Move to White Hall works for clothier

David Maddox opened his Fathers and Sons Clothier business in The Pines mall in 1997. That suited him just fine at the time.

“It was like a baby taking his first steps,” he said of his then-fledgling business. “I didn’t have to be responsible for bringing traffic to my door. The mall did that. It was a feeder system. People walking down the mall would say, ‘Oh, hey, let’s go in there.'”

But after a few years, when national retail businesses started moving out of the mall, Maddox said he could see “the ripple effect.”

“Walmart had closed, and it was just a matter of time,” he said. “I saw the handwriting on the wall.”

So in 2005, he moved his specialty men’s clothing store to Jefferson Square Shopping Center.

That transition was scary, Maddox said. Suddenly, the foot traffic that he was accustomed to always being there suddenly wasn’t.

“Now, people had to make an effort to come see me,” he said.

By then, however, Maddox had built up a loyal following, so the foot traffic continued.

“We rocked along really well,” he said. “I made a few renovations to the store. We were in a good place.”

Then, in March 2024, the phone rang. It was the on-site manager of the shopping center, which is operated by AlbaneseCormier Holdings LLC, a commercial real estate and property management company out of Beaumont, Texas.

“He said there was some kind of medical facility expressing interest in locating to Jefferson Square and start an operation,” Maddox said. “The problem was they needed quite a bit of room, and because there was a vacant space on either side of me, they wanted all three spaces, mine included. I was disheartened to hear the news.” (See related story on Archwell Health.)

Maddox said the manager offered to move him to a smaller space in another part of the shopping center, but that spot was less visible and needed a lot of renovating — and the clock was ticking.

“They told me in March that I had to be out by May 1,” Maddox said. “That didn’t leave a lot of time for any extra work.”

At that point, Maddox said, his Plan B became his Plan A. He said one of his customers had suggested to him that he put in a second location in White Hall in the Woodlands Plaza along the busy Sheridan Road thoroughfare. Maddox said he had been rolling that thought around for awhile, and the idea came to the fore when he realized the storefront he had occupied for almost 20 years was soon not going to be his.

With no other viable places to move into in Pine Bluff, meaning no locations where he could plug in quickly, he made contact with Woodlands Plaza.

“They were very accommodating,” he said, pausing to handle a customer who was dropping off a rented tuxedo. “They took care of all the build-out and created a dressing room and walled-off area where I could continue handling the UPS dropoffs for shipping. It’s been great.”

The new location actually works in Maddox’s favor. He said he has quite a bit of business that comes down from the Little Rock and North Little Rock area and being at Exit 34 on Interstate 530 makes the trip that much easier for those customers. He was also able to put a sign on the door of his old business location at Jefferson Square telling customers where he is now located.

“So that, with social media, I think most of my customers know where I am and feel comfortable coming to the new location,” he said. “But now I have an opportunity to open up a whole new customer base.”

As for leaving Pine Bluff, it was difficult.

“A lot of people said they hated to see us go,” he said. “I hated to go, too. I am forever grateful for the opportunity that Pine Bluff has afforded me. I was born and raised in Pine Bluff, and everyone has been so nice. But we just could not find anything that didn’t require a major renovation.”

And being in White Hall?

“It’s a small town and has a real laid-back atmosphere,” Maddox said. “This is a busy shopping center as well. There was an empty storefront a couple of doors down and in no time, another business has moved in.”

Maddox said he also got a shoutout from White Hall Mayor Noel Foster, who welcomed him to White Hall and told him to call him on his cellphone if he ever needed anything.

As Foster tells the story, he was in City Hall when Maddox came in to get his business license. Someone told him Maddox was in the building.

“I went to meet him,” Foster said. “We had a very pleasant visit. I thanked him for bringing his business here and gave him my number. I’m not the mayor of a big city. I do that for everyone. I’m pretty accessible.”

Foster, sensitive to the perception that some have that any advances White Hall makes are at Pine Bluff’s expense, added that he did not recruit Maddox to White Hall.

“White Hall needs Pine Bluff and Pine Bluff needs White Hall,” he said. “We have some commercial growth and some residential growth, and I’m very thankful for that. But this is not a competition.”