PINE BLUFF -- The owner of a closed downtown Pine Bluff hotel that's attached to the convention center has formally rejected the city's offer to buy his property for $500,000, saying he was insulted that officials thought they could acquire it at such a low cost.
Meanwhile, the hotel that many city officials consider one of the most important in town remains boarded up.
Owner Bruce Rahmani closed the Plaza Hotel on July 28, saying the city-owned convention center has been uncooperative in helping to schedule guest stays and citing a recent theft of $25,000 from the property's office. The theft is still under investigation, according to officials with the Pine Bluff Police Department.
Rahmani had originally offered the property to the city for $3 million or a $20,000-per-month lease. He said recently that he would be willing to negotiate on that offer but would likely not go below $2 million. He said he paid $1.85 million for the hotel about six years ago and funded a $2 million renovation at that time.
Pine Bluff Mayor Debe Hollingsworth and the City Council met in late August to approve making an offer to Rahmani, pending a property appraisal.
The mayor said at the time that the city likely wouldn't pay more than the value of the property. The Jefferson County assessor's office has previously appraised the hotel at $612,000.
Regardless of a sale or lease price, Rahmani has told the city that the hotel needs at least $1 million in upgrades before it could be reopened.
"I would consider between $2 million and $3 million for the hotel, but nothing less," Rahmani said this week from his office in Denver. Rahmani owns a number of hotels in Colorado and other states.
So far, city officials have been mum on whether they plan to make another offer on the hotel. Hollingsworth didn't return a message seeking comment on the matter Wednesday.
The five-story, 200-room property originally opened in 1989 as the Wilson World Hotel and was considered one of the nicest properties in the city.
The hotel connected to the Pine Bluff Convention Center has had multiple owners through the years and has been steadily losing money and customers, Rahmani said.
Shortly after Rahmani purchased and remodeled the hotel, it gained franchise status with Ramada hotels. But Ramada discontinued its affiliation years later, when the condition of the property dropped below the chain's standards, hotel officials said at the time.
While Rahmani blames the Pine Bluff Convention Center for not cooperating with the hotel to attract events that would fill rooms, convention center officials and others suggest the condition of the property has been a problem.
Randy Jones of Maumelle said he stayed at the Plaza Hotel several years ago as part of a homecoming group from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and had a disappointing experience.
"You could just feel that it was in need of upgrades," Jones said. "And it was supposed to be a full-service hotel, but it wasn't. Pine Bluff needs a really nice full-service hotel because there are plenty of folks -- especially those of us who visit UAPB for homecoming -- who would be happy to spend money staying at a nice hotel."
Bob Purvis, who manages the convention center, said the number of conventions and events at the facility has dwindled since Rahmani took ownership of the Plaza Hotel. But he cautioned that "there is no way to directly correlate the two."
"All I can tell you is what people have told me about the hotel and what I have seen at the hotel. It was never up to standards you would see in other places with convention center hotels."
Purvis said the economy could also be to blame, as many people no longer have disposable income to rent a large space for a family gathering or function.
Purvis said that six years before Rahmani's ownership of the Plaza Hotel, there were about 34 reunions and 125 conventions and meetings per year at the convention center. During Rahmani's ownership, Purvis said the number of reunions has dropped to about 18 per year, while the number of conventions and meetings has dropped to about 75.
Dwindling numbers aside, Purvis said he remains optimistic that a new hotel owner could turn the property around, spearheading a revival at the convention center and, perhaps, even downtown.
But whether that new hotel owner will be the city of Pine Bluff remains unknown.
"I believe the hotel can be run successfully, but it has to be done by folks who know what they are doing," Purvis said. "There is nothing more I would like to see than this hotel to be reopened and running properly again."
State Desk on 09/24/2015