Creative Placemaking: A New Approach to Arkansas Real Estate Development

Creativity and commerciality don’t make for the most obvious bedfellows, but developers across the state are realizing the two concepts can, and should, go hand-in-hand.

Placemaking is an approach to development, design and architecture that seeks to emphasize the natural, historic or potential character of the development’s location.

“The world is full of space, but not all the space is a place. Place has to do with human beings, things that accommodate human beings. Places are spaces that encourage human activity,” said Dayton Castleman, director of creative placemaking at Rogers-based Verdant Studio.

Castleman, since 2022, has led a program called Art in Place, originally a grant-funded Urban Land Institute initiative. Aimed at facilitating creative placemaking within commercial developments, the program is now being continued through ULI’s Northwest Arkansas district council.

“Creative placemaking is where you build placemaking strategies on the backbone of arts and culture, with art and design at the forefront,” he said. “It’s a strategy that places arts and culture at the vanguard of decision-making when it comes to ‘how are we going to get people here.’”

Public art installations, thoughtful design and a community-centered approach to development are the cornerstones of creative placemaking, Castleman said. Crystal Bridges and The Momentary in Bentonville, he said, are some of Arkansas’ most conspicuous examples of developments that put arts at the forefront during the design process.

“With Crystal Bridges, it was a facelift of the entire region that’s extraordinary and highly uncommon, and because of it, I think … developers recognized that this was an effective strategy for absorption, figuring out how to make people actually want to be there,” Castleman said. “It went beyond the practical into something that felt like an opportunity to improve quality of life.”

Through Art in Place, Castleman works with commercial real estate professionals – from developers and architects to brokers and investors – to demonstrate the importance and feasibility of creative placemaking. He is the intermediary between the industry and artists trying to break into the commercial sphere.

“I look at how we can give developers better tools to connect with artists, and for artists, to better understand what the potential outlets are for their creative processes,” he said.

The Art in Place program provides workshops and networking opportunities to artists and real estate developers, providing expert perspectives and connecting these two disparate communities.

“In 2025, we’ll be hosting and producing a series of gatherings that will have content shaped around addressing some of the things we’re discovering about what are sticking points for real estate developers and what are the sticking points for artists, as well as some professional practices specific to real estate artists,” Castleman said.

Castleman said he hopes art in public and commercial space catches on, and that artists can keep up.

“The way an object in the middle of an open space does something to that space – it can turn it into something closer to circulation, create a center; all kinds of things happen when objects are introduced into the space,” Castleman said. “Developers have to stop wondering if it’s going to help and start hoping and swinging the bat, because there’s a reason why we’re having the conversation, and there’s a reason it costs money.”

“For artists, if you can empower the developer – well, you have a very powerful relationship at your disposal.”