North Little Rock's City Council unanimously granted a conditional use permit Monday evening for the state's oldest American Legion Post to permanently relocate to the city from Little Rock.
The American Legion post, M.M. Eberts Post 1, will move into a vacant building at 325 W. 29th St. in North Little Rock. The site is just north of the North Little Rock Health Department and the Patrick Henry Hays Senior Citizens Center and south of Interstate 40.
The property is in a Commercial, or C-2 zone. No one showed for the required public hearing at the council meeting Monday. The conditional use request skipped going before the city Planning Commission and went straight to the City Council instead, which is allowed.
"They've bought this property not aware it wasn't zoned for that purpose," Mayor Joe Smith said. "They didn't have the right communication on the zoning so I'm trying to fix it for them."
"We've shortened this process for them not to have to go through the Planning Commission so they can get started," Smith said.
M.M. Eberts Post 1 was established almost 100 years ago, shortly after the national Legion was chartered and incorporated by Congress as an organization devoted to aiding veterans and bettering communities. The American Legion post, the first of approximately 400 such posts in Arkansas, has been in an 8,000 square-foot building at 315 E. Capitol Ave. in Little Rock for about 50 years. That building was put up for sale about a year ago.
The post was considering a temporary location while looking for property to build a permanent building, preferably in west Little Rock, Bob Criswell, the post's adjutant, said last year when the pending move was announced.
In March, Moses Tucker Real Estate Inc. bought a portion of the 500 block of Rock Street in downtown Little Rock, which included the M.M. Eberts building. A three-story, 36-unit apartment complex will be developed on that block with the former Legion space envisioned to become a retail storefront or restaurant.
Metro on 07/14/2015