Midtown Real Estate

What makes Midtown special

Where is Midtown, and what does it feel like?

Midtown is the middle of Little Rock in the plain sense: the neighborhoods around University Avenue and West Markham Street, south of Hillcrest and the Heights, north of I-630, running west toward Rodney Parham Road. The city gave the name a legal footprint in December 2003, when the Midtown Advisory Board defined a Midtown Redevelopment District between I-630 and Father Tribou Street from McKinley Street east to University, plus the blocks between Lee Avenue and Markham from University east to Fillmore. That is the retail core. Most people use the name for the subdivisions around it too: Briarwood south of Markham, Leawood to the northwest, Broadmoor south of I-630, and Fair Park and the War Memorial Park streets to the east.

It feels different from Hillcrest one ridge north. Streets curve, houses sit low and wide on deep lots, carports and brick are the norm, and shopping is a short drive rather than a walk. In exchange you get space, a driveway, and the hospitals, War Memorial Park and the Little Rock Zoo inside or beside the neighborhood.

What do Midtown's houses actually look like?

This is Little Rock's postwar suburb, and one developer shaped much of it. Fausett and Company began Broadmoor in June 1953 and built roughly 500 houses by 1957 on lots averaging 70 feet wide and up to 300 feet deep. The National Register study for the neighborhood found every house was a form of the Ranch, all brick-clad, with an integral carport that organizes the lot; the Broadmoor Neighborhood Historic District was listed on January 7, 2022, with 458 of 559 buildings contributing. Fausett started Briarwood, west of University between Markham and I-630, in 1958 and advertised it as the largest all-gas subdivision in the country.

The pattern repeats across Midtown: one-story brick ranches from the mid 1950s into the 1970s, low roofs, carports, and trees now the size of the house. Lots are bigger than Hillcrest's and plans easier to open up; ceilings are lower than West Little Rock's. Apartment buildings cluster along South University and South Rodney Parham, where the county address file shows several hundred unit addresses, and Park Avenue Lofts sit inside the Park Avenue center.

What a 1950s ranch needs

Buy with a good inspection. The common items are galvanized supply lines and cast-iron or clay sewer laterals under a slab or shallow crawlspace, so run a sewer camera; a panel that may not have been replaced, with aluminum branch wiring worth checking on a late-1960s house; single-pane windows; and low-pitch roof sections. The National Register survey found the most common change in Broadmoor was enclosing the carport, worth knowing when a room sits a step lower than the rest. Any pre-1978 home carries the federal lead-paint disclosure and a 10-day inspection window.

Which schools serve Midtown? The address-specific answer

Midtown is inside the Little Rock School District, and no single school serves it. We pulled the district's posted attendance maps and the zone-block layer behind its address lookup, maintained by Pulaski Area GIS, and compared them block by block.

Elementary, where both sources agree, splits four ways. North of Markham, from the War Memorial Park streets (B and C streets, Lee Avenue, the Taylor through Fillmore blocks) west across University to Mississippi Street (North McKinley, Father Tribou, Ridgecrest, Mellon, Bryan, Coolidge, Shamrock, Amherst), the zone is Pulaski Heights Elementary at 319 North Pine Street. South of Markham it is Stephens Elementary at 3700 West 18th Street: most of Briarwood from about the 6100 to the 7500 block (Nottingham, Bobwhite, Blue Bird, Chickadee, Sandpiper, Marguerite), Midtown and District avenues, South University from Markham to I-630, the Fair Park blocks of West 8th through 12th east of University, and the Arthur, Shirley and Sherry pocket between I-630 and West 12th. West of about the 7600 block, including South Rodney Parham, Briarwood Circle, Hiawatha and Cherokee Circle, it is McDermott Elementary at 1200 Reservoir Road. North of Evergreen Drive (Pine Manor, Shannon, Normandy) it is Forest Park Elementary at 1600 North Tyler Street. Broadmoor, south of West 12th, is a fifth answer: Bale Elementary.

High school is consistent between the sources: Little Rock Central High School at 1500 Little Rock Nine Way for everything north of I-630 and the Fair Park blocks, and Little Rock Southwest High School at 9715 Mabelvale Pike for Broadmoor and the Arthur, Shirley and Sherry pocket.

The middle school line is genuinely unresolved

The posted middle school map, dated February 27, 2024, colors every zone block west of University Avenue, from I-630 north to Evergreen and including Briarwood, the Park Avenue blocks and Broadmoor, as the J.A. Fair zone, and does the same for the Fair Park blocks between University and about Harrison Street south of 13th. The GIS table behind the district's address lookup assigns those same blocks differently: Pulaski Heights Middle School at 401 North Pine Street for the blocks west of University as far as Reservoir Road and John Barrow Road, and Dunbar Magnet Middle School at 1100 Wright Avenue for Broadmoor and the University-to-Harrison blocks. The sources agree only east of University: Pulaski Heights Middle north of 13th, Dunbar east of Harrison south of it.

That matters because J.A. Fair is now J.A. Fair K-8 Preparatory School at 13420 David O. Dodd Road, far to the southwest, while Pulaski Heights Middle is in Hillcrest. We are not going to pick one for you. For a Midtown address west of University or south of 13th, the only reliable answer is LRSD Student Registration at (501) 447-2950, in writing. Send us the address and we will make the call with you.

What changed in 2026, and what is still coming

On August 27, 2026 the Little Rock School Board approved new high school zones (Map 3.5) for Little Rock West High School at 5619 Ranch Drive, opening fall 2027. The areas moved were John Barrow, River Ridge and Robinwood; the John Barrow area along Kanis Road at Midtown's western edge moves from Southwest to West, and nothing in the reporting moves the Central-zoned Midtown blocks. The district said elementary and middle boundaries are a separate issue.

