Real estate and construction founders in Northwest Arkansas

Real estate is the part of the Northwest Arkansas economy you can see from the road. The region has been building housing, retail, office and industrial space for two decades straight, I-49 keeps pulling development north and south along its interchanges, and the downtowns of Fayetteville, Bentonville and Rogers have each been rebuilt around walkability. Nine conversations make this the show's joint second-largest industry group, and between them they cover the whole chain: land, capital, design, construction, brokerage and closing.

Brokerage is covered on both sides of the market. Marshall Saviers leads Cushman & Wakefield | Sage Partners, a sponsor of this show, from Rogers. It's a commercial firm with more than 50 employees that manages about four million square feet, and it joined the Cushman & Wakefield alliance in 2018. Clinton Bennett left CBRE to co-found Focus Commercial Real Estate, which after a May 2025 merger runs 16 people, 11 of them brokers. On the residential side, Stuart Collier grew Collier and Associates from two people to 250 agents across four offices in about ten years, and calls it the largest independently owned brokerage in the state.

Each developer takes a different approach. Ward Davis and Jason Keathley of High Street Real Estate and Development build walkable mixed-use projects, including Drake Farms, Johnson Square and the 1907 Building. Jeremy Hudson's Specialized Real Estate Group has more than 1.3 million square feet of LEED-registered multifamily to its name, and Hudson was named to the Urban Land Institute's 40 Under 40 in 2014. T.J. Lefler left brokerage to form Lefler Capital in September 2021 and put together about 30 properties worth more than $250 million in under five years. On the design and building side, Marlon Blackwell founded his Fayetteville practice in 1990 and leads Marlon Blackwell Architects with Ati Blackwell. The practice has won more than 120 national awards, and he received the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 2020. David Harris has built custom homes in Rogers since June 1994, about 25 houses a year, and Blake Hanby founded City Title in Fayetteville in April 2011 and now closes transactions from two offices.

These conversations are about how a boom actually gets paid for and built. The brokers walk through what tenants and buyers are asking for and what pricing is doing. The developers explain how a project goes from a piece of dirt to a signed lease, and where the money comes from at each step. Harris explains the builder's side, where a growth market means competing for subcontractors as hard as for lots. Hanby explains closings, the part of the process everybody goes through and almost nobody understands. The nine conversations below run newest first.