Southern Bancorp has distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in downtown renewal grants, startup funding and low-interest loans this year in Helena-West Helena, Ark. Matt Inman, a 27-year-old native of the town, lives in a downtown apartment above a 1,900-square-foot retail space that he renovated last year and hopes to market as a coffee shop or restaurant location. Since finishing that building, Southern has provided Inman financing to purchase two additional downtown properties which he plans to turn into retail and residential space. Brooke Gerber, project consultant at Southern Bancorp, says there’s a growing sense “that there is progress and the rubber is meeting the road,” in Helena-West Helena.