Eric Boen remembers when it used to be simple.
“The game has changed,” said Boen, a Fayetteville-based agent at Commercial Realty and founder of Boen Kemp Construction. “It went from what used to be Arkansas trying to get a Chick-fil-A to now there’s a lot of different things out there and so many different factors.”
Commercial real estate in Arkansas has become an ever-growing — and ever-changing — endeavor. While northwest and central Arkansas continue to serve as primary hubs of development, there are few places in the state without some form of commercial growth. For those in charge of making those real estate deals happen, 2026 is a mixed bag of positive indicators mixed with strong feelings that things could be even better.
“We’ve never been more optimistic about what’s ahead,” said Jerry Halsey, founder, president and CEO of Halsey Real Estate.
The numbers back that up. While office vacancies across the country hover right around 20 percent, vacancies in the northwest Arkansas region are holding at between 4 and 5 percent. Retail vacancies in the same area clock in closer to 3 percent, while similar vacancies in the state’s central region remain at about 5 percent. Industry has enjoyed a similar run, buoyed in part by the rapid growth of the steel industry in northeast Arkansas…