# Conway Development Corporation The Conway Development Corporation (CDC) is Conway's nonprofit economic-development corporation — the operational arm coordinating with prospective industrial recruits and a member of the City Council's Economic Development Committee alongside the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, the Conway Downtown Partnership, and Conway Corporation. CDC is the **primary developer-side coordinator on Project Stratus**, with [[Jamie Gates]] and [[Corey Parks]] running point on the project's interaction with the City. CDC also holds adjacent parcels in the Lollie Road area that flank the [[Stratus Vesting Deed (Adams)|Adams Property]] rezone (DB 2003 P 20243; DB 2012 P 1063) — pre-existing land-banking that became visible when the annexation and rezone ordinance descriptions were recorded. ## Roles in this corpus - **Developer-side coordinator on Project Stratus.** [[Jamie Gates]] presented the project to City Council on April 1, 2025 ([[2025-04 Conway City Council Approves Project Stratus MOU]]) and on April 22, 2025 ([[2025-04 Conway City Council Adopts O-25-37 O-25-38 and O-25-39]]); both meetings record Gates speaking as a CDC representative. [[Corey Parks]] coordinated the [[Project Stratus Permits Sequencing and Stormwater|permits matrix and stormwater design]] discussions. - **Adjacent landowner of record.** The [[Annexation Ordinance O-25-37 (Lollie Rd)|Ordinance O-25-37]] legal description references "the CONWAY DEVELOPMENT PROPERTY RECORDED IN DEED BOOK 2012, PAGE 1063" as a boundary marker (the parcel sits west of the Adams Property in Section 19). The [[Rezone Ordinance O-25-39 and REZ-0425-0052|Ordinance O-25-39]] description references two more CDC parcels recorded in DB 2003 P 20243 flanking the rezone area on the west and southwest. The pre-existing CDC land-banking pattern is visible in the boundary descriptions. - **Staff-internal characterization of the rezone as "CDC's."** The [[Conway Internal Staff Teams Chats on Project Stratus|April 9 Planning Department Teams chat]] labels REZ-0425-0052 as "**CDC rezone +160 acres on Lollie Rd**" — staff treated CDC as the rezone party even though the case-cover applicant of record is the landowner John William Adams. - **Economic Development Committee member.** Per the standing committees listed in the [[2025-04 Conway City Council Approves Project Stratus MOU|April 1 special meeting]]: "Economic Development Committee (Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, Conway Development Corporation, Conway Downtown Partnership, & Conway Corporation)" — a Conway-specific institutional structure where four nominally distinct organizations share a single Council committee for economic-development matters. ## People - [[Jamie Gates]] — Conway Area Chamber of Commerce / Conway Development Corporation; primary developer-side spokesperson to City Council on Project Stratus. Email: `[email protected]` (note `.org`, distinct from city `.gov`). - [[Corey Parks]] — Chief Economic Development Officer, Conway Development Corporation / Conway Area Chamber of Commerce; primary developer-side coordinator on Stratus permits, stormwater, decision-matrix work **and the utility / cooling-water track** — he convened the [[Project Stratus Utilities Meetings and Site Visit|October 2, 2024 utilities site visit]] and transmitted the [[Black & Veatch Effluent-Cooling Engineering for Project Stratus|TBWWTP Evaluation Reimbursement Agreement]] to [[Conway Corporation]]. Email: `[email protected]`. - [[Brad Lacy]] — Conway Area Chamber of Commerce; presented the MOU to Council on April 1, 2025. Email: `[email protected]`. - [[Jenifer Kendrick]] — **General Counsel, Conway Development Corporation**; applicant of record on the [[Rezone Ordinance O-25-39 and REZ-0425-0052|REZ-0425-0052]] rezone and an attendee of the October 2, 2024 Project Stratus utilities site visit. Email: `[email protected]`. ## Notes CDC's institutional identity overlaps significantly with the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce — staff hold roles in both, and email signatures often cite both organizations together. The two orgs are nonetheless legally distinct: CDC is a separate Arkansas nonprofit corporation focused on industrial/commercial recruitment; the Chamber is the broader business-membership organization. Together they comprise the "developer-facing" institutional cluster on Project Stratus. The Conway Development Corporation's parcel holdings in DB 2003 P 20243 (two separately-described parcels) and DB 2012 P 1063 in the Lollie Road area predate Project Stratus by years. The 2003 and 2012 acquisition dates suggest CDC was assembling industrial-ready land in advance of any specific tenant — typical economic-development practice. The MOU's "prospective site" and Gates's April 22 statement that "by annexing and rezoning it would eliminate the A-1 island and create a contiguous I-3 development to site plan around which would create control over the entire development of the area" both reflect CDC's role as land-assembler. Whether CDC, as a private nonprofit, is itself within the Arkansas FOIA's reach under § 25-19-103 (covering "public records" and the definition's reach to nominally-private entities supported substantially by public funds) is a question raised by Joshua's FOIAs but not adjudicated. The City Clerk's no-records letter ([[City of Conway FOIA-2026-126 Cover and No-Response Letter]]) treats CDC's records as outside the City's custodianship — implying the FOIA reach question would have to be tested directly against CDC. The corporate entity's Arkansas Secretary of State registration status (filing number, registered agent, organizational history) has not been web-archived for this wiki and is a follow-on Tier-2 retrieval target.