# 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 SoS registration was retrieved 2026-06-03: **Conway Development Corporation, Filing # 100013091**, a **nonprofit corporation under Act 176 of 1963**, in **Good Standing** (Conway, AR) — with registered agent / CEO [[Brad Lacy]] (900 Oak St, Conway), directors **Jerry Adams, Johnny Adams, [[Mark Ferguson]], and William Adkisson**, and CFO Laura Grimes per the registry. (Filing number, exact name, and Good-Standing status were confirmed live against the SoS portal on 2026-06-03; the officer/director detail is from the same 2026-06-03 SoS retrieval pass.) The shared **"Adams" surname** between two CDC directors and the [[Rezone Ordinance O-25-39 and REZ-0425-0052|rezone landowner-applicant John William Adams]] is **flagged, not asserted** — no kinship is established on this record. [[Mark Ferguson]] is also a Conway Planning Commissioner.