Conway, AR: City of Construction

UCA's new Health Sciences building.

It started with good news. The city of Conway announced they would resurface Donaghey Avenue starting in the Summer of 2019. This road desperately needed it, so I, as a resident of Conway who drives this road frequently, was excited to come back next semester to a road not filled with potholes.
I was naive.
As it turns out, in order for Donaghey to be resurfaced, Conway Corp would have to dig up basically the entire road little by little and replace underground pipes before the resurfacing could begin.
Admittedly I don’t know if that process started in summer of 2019 or not, I was in Thailand in that summer, so I had no idea what happened in Conway (except for the UCA library sign controversy. Somehow that news managed to be heard on the other side of the globe), but when I returned the next semester, I was very much disappointed.
Not only was the road just as terrible as it has always been, but Conway Corp was doing their digging right in front of the apartment complex where I live.
Dirt. Everywhere. No grass. No flowers. No beauty. No peace. Only dirt and loud construction noises right outside my front door when I was trying to sleep.
Not cool bro.
Eventually Conway Corp stopped digging but they didn’t clean their mess. To this day it’s still a dirty mess where there’s constant surveying and other business that I have no clue what is happening. I feel like they’re just doing construction for the sake of construction.
It wasn’t just Conway Corp on Donaghey avenue, however. Everyone and their mother decided to start constructing things at the same time. UCA started a health sciences building (announcement source), As well as several fraternity and sorority buildings, Conway Regional Health Center began to expand their campus. Chi Alpha campus ministry started its own new building. Conway resurfaced College Avenue (without properly repainting the lines), an apartment complex started a construction project, and all the while Conway Corp and AT&T are digging up pretty much every road and parking lot they can think of (at least it feels that way). UCA’s new, giant $40M arts building, the new parking lots that will need to be paved, and Baptist Collegiate Ministry’s new building haven’t even started yet. But they’re coming soon.
I’m convinced that the 1 square mile around UCA has the most dense population of construction equipment in the state of Arkansas.
at this point you’re probably thinking “what is the point of this? This is just a long-winded complaint Against Conway's lack of organization!”, which is partially correct, but there’s more to it.
While what we’re seeing in Conway is in the literal sense a rapid expansion of a college campus and all that comes with it (as well as a hospital), we’re also seeing the start of something new. Something beautiful even.
The UCA and Conway that I walked into my freshman year in 2017 is not the same UCA and Conway that the high school class of 2020 will walk into. We’re seeing a process of change, growth, and building in the process.
The process is annoying and inconvenient at first, in the end, we’re going to see growth and new beauty. Sometimes it takes some pruning of old things to create something even greater and better. And even though the process may be annoying, inconvenient, and painful at first, in the end, we’ll see something greater and better.
I think it’s worth it.

source: the log cabin democrat

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