The Conway City Council unanimously approved in 2009 buying the vacant Spirit Homes building for a community center, but the deal fell through. Mayor Tab Townsell is trying again, but it’s a harder sell for him.
A 45-day feasibility study is underway to see if the project is viable, and the council entered a purchase agreement with $100,000 in earnest money placed on the $3.5 million building on 17 acres south of Dave Ward Drive in west Conway. Townsell envisions a center that includes several amenities, including a 50-meter competition pool, two other pools, an indoor playground and more.
The “800-pound gorilla,” Townsell said, is whether the building can be renovated to include a pool. If not, that would “kill the Spirit Home deal,” he said. If the council decides before the end of the 45 days that it doesn’t want to buy the property, the $100,000 will be refunded, the mayor said.
Six of the seven City Council members who voted on the issue in 2009 are still on the council, Townsell said. One member was absent during that vote.
At that time, the city was going to borrow money from Conway Corp., the city’s utility company, to buy the Spirit Homes facility for $3.75 million. The city’s plan was to wait five years and then repay Conway Corp., plus interest, through another five-year loan.
“We had a methodology we were going to use to finance the purchase and, upon second consideration, further review by the legal eagles, they basically said … we were on shaky legal footing,” Townsell said.
Fast-forward six years, and Townsell said he became interested in the former mobile-home manufacturing facility again. Spirit Homes, owned by Townsell’s former brother-in-law, Johnny Allison, had since sold to Cavalier Homes. Its underlying legal entity is Clayton Homes, the mayor said.
The recent attempt to buy the center was triggered by “No. 1, our financing cleared up,” Townsell said. “The money we’d use for this — we’re paying off the final portion of the original loan to pay for the [Conway Expo Center and] fairgrounds. We borrowed $3.5 million to finish it off. We paid that off in August 2014, so we had that financing money available and I heard — I had been notified — that Clayton Homes had dropped the price. With that, I thought, ‘OK, we have the means. Obviously this is something the council is interested in. I don’t know if we heard any complaints in 2009; everybody loved the idea of the community center,” he said.
However, he said the climate has changed since then.
“No. 1, we went through our financial problems, and you don’t want to discredit that, and it changes people’s votes,” Townsell said. “The second thing is the rise of the Tea Party, not as a negative, but as a vanguard of transparency and efficiency and as small a government as possible, so there’s more review and oversight.”
Scotty Keller, president of the Faulkner County chapter of the Tea Party, said she cannot speak for the group, because the organization doesn’t take a stance on issues.
“What we’re really about is educating people, and we’re really about the transparency part,” Keller said. “The numbers that I’ve seen just tell me, personally, as a businesswoman, is that a viable deal? A swimming pool is wonderful — nobody is going to say ‘I don’t want a swimming pool.’ I might want a Rolls Royce, too, but that doesn’t mean I can afford it.
“We’re going to have to create maintenance fees that are considerable is a nice way to put it,” she said. Keller said maybe the existing parks should be maintained before adding more.
Townsell said he often has heard that other projects need to be done, including completing the building at the Conway Expo Center and Fairgrounds.
He said that is a fair point.
“My point is, fix the most glaring problem first. And fix the biggest problem,” Townsell said. “You’ve got quite a bit of money, don’t chip away at it where it’s useless by fixing all these small problems that aren’t so glaring.”
For example, the girls softball complex needs pavilions, but he said those aren’t as important as a pool. He compared the priority of a pool to turning on electricity first after an ice storm in areas that have the most people.
One person who has concerns about the project is Brad Lacy, president of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and Conway Development Corp.
Lacy said it’s an unusual position, because the organizations have a good working relationship with the city.
“I think we’re a better place to live and work because of the leadership of the mayor and the council … but with 1,200 [Chamber] members, we would be negligent if we didn’t express concerns that we’re hearing from them.” Lacy said that doesn’t mean all 1,200 members are in agreement.
Lacy said a list of questions members have about the Spirit Homes project was sent to the City Council.
Townsell said the list arrived at 2 p.m. the day the City Council voted to pay the $100,000 in earnest money and have Nabholz Construction Corp. conduct a feasibility study. He said the meeting had been announced two weeks earlier, so the timing was a calculated political move to put doubt in council members’ minds.
“Absolutely not,” Lacy said. “I think there was some misunderstanding about what they were voting on that night.” When the Chamber realized the council was voting to buy the facility, the questions were readied and sent under the gun, Lacy said.
He said the Chamber has three main questions: “Based on what our board members are saying, our overall concerns are what are the costs to renovate the facility to an inhabitable state? Then you’ve got costs to actually build out whatever recreational amenities you’re putting in there; then you’ve got costs associated with ongoing operations,” he said. “At what point is it just better to just start over somewhere with something smaller that’s maybe more affordable and doable at this time?