Separately, the LRSD Forward plan released September 4, 2026 recommends closing Western Hills, Mabelvale and McDermott elementary schools, with changes that could begin in 2027-28. McDermott serves the western end of Briarwood and Leawood. The plan goes to the board in October and had not been voted on as of mid-September.

How do you get around, and how close is the medical district?

Measured by road from Markham and University: the I-630 ramp at University is about 0.5 mile, CHI St. Vincent Infirmary and War Memorial Stadium each about 1 mile, UAMS about 1.5 miles, I-430 at Rodney Parham about 3.5 miles, the State Capitol and Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock each about 4 miles, the I-30 and I-630 interchange about 4.5 miles, the River Market about 5.5 miles, and Clinton National Airport about 9 miles.

The hospitals are why rental demand here is steady. UAMS at 4301 West Markham employs more than 12,000 people, is the state's largest public employer and trains more than 900 residents and fellows. CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, founded in 1888, is at 2 St. Vincent Circle off Markham; the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans' Hospital is at 4300 West 7th Street; Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, 827 licensed beds, is at 9601 Baptist Health Drive on the west edge. Residents and traveling clinicians rotate through on short timelines and want a house or duplex close to Markham. We do not quote rents here; we pull comparables for a specific street.

Parks, shopping and daily life on University Avenue

War Memorial Park at 5101 West Markham is 117 acres, the city's regional park in the middle of town. It began as the Arkansas State Fairgrounds in 1868, was redesigned as Fair Park in 1924 by the Chicago landscape firm Pearse and Robinson, and was renamed in 1948 after the stadium was built. The city closed the golf course in 2019, citing declining play, and the former course is now natural open space with walking trails, a natural play area, a splash pad, a pavilion and disc golf along Coleman Creek. The park's master plan proposes pickleball, a mountain bike area, a dog park, an amphitheater lawn and stream restoration; treat those as plans until built. The Little Rock Zoo at 1 Zoo Drive is inside the park.

University at Markham is the retail center of the city's middle. Park Plaza at 6000 West Markham, anchored by Dillard's, is open. Midtowne Little Rock at 201 North University opened in 2006; its directory lists The Container Store, Ulta Beauty, J.Crew Factory, Big Orange and Cantina Laredo among others. Across Markham, Park Avenue at 400 South University replaced University Mall, the state's first enclosed mall, which opened in 1967 and closed in 2007; its tenants today include Target, Five Below, Esporta Fitness, Cheddar's and Newk's. The southern portion, The District at Midtown at 500 South University, was still mostly undeveloped in the city's December 2021 planning write-up.

Midtown has associations rather than one HOA. The Broadmoor Property Owners Association dates to 1954 and built its pool in 1972. The Leawood Property Owners Association, founded in 1968, runs the membership Leawood Pool at 8723 Evergreen Drive, open to non-residents. The Briarwood Area Neighborhood Association has a Facebook group; its old website is offline.

What does it cost to own in Midtown beyond the mortgage?

Property tax in Arkansas is figured on assessed value, which the Pulaski County Assessor sets at 20 percent of market value, times the local millage. Owner-occupants who register a homestead get a credit of up to $600, and owners 65 or older or disabled can freeze the assessed value. We do not quote a tax figure; the assessor's parcel record is the only honest source.

Most Midtown subdivisions have no mandatory HOA; Broadmoor and Leawood have voluntary owners associations with pool memberships, and Park Avenue Lofts and the condo pockets near the hospitals carry dues we pull from the association documents. Flood status matters here more than in Hillcrest. The FEMA panels covering Midtown became effective June 7, 2019, and they include AE zones and floodways along Coleman Creek through War Memorial Park and south along University, and along Rock Creek, which runs from Markham near Rodney Parham south through Briarwood and Boyle Park to the west side of Broadmoor. Most lots are Zone X, but check every address at msc.fema.gov.

Zoning is the other caveat for buyers counting on rental income. Unless a parcel already carries a two-family or multifamily classification, a duplex is not available by right; in Little Rock a duplex belongs in the R-4 Two-Family District, and converting a house means a rezoning or planned-development case before the Planning Commission. Non-owner-occupied short-term rentals (STR-2) have required planned-development approval under the city's June 20, 2023 ordinance. Arkansas Act 313 of 2025 requires cities to allow one accessory dwelling unit by right on a single-family lot, capped in the ordinance on the city board's August 19, 2025 agenda at 75 percent of the main house or 1,000 square feet. Call Little Rock Planning and Development for the zoning of a specific parcel.

Buying and selling in Midtown with the Rackley Team

Buyers here are usually weighing a Midtown ranch against a smaller Hillcrest bungalow or a newer house farther west, so the work is showing you that trade honestly, reading a 1950s house for what has and has not been updated, and confirming the elementary zone, the middle school answer, the flood panel and the zoning before the offer.

For sellers, three buyer pools look at the same house: medical families, first-time buyers priced out of Hillcrest, and investors. We price to the subdivision, document every update, and market to the buyers already searching Midtown and UAMS by name. Chase Rackley, Principal Broker, Rackley Realty, (501) 519-4889.

Midtown questions, answered

• What school is my address zoned for?
• Hillcrest
• The Heights
• Downtown Little Rock
• First-time home buyer guide for Central Arkansas
• Search homes

Ready to make a move in Midtown? Call or text the Rackley Team at (501) 519-4889. Let's do the deal.