Sharon Priest, longtime executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, will retire at the end of January, the organization announced Monday.
Priest, 67, has been the executive director of the partnership since 2003. Before that, she served from 1995 to 2003 as the Arkansas secretary of state -- the first woman elected to that position. She also was the second woman to be elected as mayor of Little Rock, a job she began in 1991.
She said Monday that she's retiring after what will be 12 years with the Downtown Little Rock Partnership so that she can focus on spending time with her family and doing all the things on her bucket list that she's put off for so long.
"I've been thinking about this for a while," she said in an interview shortly after the announcement was made. "In fact, I just pulled out a list of notes I had worked on for a transition that I started in 2013, so I've been contemplating this for a while. My husband has been retired for 13 years. He's 83. I've spent a lot of time in service, and so now it's time for me to devote more time to my family."
The news release announcing Priest's retirement touted her many accomplishments as executive director. She reorganized the partnership when she started there, including redoing the employee handbook and several policies. She also facilitated the move of the partnership's office from Capitol Avenue to Main Street.
Since then, Priest and the partnership have played a key role in the revitalization of downtown Main Street. The Main Street Food Truck Festival started under Priest's leadership in 2011.
She said in an interview Monday that her retirement will not affect the outcome of the proposed Main Street Design Overlay District that a subcommittee of the partnership revealed publicly last week. She added that she doubts the proposal will move forward at this time based on the feedback received but that it is not her decision to make.
The design overlay district would would impose several zoning regulations for development. Developers and other downtown stakeholders said at last week's meeting that the regulations were too restrictive.
Priest said in Monday's news release that she is most proud of the improvements made to MacArthur Park through the MacArthur Park Group that she facilitated. The grassroots organization of public and private stakeholders developed an award-winning MacArthur Park master plan. Last year, the first dog park in downtown Little Rock opened there -- the MacArthur Unleashed Dog Park.
"Downtown is an exciting place to love, work, play and invest. The growth we have seen is the tip of the iceberg and the future is bright," Priest said.
"I hope that everyone will continue to enjoy and work toward future successes."
The Downtown Little Rock Partnership's board of directors will begin searching for a new executive director immediately.
Board President Susie Smith said the partnership has seen "tremendous growth for downtown" under Priest's leadership and that she has "set the bar high for the next director."
Priest has been well known and received numerous accolades during her career. She was honored with the Merit Award from the American Institute of Architects Arkansas Chapter in 2010.
She was the 2012 recipient of the Sandra Wilson Cherry Award for excellence in public service.
She said she still wants to be involved in Little Rock and downtown but isn't sure in what role yet.
"I don't want to fade away. I don't want to disappear. I still want to be involved doing something, just not full time," she said.
"Hopefully, there's volunteer work that I might be interested in doing. I don't want to pile myself up right from the beginning."
While her weekends have been spent doing yard and housework that she didn't have time to do during the week, she hopes they will now be spent doing more "fun things" with her two grandchildren, ages 4 and 6. Before "she gets too old and while they are still young," she wants to take them to Europe, she said.
Born in Montreal, Priest spent the first 27 years of her life in Canada. Now, she'll have more time to visit brothers, sisters and other family members there, she said.
Priest started her work with the city as an appointee to the Little Rock City Beautiful Commission. She then challenged an incumbent city director and won a seat on the Little Rock Board of Directors in 1986, going on to be named vice mayor in 1989.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola said Priest has been downtown's great cheerleader. The two have worked together in many endeavors campaigning for downtown and the Main Street Creative Corridor.
"There's been an evolution over her last 12 years in terms of development activity of Main Street," Stodola said.
"Property values have increased dramatically. The kind of activities that are bringing people downtown I think are in large part due to her leadership and activities that have been promoted through the Downtown Little Rock Partnership."
Metro on 12/09/2014