“I think the overall cost, it’s a big question, for the people we’re hearing from in the business community. If you don’t know what you’re putting in there, how can you determine the cost to operate it? How do you fund ongoing operations?” Lacy said.
Townsell said the Conway community center would have user fees that, along with Advertising and Promotion fund money, would support its operations. For activity pools, for example, he said the fee might be $4 to $5 a day, and a fee could be charged for a monthly pass, etc. “We are an anomaly by charging nothing to enter our community centers,” he said, referring to the Conway Sports Center and the McGee Center.
He said his idea is to install bleachers on a deck surrounding the 50-meter competitive pool so Conway could host statewide or multistate swim meets. A 25-yard pool could be used for swimming lessons, water aerobics or therapy, depending on the temperature of the water. The third pool would be an aquatic play area with slides, “maybe a lazy river” and other features, he said.
The mayor has written The Case for Spirit Homes in 10 separate documents on the city’s website, www.cityofconway.org. In one, he said, “the projected competitive revenue is considerable.”
If the building is suitable for a pool, indoor tennis courts could be added inexpensively, Townsell said. Indoor turf could be rolled onto the concrete for soccer practice.
“An indoor playground is one of the things I get most excited about,” Townsell said. “When it’s raining or 32 degees and you’re ready to pull your hair out with your kids, there you go.”
Lacy agreed with Townsell that a pool is needed.
“We absolutely believe that Conway needs a pool, but we don’t necessarily think the idea of buying the Spirit Homes building necessarily has anything to do with building a pool,” Lacy said.
Townsell said land that is zoned commercial is more expensive. “We’re not talking a friendly neighborhood pool you can drop in a neighborhood. You have to have a lot of parking; that’s one thing we’ve learned. Then you’re talking a major impact on surrounding neighborhoods; they’re not going to let you do that.” He recalled that building the McGee Center was controversial with neighbors in the area.
“We’re getting that building for $16 a square foot, essentially, with land for free,” Townsell said.
Townsell, who is white, said there’s a reason, historically, that Conway doesn’t have a public pool. It’s allegedly because some people didn’t want blacks and whites to swim together, he said.
“It’s anecdotal, but that’s what I always heard,” Townsell said. “For the generation that heard those stories, it’s true. I grew up being told that’s why. There was a discussion of a pool when the city first acquired Laurel Park. Then I heard nobody would build the pool because of the fear of blacks and whites swimming together — I was just told.”
City Councilman Theo Jones, an African-American who has lived in Conway all his life, said that reason has been “assumed.”
“That hasn’t been a said issue; that’s been an assumed issue,” Jones said. “Nobody has ever said they don’t want black kids and white kids swimming together; that’s been an assumed thing. Nobody has ever said they don’t want the integration in the pools. That was kind of the assumed thing in the black neighborhoods nobody’s ever denied. We were thinking that was why.”
Jones agreed with Townsell that a swimming pool is needed. “We’ve been needing a pool forever,” Jones said, then adding, “Will they overprice the minorities to get in the pool?”
Jones said he doesn’t remember much about the 2009 vote to buy the building, except that it fell through.
He isn’t arguing the need for the amenities discussed, either. “I think the stuff we need they’re proposing for Spirit Homes, we do need those things,” Jones said. “My thing is, do we have the money to pay for them. I’m worried about us buying a building and it being like it is now, just sitting there. I don’t want to buy a building and let it sit there.”
Phillip Fletcher, founder of City of Hope Outreach, has lived in Conway for eight years. Fletcher, who is African-American, said he had never heard of the racial issue regarding swimming.
He said his question is whether enough people are interested in the activities to build it. “If there is not enough citizen interest in it, maybe we need to take a pause on it,” he said. “My second concern was the location of it. It’s out in west Conway where the majority of the people, I hazard to guess, either have access to a swimming pool through Conway Regional, Briarwood [Swim Club], Hendrix” or personal pools, he said.
“There’s no public transportation … what about those families or individuals who don’t have the time or transportation to access that pool?” Fletcher said. “I’m not against it; I’m not for it. I’m for, before we take our next step forward, have we done everything possible to make sure it’s the right step?”
Townsell said the proposed project has many aspects to consider. “This is an onion issue; it’s not an apple,” he said.
The mayor, who was elected in 1998 and has announced that he will not run for re-election, has 19 more months in office.
“I think I’m feeling the weight of history … I’d like to see, at least start the discussion on the pool. It doesn’t have to be Spirit Homes, but there has to be a pool. Some people would object if I put a bird bath outside my window at City Hall and called it a public pool.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.