Marketing College Hill

Marketing 363 at Texas A&M-Texarkana took up the issue of marketing College Hill tonight. Dr. Bob Owen opened the class up to the public for tonight's class, which included the final performance for oral presentations. Here is a summary of the class project.

For those of you outside of Texarkana and unfamiliar with College Hill, it is an area of neighborhoods in the southern portion of Texarkana, Arkansas. Once a prominent area of the original city, it has lagged behind other parts of Texarkana as far as growth and attracting new businesses. Many parts of College Hill have fallen in disrepair, and property values have remained stagnant (at best). However, the area is on the verge of hitting it big with the construction of Loop 245 and Ark. 549 (eventually I-49) bordering the neighborhood to the east.


All of the students presented a great analysis of the area. The class split into three different teams, each of which gave its own presentation. The consensus seems to be that based on the available land and workforce, combined with the new and proposed highways (and other infrastructure), the area is primed to accommodate industrial-type development, so long as it can overcome the negative perception many have of the area. The City, Chamber, the Southwest Arkansas Planning & Development District, and AEDC can assist there. There are also the border city considerations and the tax structure between the two states that will play a role in attracting economic development to College Hill vs. other neighborhoods on both sides of the state line (workforce is rarely a consideration between choosing Arkansas vs. Texas since businesses draw from the same pool).

Loop 245 through College Hill is unlikely to be able to compete with the I-30 area of the city (especially west of Summerhill Road) for retail and restaurants, but there are few places in the region that will be as attractive as far as being centrally located for industry in the hub of numerous transportation resources, including a major east-west interstate (I-30), a major north-south interstate (I-49), a NAFTA corridor (I-69), a regional airport, rail (including a potential high speed rail system at some point), and future river transportation once the Red River Navigational Project makes it north from Shreveport/Bossier into Arkansas. Dr. Owen referred to College Hill as the most strategically located neighborhood to be able to take advantage of all of these resources and the opportunities at hand.

It was an exciting class, and I'm glad to see such an in-depth study of the area. While much of the Arkansas-side's focus is developing the areas along Interstate 30, the new future city manager will have a few good presentations to review to see the potential of College Hill.