Bentonville led the fourth-quarter 2015 rankings and Rogers surged to the top of the December 2015 rankings on the Arkansas Tech Business Index, a project created by the Arkansas Tech University College of Business and sponsored by Arvest Bank.
Bentonville had at ATBI rating of 106.93 for the last quarter of 2015, placing it just ahead of its neighbors in Fayetteville (2nd, 106.37), Rogers (3rd, 106.21) and Springdale (4th, 104.75).
“It is reassuring to see that Northwest Arkansas continues to perform highly on the index,” said Craig Rivaldo, president and chief executive officer of Arvest Bank in Benton County. “We certainly see the economic activity around us in the form of commercial and residential building, along with a strong small business market that is growing and evolving.”
The ATBI is a comprehensive measure that provides a snapshot of economic activity around the Natural State.
It encompasses a labor index, housing market index, construction index and retail sales index. The index is based around 100. A city rating above 100 indicates that the city is currently doing better than the state average from 2009 to the present.
Fort Smith (5th, 104.14), Conway (6th, 102.27), Hot Springs (7th, 100.41) and Mountain Home (8th, 100.28) also completed fourth quarter 2015 above 100.
Van Buren (9th, 99.63), Russellville (10th, 98.79), Searcy (11th, 98.50), North Little Rock (12th, 97.84), Jonesboro (13th, 97.64), West Memphis (14th, 97.13), Texarkana (15th, 96.62), El Dorado (16th, 95.85), Little Rock (17th, 95.54) and Pine Bluff (18th, 93.37) rounded out the ATBI ratings for the final quarter of 2015.
“We are encouraged by what we are seeing in both the residential and commercial real estate markets in Pulaski County, especially North Little Rock,” said John Womack, chief executive officer of Arvest Central Arkansas. “Continued progressive growth in both Faulkner and Garland counties also echoes our findings during the last several quarters of the survey.”
Fourteen of the 18 cities on the index increased their ATBI rating from third quarter 2015 to fourth quarter 2015.
Rogers led the December 2015 ATBI with a monthly rating of 108.60. It marks the first time in the 24-month history of the ATBI that Rogers has finished a month with the highest rating among the 18 municipalities tracked by the index.
“Their number embodies strength across the board,” said Dr. Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech and developer of the ATBI, concerning Rogers’ monthly rating. “Their retail sector showed strength at 116.84 on sales of $3.4 million. The housing market showed strength at 112.90 on 483 home unit sales. The labor market showed strength on an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent.”
Fort Smith made the biggest move forward in the monthly ATBI, increasing its rating by 3.81 points to 106.18 for December 2015. Fusaro attributed Fort Smith’s increase to $4.3 million in retail sales during the month, compared to $3.5 million in November 2015 and $2.5 million in September 2015.
In comparing year-over-year numbers, Fusaro pointed to Conway and West Memphis as the two biggest advancers on the ATBI when evaluating December 2015 against December 2014.
“Conway ended the year 1.89 points above December 2014 and West Memphis was up 1.54 points for the same period,” said Fusaro. “In Conway, this movement is due to improvements in the home prices and commercial construction components. In West Memphis, the improvement is primarily due to a rise in the unemployment component index from 71 to 99 on a drop in the unemployment rate from 7.9 percent to 5.2 percent.”
Visit www.atu.edu/atbi to access the data used to develop the ATBI.
