Building biz on the BRX

Building biz on the BRX

City looks to expand offerings for cycling tourists

news@theeveningtimes.com

What is next for the BRX?

The question echoing on the west side of the big river, from West Memphis to Marion and points in between goes like this: Now that the crossing will intersect with the riverside park and paths, what are bicycling tourists supposed to do spend time and money while in the county?

Government grants and private benefactors rallied around combined to build the $18 million Big River Crossing. The boardwalk on the north side of the Harahan Bridge offers pedestrians and cyclists views of river and train traffic, downtown Memphis along the Chickasaw Bluffs north to Mud Island and the Bass Pro Pyramid. It is the Main to Main project connection between the Memphis and West Memphis.

The bridge connects the Greenline bikeway from Shelby Farms in Memphis to the new cycling tour trails west of the river to the “Shelby Farms” of east Arkansas, The Delta Regional River Park.

Crittenden County is home for The Big River Trail, Delta River Regional Park and the Mississippi River Trail soon offering sights to attract visitors to linger longer on the Natural State side of the river. February figures showed a steady stream of 750 daily visitors which walked or rode across the BRX all winter long. As spring temperatures rise so do the hopes of some county business own- ers that have seen the new flow of cycling tourists.

While the BRX landing spirals down like a helix from a plaza “park in the sky” onto Crittenden County soil, the City of West Memphis has spear headed development for the Delta Regional River Park.

The new park will loop the land from the BRX past the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.

Paving the county roads with re-milled asphalt and cutting part of the path out of farm land were funded by $1.5 million of Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds matched with West Memphis Advertising and Promotion tourism tax funds. The development plan provides for parking, paving, portable toilets and way-finding stones set up on a circuit on the unprotected flood plane bottom land between the bridges.

After years of groundwork to gain right of way easements down county roads and through farm fields, West Memphis City Officials have focused exclusively on developing the infrastructure for new tourists to use.

“We have been up to our eyeballs with infrastructure development,” said Economic Development Director Philip Sorrell during an interview.

The building development isn’t limited to just the trail area. Sorrell doubles as a West Memphis School Board member and indicated pending approval State funds will help school district plans for a big new campus at an undetermined location on the east end of town. A new city library building is slated on East Broadway preserving an old law office and adding a modern edifice with new technology. Finally, the old Awesome water tower tank is scheduled for a $241,000 modern art facelift.

Tremendous public resources are being spent on infra structure development to spiffy up the first impression of the city, but none of those projects necessarily lend to the developing tourism spending from spinners biking Broadway. Now, business representatives have begun casting more far sighted visions.

Entrepreneurs and City Council representatives have seen the steady stream of brightly clad bicycling tourists. Councilman James Pulliaum and Willis Mondy asked the city to put the mothballed city street sweeper back on both East Broadway and the bike path to clear the way for improved first impressions for tourists peddling down the main street of town. For the sake of business, the West Memphis A& P funded a slick map vest pocket sized guide for BRX tourists listing all the restaurants and hotels in the city that collect its tourism tax. Public school buildings and neighborhood parks are the only other attractions on the exploration map produced through the West Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau chart.

So, what are cycle tourists supposed to do around here? It’s a big development already bringing tens of thousands of tourist to town.

According to Executive Director at Mississippi Trails inc., Terri Eastin, who peddled plans to develop the BRX and the Big River Trail (BRT), cycling tourism is a big business and booming. Statistics show cycling tourists travel through an area slower, stay longer, dine out more, are more affluent than most travelers and spend more money traveling.

Now local private initiative to capture BRX tourism dollars is simmering.

This article is the first in an open ended series examining the business opportunities and obstacles at hand in West Memphis, Marion and the county countryside in between, “Building Business on the BRX.”

By John Rech