountains between Mena and Queen Wilhelmina State Park are most commonly a part of the federally owned and controlled Ouachita Nationwide Woodland. It’s right here that the state has begun developing the primary section of the Trails at Mena motorbike park over 8,200 acres of leased land owned through the U.S. Woodland Provider and the Town of Mena.
The state is hanging round $48 million into growing the primary a part of the motorbike park through essentially contracting with KINCO Constructors in Little Rock on land owned through town of Mena. Quickly, the development crews can be transferring into nationwide woodland land to start out operating on trails and the “bike lift” machine that may set the Trails at Mena park aside as a “world destination” for mountain cycling fanatics.
The Woodland Provider licensed a plan for the motorbike park that goals to draw 600 extra other folks on a daily basis, with as much as 1,900 other folks right through a top day in 2036. If the Trails at Mena turns into a a success year-round vacationer draw, that would equivalent over 200,000 further vacationers once a year in a the town of most effective 5,000, in a county with round 20,000 other folks overall.
As soon as the development groups have cleared and leveled the realm, they’ll construct an expansive customer heart that may function the downhill base of all the park. The imaginative and prescient for the park is that gravity trails would run all the way down to the bottom, and a motorbike raise would delivery bikers farther up the mountain for them to journey backtrack to the customer heart house. Type of like a forested, mountainous ski slope for cycling fanatics that can be utilized all 12 months around.
With the state creating a pronounced public funding within the house, the objective, as defined through Katherine Andrews, the director of the Place of job of Outside Tourism, is to extend tourist-oriented companies across the park and motorbike trails.
“What we really want to incentivize across the Natural State Initiative Opportunity Zones are companies that help enhance the visitor experience at these State Parks,” Andrews stated. “So think about lodging, restaurants, bed and breakfasts, bike shops, rentals… there is a lot of things that can qualify for the incentive. All of that is to say that before you break ground, or hire somebody, or start doing something– call us because we can help guide you through this process.”
Andrews stated the state is these days in negotiations with a contractor to run the motorbike park after soliciting bidders between Aug. 24 and Sept. 13 of closing 12 months. Because of ongoing negotiations, she would no longer expose who that contractor is or plans for the way earnings sharing from guests would paintings between the contractor, parks division, town and county. Andrews and parks division staffer Jordan Thomas stated that the Place of job of Outside Sport hopes that once the park opens in Spring of 2028, the unnamed contractor will paintings to extend the park towards Queen Wilhelmina State Park with two further motorbike lifts and round 80 miles of extra trails.
Mayor Seth Smith of Mena praised the park construction and confident citizens that once extra vacationers get started coming to Mena, town is poised to get pleasure from the extra gross sales tax earnings.
“From my standpoint this is the best business model there is,” Smith stated. “People are coming here and leaving their money here and we can utilize that money to improve our quality of life.”
In conjunction with Andrews and Smith, the joint presentation integrated group of workers with the state Financial Construction Fee, along side representatives from nonprofit companions like Startup Junkie and the College of Arkansas Place of job of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, who all knowledgeable citizens about more than a few small trade assets introduced through them.
The 2 dozen or so citizens who accumulated to listen to about financial incentives and the park construction appeared excited to be told extra concerning the motorbike park and alternatives for citizens. And the Arkansas Occasions stuck up with a couple of small trade house owners within the house after the assembly to look what they idea.
Dissenting Perspectives and Rising Pains
In line with the general public feedback at the Trails at Mena venture, maximum Mena citizens have a positive view of the advance.
And the Geber circle of relatives is a kind of supporters. Tim and his spouse Toni, along side their son Scott and daughter-in-law Michelle, lately purchased a accommodation and outfitting trade south of Mena designed to cater to the ATV vacationers who journey the intensive trails at Wolfpen Hole. The ones trails were open for many years, drawing vacationers via Mena for weekend remains to force 4-wheelers, grime motorcycles and side-by-sides via rugged, muddy trails for just about all the 12 months. In conjunction with the ATV crowd, Mena has all the time drawn hikers to the Ouachita Path and paddlers to the Ouachita and Cossatot rivers.
The Gebers circle of relatives (from left to proper). Toni, Tim, son Scott, and daughter-in-law Michelle sit down within the again room of The Ouachitas after being attentive to the presentation on outside sport financial incentives.
