A revived multimillion-dollar water-garden project planned for property at Greers Ferry Dam — approved in the 1960s by President John F. Kennedy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — has stalled because Corps officials won’t authorize the project.
Cleburne County Judge Jerry Holmes has worked for two years to renew the decades-old plan, which was uncovered in 2013 when he asked for innovative tourism ideas after he took office.
Architects were expected to be hired this month for the project, but Holmes received a letter Dec. 16 from Col. Courtney W. Paul, district commander of the Corps of Engineers, telling Holmes the site couldn’t be used for the water park.
In addition, Paul said the Collins Creek trout-fishery restoration project is already sited on part of the land proposed for the water garden.
Holmes, who said he’s not giving up on the project, replied to Paul, imploring the Corps to reconsider its decision.
The grand plans, drawn by Edward Durell Stone, a graduate of the University of Arkansas, include a fountain surrounded by stadium seating to serve as an amphitheater and performing-arts center. The design shows a restaurant inside the amphitheater, multiple gardens and a cascading waterfall into the gardens. The water garden was supposed to be a pilot project for the United States.
Holmes, who said the project could draw tourists from worldwide destinations, kept the idea quiet until he found federal and state support for it, which he said he had — until now.
A six-member team from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Community Design Center has also worked on the project for two years and came to look at the site in August.
Holmes said he was surprised and dismayed to receive the letter from Paul.
Paul wrote, in part: “In accordance with our current national recreation policy, we have determined a water-garden park would not be approved as part of any proposed development at the John F. Kennedy Park.”
Holmes said the project “is not taking in the JFK park — it’s property adjacent to it.”
Randy Hathaway of Maumelle, deputy district engineer for the Corps, Little Rock division, said the Corps has no funding for such a project.
He said it cannot be done under a national policy change that occurred in the Corps in December 2005.
It states that “the primary rationale for any future recreation development must be dependent on the project’s natural or other resources and accommodate or support water-based activities. Development could include picnic areas, swimming beaches, boat-launching ramps. Examples that do not rely on the project’s natural or other resources include theme parks or ride-type attractions, sports or concert stadiums, and standalone facilities such as restaurants, bars, motels, hotels, nontransient trailers and golf courses.”
Hathaway said the project basically is dead in the water.
“Based on this national policy change, the Corps will not approve development of a water garden as an authorized project purpose because the project does not support this policy change; specifically, the water garden does not support water-based activities.”
Stone’s original plan took up 300 acres, but the JFK Park has been created since then, so the proposed site is about 170 acres, which is undeveloped, Holmes said.
“After a major part of the funding getting in place to start this and [trying] to bring the plans forward, it’s been kind of devastating to get that kind of notification,” Holmes said of Paul’s letter.
Project funding has been received from several entities, including $40,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts, $30,000 from the state General Improvement Fund through state Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, and a $30,000 commitment from Arkansas Natural Resources. Entergy Arkansas has provided $8,500 of a $15,000 grant.
Paul’s letter said he was writing Holmes to “clarify our position to the proposed water-garden project.” The letter continued: “I understand that a feasibility study is currently being conducted by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center to determine if the Edward Durell Stone concept could be constructed as designed. The study must take into consideration alternate locations for the project, because a water-garden attraction is not dependent on the John F. Kennedy Park area, Greers Ferry Lake or its resources and is not considered to be within the scope of appropriate support facilities on public lands under the stewardship of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
Paul suggested other locations for the water-garden park.
“A water garden is a standalone attraction that could easily be located in public areas such as the Sugar Loaf trail, the proposed Sulphur Creek trail or one of the commercial facilities of the Little Red River where water is available. In contrast, the Collins Creek habitat restoration project, which is already sited on lands proposed for the water garden, is dependent on cool, untreated water flow from Greers Ferry Dam and could not feasibly be located on the other land.”
Holmes said he was surprised to get the letter, especially because the Corps of Engineers gave its blessing to Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the project more than 50 years ago.
He called the decision an “about face” because of that and because the Corps of Engineers gave the University of Arkansas Community Design Center team the OK to apply for a grant to conduct the feasibility study, Holmes said. The center received the $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the study, although it requested $80,000, said Steve Luoni, distinguished professor and director of the design center.
Hathaway said of the letter, “It says, if you want to go do a study, you may move forward and do this study, but in the next to last paragraph, it says anything done would have to support the mission of Greers Ferry Lake.”
Hathaway said Holmes was told in a meeting in June 2013 that the project wasn’t appropriate under the Corps’ policy. John Balgavy, chief of operations of the Little Rock District, Corps of Engineers, was in attendance.
“At the meeting, Mr. Balgavy made it clear that the water-gardens project does not meet the Corps mission or current national recreational policy (Dec 6, 2005), i.e. it does not support water-based activities or is dependent upon the lake or its resources,” Hathaway said, reading from the minutes of the meeting.
Hathaway said the Corps has no funding for such a project.
“It’s been our understanding all along that we wouldn’t do a water park,” Hathaway said. “It’s not in the Corps budget to do any water park. We’re performance-based; anything that’s broken in the budget would come before a new water park.”
He said that just because the Corps put it on a 1976 master plan doesn’t mean it was a done deal.
