Tom Reilley sits in the ornate lobby of the Capital Hotel in downtown Little Rock and dreams of a day when there will be something similar in Pine Bluff. I know what you're thinking: "Pine Bluff? Really? Get real."
Reilley, who lives in New Hampshire, is far from a dreamer. He's an experienced investor and entrepreneur who raised the tens of millions of dollars necessary to open the state's first wood-pellet plant. Reilley completed the $229 million Highland Pellets project at Pine Bluff to meet demand from international markets that need pellets so biomass-fueled electric plants can replace coal-fired facilities.
He searched for a place with plenty of timber within a 100-mile radius. A place with competitive utility rates. A place with an adequate transportation infrastructure. He settled on Arkansas, a state with more than 18.8 million acres of forestland.
"I couldn't have found Pine Bluff on a map prior to the end of 2013," Reilley says. "I had never heard of the place."
So what was his reaction following his first visit to the largest city in southeast Arkansas?
"Shock," says Reilley, a former senior managing director for Bear Stearns who transferred to London in 2002 to establish a wealth management division for the investment firm. "I was shocked by the poverty. I was shocked by the blight. I wasn't expecting this type of urban decay."
Reilley, who left Bear Stearns in 2007 to establish a private equity company known as Kalan Capital, discovered something else.
"I've never been to a place with such a deep sense of community," he says. "People who could have left Pine Bluff long ago refused to do so because they love the place so much. And I fell in love with those people. Last year, even though I was extremely busy lining up financing and hiring a Highland management team, I started asking questions that people had a hard time answering. I wanted to know how a place with such a storied history--a place filled with people who love it--could have gotten into the shape Pine Bluff is in now."
I met Reilley last year after he cold-called me. He had read some stories I had written on my blog (I've long been fascinated by the rise and fall of the city) and wanted to visit. We had dinner in Little Rock, and he struck me as someone who sincerely hoped to help turn around the fortunes of Pine Bluff. You run across a lot of flimflam artists when you write a newspaper column. They want free publicity for their schemes--the next Disney World in the Arkansas Ozarks, the world's longest zipline in the south Arkansas piney woods, etc. Pine Bluff has had more than its share of such characters. Here's how Reilley struck me: A guy who made big money at a young age and now wants to make a difference in the world; someone with enough business savvy to realize he probably can't make much of a difference in a city such as Detroit but can help change the trajectory of a town of fewer than 50,000 residents such as Pine Bluff.
Pine Bluff residents sent a message last week to the rest of the state that they're finally serious about renewal. A sales tax initiative passed by more than a 2-to-1 margin despite organized opposition. During 2016, 100 Pine Bluff residents participated in a planning process funded by the Simmons First Foundation that's known as Go Forward Pine Bluff. In January, the task force unveiled a 27-point plan for city revitalization that covered everything from infrastructure to education. The five-eighth-cent sales tax approved last week is expected to produce about $4 million annually for the next seven years. Go Forward Pine Bluff officials have said they will raise another $20 million in private funds to give the city a pot of almost $48 million to implement the recommendations.
That alone won't be enough to revive Pine Bluff, which has been bleeding population in recent years. Even more private capital is needed. That's where Reilley comes in.
He was instrumental in organizing a grass-roots group known as Pine Bluff Rising to complement Go Forward Pine Bluff. Pine Bluff Rising purchased the six-story downtown building that once housed the Hotel Pines and said it would determine whether it made financial sense to renovate it. The hotel opened in 1913 and was a center of social life in southeast Arkansas until it closed in 1970. What once had been a symbol of Pine Bluff prosperity came to symbolize Pine Bluff's decline.
Reilley knows that symbolism is important. He understands that a revived Hotel Pines filled with offices, restaurants, craft breweries and the like will send the message that Pine Bluff has reclaimed its status as the regional capital for the southeast quadrant of the state. He thinks it will take at least $35 million to renovate the building and plans to utilize a combination of state and federal historic-renovation tax credits, New Market tax credits, charitable contributions and private capital to get the job done. He has used WER Architects/Planners of Little Rock, East Harding Construction of Little Rock and interior designer Kaki Hockersmith to come up with a plan to show potential investors.
"We're confident this is going to become a reality," Reilley says. "I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it would work. People across the state are excited. This was once the emotional, cultural and economic heart of the region. It can be again." It's a gamble, but I'm not yet ready to bet against Reilley.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 06/21/2017