On the night of Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, I sat down at my desk and wrote a blog post headlined "The Shame of Hot Springs." I took Arkansans to task for having allowed the most iconic stretch of street in the state--Central Avenue in downtown Hot Springs--to deteriorate through the decades. The impetus for the post had been the boarding up of the windows earlier that week at the empty Majestic Hotel. The following day, more people visited my Southern Fried blog than on any other day in its five years of existence. Something had clearly struck a chord with Arkansans.
Sensing the interest in the subject, I devoted this newspaper column to Hot Springs the following Wednesday. I wrote: "Downtown Hot Springs has been in decline for more than four decades while growth occurred to the south along Arkansas Highway 7 from Oaklawn Park to Lake Hamilton. What was happening downtown--a decline in the quality of hotel rooms and empty, deteriorating structures ranging from the Majestic to the Medical Arts Building to the Velda Rose Hotel--was the elephant in the room that we didn't mention. Now, with the boards up at the Majestic, Arkansans can no longer ignore that elephant. As the anchor in the city that for now remains the state's No. 1 tourist attraction, the land on which the Majestic sits is one of the most important pieces of real estate in Arkansas. Finding the best use for it, along with the other empty buildings in the city's historic core, should be as big a priority for the governor's office, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and other state agencies as landing a steel mill in Mississippi County."
The next evening I was attending a lecture at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock when voicemails and texts began flooding my cell phone. People were letting me know that the oldest part of the Majestic was on fire. The massive fire burned throughout the night. One year later, the rubble from that fire still hasn't been cleaned up. Yet again, a "Shame of Hot Springs" headline seems to fit. Last Friday night, people gathered along Park Avenue to mark the first anniversary of the fire and to call for the debris to be removed. The out-of-state owner of the Majestic property, Garrison Hassenflu, has refused to do anything to this point. Hassenflu, who has a checkered record as a developer, is emblematic of a problem that has beset downtown Hot Springs for years: Out-of-town owners of historic buildings who refuse to keep up their properties. They are, in essence, commercial slumlords.
It appears the city of Hot Springs finally is getting serious about code enforcement. Ed Davis, the city's fire chief, has worked to ensure that all buildings are inspected in what's known as the Thermal Basin Fire District. City officials so far have stood with Davis despite the whining of some building owners.
I'll repeat what I've been saying since the fire: What's occurring in downtown Hot Springs is far more than a Garland County problem. It's an Arkansas problem. That stretch of Central Avenue is so famous that it says a lot about what we think of our state. Hot Springs is less than a five-hour drive from one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country, Dallas/Fort Worth. People there are looking for new places to visit. Why aren't the state's economic development officials making a strong, sustained effort to attract deep-pocketed Texas-based developers to invest in downtown Hot Springs in the same way they work to bring manufacturing facilities to the state?
With the rubble still there for all to see, it's time for Gov. Asa Hutchinson to become involved. I'm convinced that smart mixed-use developments downtown that combine condominiums, boutique hotel rooms, dining, spas and upscale shopping will pay dividends for investors. The governor could act as the chief salesman. Arkansans have a vested interest in seeing that downtown Hot Springs is renewed, refreshed and revived. My hope is that the fire and the inability to get the rubble cleaned up finally will make people realize that we're on the verge of losing a national treasure. What a wonderful part of Hutchinson's gubernatorial legacy it could be if he became known as the man who jump-started the rebirth of the old American spa.
David Watkins, the Hot Springs city manager, says the Majestic fire provided the "horsepower" needed to pressure property owners to "prevent a similar tragedy from happening in the future. If you count the number of buildings that have been bought, sold or refurbished in the relatively short time since the fire a year ago, it's really quite remarkable. I think it pushed the realization that Hot Springs can no longer just ignore the elephant in the room. Codes had to be adopted and enforced."
Watkins calls the downtown debris pile a reminder of what can happen when owners don't take care of their property. Asked about Hassenflu, he said: "I thought at the time that the property owner would be more conducive to working with us, and he has dragged things out. A year ago, I thought the rubble would be gone by now. I was expecting him to work with us, and he obviously didn't. Right now our strategy is to continue working with our partners and keep putting pressure on him to either clean it up or get out."
Jim Fram, president of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, agrees with Watkins that the fire served as a wake-up call. He said there are "groups of developers and investors coming in on just about a weekly basis to look at property and opportunities downtown. They are looking at everything from one end of Central to the other. It has garnered us a lot of attention with commercial developers basically from coast to coast." Let's hope they do more than just look. This would be a good year for action, as opposed to simply talk, in downtown Hot Springs.
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas' Independent Colleges and Universities. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 03/04/2015