The Arkansas National Guard closed armories in Magnolia and Monticello as cost-cutting measures Tuesday and announced that it would keep its Prescott armory open.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson opted to close the two facilities after the Guard held meetings last month with community leaders and the public, said Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Joel Lynch. The closures will save the Guard about $81,000 a year, he said.
The armories will be given to the city of Monticello and to Southern Arkansas University, which owns the property the armory is on in Magnolia. Both facilities were built in the late 1970s.
The closures mark the eighth and ninth armories closed within the state since 2015 as the Guard grapples with budget cuts and downsizing. Its maintenance budget was reduced from $10.2 million to $8 million during the past federal fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
Arkansas had 62 armories at the beginning of 2015, but that number was trimmed to 53 with the closures in Magnolia and Monticello. Armories in Berryville, Blytheville, Brinkley, Crossett, Helena-West Helena, Rector and Wynne were closed in 2015. Another armory in Walnut Ridge was up for closure last year, but Hutchinson chose to keep it open.
"We are rebalancing the Arkansas National Guard in a sustainable way by listening to the concerns of our communities," said Col. Gregory Bacon, who has overseen the realignment of the Guard's facilities, in a news release issued Tuesday by the Guard. "We are a community-based force. The Guard is our people, not the buildings."
Lynch said the Arkansas National Guard also plans to downsize its number of guardsmen from 7,500 to 6,900.
"We really don't need that many buildings," he said. "There's not a lot of flexibility to move money around to the various centers."
Lynch said he does not expect the Guard to consider any more closings for at least two years.
Lynch said a recent survey of 15 states, which included Arkansas, indicated that Guard armories need not be closer than 50 miles from each other. An armory in Warren is only 15 miles from Monticello, he said. Camden's armory is about 30 miles from Magnolia.
"We don't have the same transportation issues like we did long before," Lynch said. "People are driving past armories to get to their drill sites."
Cities have converted closed armories into a variety of facilities. Berryville turned a closed facility into an adult education center, and Blytheville and Crossett used armories as new police stations. Fort Smith renovated a closed armory into the Sebastian County Office of Emergency Management, and Clarksville used a closed armory for its city hall, Lynch said.
"It's a huge win for towns," he said.
Monticello Mayor Zackery Taylor said officials will "take their time" in deciding what to do with its closed armory. The 14,314-square-foot building sits on 8 acres and was built in 1978.
"It sits smack dab in between our university, a hospital and two school districts," Taylor said. "Our plan is to meet next month with the institutions and take it slow before figuring out what we can do."
The mayor said the armory could be used for a community center. Last month, Monticello voters turned down a quarter-percent sales tax that would have funded construction of an event center.
"A meeting space or community center is a viable option," Taylor said.
He said Drew Memorial Hospital, which will begin an expansion project after the passage of a quarter-percent sales tax earmarked for the hospital last month, may also use the armory building.
"We have a ton of ideas," Taylor said. "We've not settled on anything yet."
Jasper Lewis, Southern Arkansas University's vice president of facilities, said the university plans to transform the 23,218-square-foot armory into classrooms and laboratories for its engineering program. The Magnolia armory was built in 1976.
"It's the right size and it's in the middle of campus," Lewis said. "We're excited it's coming back to us. We badly needed the space."
Lewis said the university will bid its renovation in March, provided the building is available.
"We're ready to go," he said.
The decision to keep the Prescott armory open pleased Mayor Terry Oliver, who said the Guard's presence is part of the personality of the Nevada County town of 3,224.
"This has always been a good Guard town," he said. "We are overjoyed they are keeping it open. It's a good day in the neighborhood."
Oliver said the city has "enough" empty buildings. The city recently retained an $800,000 church building and converted it into a youth center, he said. Other buildings remain empty, he said.
"We didn't have ideas for some of the buildings that are empty," he said. "We didn't need any more."
Lynch said the Guard decided to keep Prescott's armory open because it anticipates changes in its structure there. He said the Guard may add an artillery or engineering company.
"We're hanging on to it," Lynch said. "We're not yet ready to cut it loose. We're not quite sure what will happen, but we need it."
He said it will take a few months for the Guard to empty its armories in Magnolia and Monticello.
Lynch said the closures don't mean the Guard won't maintain its presence in those towns.
"You don't have to have an armory in your town for us to help," he said. "Whenever there are storms, we'll always be there. You'll see us on the highways."
A Section on 01/13/2016