The Gebers circle of relatives’s trade, Little Wolf Cabins and ATVs, is some distance to the south of the commercial alternative zone round Queen Wilhelmina State Park. Whilst Tim and Toni imagine extra vacationers will in the long run be just right for his or her trade, they didn’t see how they might get pleasure from the tax incentives introduced within the construction zone.
“We’re thinking that the bike paths coming in, well we will be an alternative for those bikers so they can go ahead and do something different than just ride bikes,” Tim Gebers stated. “Some new people that are going to come in are going to get what you call ‘saddle sore’ and may not want to go out the next day or two and ride an ATV instead. Then hopefully we might pull some mountain bikers over to our lodging.”
Tim’s son, Scott Gebers, instructed the Arkansas Occasions that whilst they won’t be capable to get pleasure from the tax incentives, they do suppose they’re poised to get pleasure from cross-promotion of the motorbike park and the ATV trails. He stated they have been hoping to open a comfort and novelty retailer on their belongings quickly for vacationers.
The commercial alternative zone used to be expanded through regulation in 2025, and now stretches all of the method throughout northwest Mena to the purpose the place downtown intersects with Freeway 71. The zone comprises a lot of Mena’s iconic primary side road hall, Mena Side road, which already incorporates a large number of native companies and nonprofits like Skyline Cafe, The Ouachitas, Ouachita Little Theatre and Mena Artwork Gallery. However companies positioned within the southern a part of Mena, or perhaps a tactics south of town, can’t benefit from the incentives designed to inspire investments in tourist-oriented hospitality companies.
An aerial have a look at the commercial alternative zone (crimson) that stretches round Queen Wilhelmina State Park. The chance zone covers the northern part of Mena, together with a lot of the downtown house nearer to the mountains. (Credit score: Arkansas Place of job of Outside Tourism)
Any funding of a minimum of $150,000 in an out of doors sport orientated trade in that chance zone can qualify for a tax credit score of a minimum of 15% of the entire funding, in step with the Place of job of Outside Sport. So a brand new or increasing trade making the minimal funding may obtain money back of $22,500 from the state.
Two different native trade house owners, Jodi Abdo and Rhonda Tims, confirmed little enthusiasm for the tax incentives. Abdo is new to the group, and began working a cabin trade catering to the ATV crowd known as Naked Again Cabins. Tims is an established resident and a realtor and a landlord with a number of tenants.
In conjunction with the Gebers’, Abdo and Tims raised considerations about how town and area would take in and prosper from expanding tourism.
Abdo stated she didn’t suppose town used to be making ready to capitalize at the inflow, and he or she and Tims raised considerations that town isn’t capitalizing at the vacationers already coming in. Additionally they raised considerations about keeping up inexpensive housing within the house, each noting that even supposing Mena is an overly small the town, momentary leases have proliferated all the way through the downtown— as a snappy seek on AirBnB presentations. Quick-term leases are recognized to constrict the housing provide and force up hire prices for locals.
Mena has launched detailed imaginative and prescient plans for growing the downtown house and the remainder of town, and Mayor Smith, different public officers, and the native chamber of trade are operating to broaden utilities and infrastructure and set Mena on a trail to capitalize from the anticipated vacationer rush. Polk County lately voted to change into a rainy county in 2022, opening up a realm of latest companies that may produce and serve alcohol, like The Ouachitas.
Throughout the presentation, Smith spoke about more than a few infrastructure tasks town is operating to safe investment for, together with extra motorbike lanes and trails to glue more than a few portions of town, and upgrading water and sewer infrastructure.
“We are going to miss things, we are human, but we are trying to go over and do everything that we can to prepare for this,” Smith stated.Even nonetheless, whilst citizens like Abdo and the Gebers stay up for the advance, they may be able to’t lend a hand however be inquisitive about how town will organize all of the expansion. And whether or not giant tourist-oriented companies could possibly capitalize at the alternatives higher than they may be able to.
“It’s going to develop no matter what and it’s going to be a great thing,” Abdo stated. “But it’s not going to be a great thing for everybody. And not everybody survives during a big change like this. The larger view of the tourism already happening in this area – the motorcycles, hikers, kayakers, Wolfpen Gap area– there is already so much that is not getting utilized.”