“The Corps approved it in a master plan. A master plan is kind of like a big wish list; it doesn’t always mean it would come true.”
Holmes said he isn’t taking that as the final word.
“I know the Corps of Engineers in some fashion has part of the final say-so, but I’m one of those types — I’ve said it several times when I was sheriff — it’s not over till it’s over. I’m still going to work some avenues and hopefully work with the Corps of Engineers,” he said. “It would mean so much, not just to Cleburne County but to this region of the state. I hate that the Corps of Engineers takes the stand so abruptly, after they said they’d go along with the feasibility study and the letter came from Balgavy’s office, and do an about-face.
“We’re still working with Sen. [John] Boozman’s office and [U.S. Rep.] Rick Crawford to check on any further aspects that might be done legislatively, through their sources, I guess you might say,” Holmes said.
“Hopefully, they might intervene,” he said. Holmes said that in the 1960s, the Corps didn’t want to go along with the project until Fulbright approached the agency and Kennedy gave the authority.
The idea for the project started with a trip by Heber Springs businessman Herbert Thomas and his wife to Italy in the 1960s. Thomas, who helped develop Eden Isle and was the founder of First Pyramid Life Insurance Co., was impressed with the Tivoli Gardens in Rome.
About the same time, the Greers Ferry Dam was under construction. Thomas thought a similar project would be “wonderful for the area,” Holmes said.
Thomas, who died in 1982, contacted his longtime friend Sen. J. William Fulbright. Holmes said Fulbright was excited about the idea and had the University of Arkansas do conceptual drawings.
Fulbright pitched the idea to President Kennedy when he came for the dam dedication in October 1963, and Kennedy reportedly asked why the project wasn’t further along.
“At the time, you had Maj. Gen. Jackson Graham and a Gen. Brown and a Col. Maynard signed off, and the Corps of Engineers went so far as developing plans for it,” Holmes said.
It was to be a federally funded project.
It was estimated in the 1960s that the park would cost $22 million, which, Luoni said, would come to $100 million today.
The project was pushed to the back burner because of Kennedy’s assassination, just a week after the water-garden plans were ready for his review, and the Vietnam War escalated.
Fulbright didn’t give up, and he tried to get President Lyndon Johnson to approve the project. Johnson decided the National Park Service needed to look at it, and the organization spent six years, until 1972, doing conceptual designs.
After Fulbright and U.S. Sen. John McClellan of Arkansas, who supported it, were out of office, the project stalled again, Holmes said.
Billy Lindsey, who owns Lindsey’s Resort in Heber Springs and serves on the statewide Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission, briefly revived the project in the 1990s.
The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism hired a national team that looked into the water-garden project and said it was doable, Lindsey said, but nothing happened. He stuck the documentation in his truck and went about his business.
The plan got traction again after Holmes asked Heber Springs businessmen, including Lindsey, for tourism ideas. Lindsey dug under the seat of his old truck and pulled out watercolor drawings that he called “breathtaking plans.”
Holmes started gathering support for the project. Then-Gov. Mike Beebe set up a meeting in Heber Springs with Holmes, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, state Parks and Tourism, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, the Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service, as well as representatives of the state’s U.S. senators.
The judge said three institutions of higher education in the state have voiced interest in the project: Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Harding University in Searcy and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
In June 2013, Holmes went to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Arkansas legislative delegation.
Holmes replied to Paul on Dec. 30, sending him a letter and a packet of information, including the history of the project, and implored him to reconsider. Holmes said he sent the same information to Hathaway.
Holmes outlined all the support the project had, including from the Corps of Engineers, Beebe and the late Carl Garner, “a much-admired pioneer of Greers Ferry Lake and personal friend of mine for years,” who supported the project until the day he died, Holmes said.
“As you can see,” Holmes wrote, “these early commanders of the Corps of Engineers had a vision for Cleburne County and the state of Arkansas.”
Holmes also said Cleburne County depends on tourism, and he said the project would be a “major tourist stop,” much like the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville or the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.
The water-garden project “is not only aesthetically pleasing in nature, but would serve many of today’s most important initiatives, including ecology, education and the preservation of our environment,” Holmes wrote.
Holmes asked Paul to look at the declining tourism industry and reconsider the project.
“This decline is having a direct impact on local businesses around the lake and river,” Holmes wrote in the letter. He said two of the more-popular resorts on the Little Red River have closed.
He invited Paul to take a “personal look at the original plans and history of past communications we have found in archives of some of the most powerful legislators in the country at the time, Sens. J. William Fulbright and John L. McClellan, along with Congressman Wilbur D. Mills.
“Those of us who have seen this project feel the Greers Ferry Lake Water Garden could be the foundation for reviving tourism in our community. In addition, we strongly believe when you see the artists’ renderings, including the Corps of Engineers design, and the history of this project, you will agree that it has the potential to recharge the lagging economy in our community, region and state.”
Luoni said he and the team are “disappointed” with the position the Corps has taken.
“We have challenges of money, the challenge of the Corps and the challenge of what state agency takes the lead on this. We’ve been waiting for a new governor to install his decision-making apparatus. So everything is kind of in limbo right now,” Luoni said.
“We’re definitely not through by any means,” Holmes said. “I haven’t gone this far to quit.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.