The Plaza Hotel, which was purchased by the city a year ago for $1.2 million, faces an uncertain future as Pine Bluff officials ponder the best route forward to provide the city with a viable hotel property adjoining the the convention center.
In the year since the purchase of the property, the grounds have been spruced up and the exterior of the five-story facility has been cleaned. However, because of the dated design and years of neglect, questions remain regarding the practicality of renovating the existing structure. Recently, a large section of the facade on the northwest corner of the structure separated from the building, exposing insulation, support members, and even opening a hole in a corner room on the third floor.
That hole has since been covered by the convention center operations team using a large canvas tarpaulin that blends into the color scheme of the exterior to conceal the damage.
Joseph McCorvey, executive director of the Pine Bluff Convention Center, recently walked through the hotel property with representatives from Beechwood Pinnacle Hotels, a Little Rock hotel management and development company that was selected to oversee the development of the hotel property. McCorvey did not comment on the specifics of that visit, citing an upcoming meeting with the city's Civic Auditorium and Complex Commission, which oversees the convention center.
"As far as the walk-through on the hotel, we have a teleconference call with the commissioners on Dec. 14," McCorvey said. "At that point I was going to report to the commission where we are on things, so I don't really want to speak on that until the conference call."
McCorvey has long advocated that the hotel be razed and a new hotel be built in its place, citing the poor condition of the building and design elements that were popular 35 or 40 years ago but have since fallen out of favor for reasons of aesthetics or safety.
"Now, that's going to be my recommendation. I've been saying that since Day One," he said, but added that as yet there is no consensus on what course of action to take. "The hotel committee that we had said they wanted to renovate it. Another company said it needs to come down."
McCorvey said the neglect the building has suffered over time has, in his opinion, rendered the building beyond saving, and he added that several factors will make renovation a hard sell if the city hopes to attract a high-end hotel management brand.
"I'm going after a Hilton flag, and they will not sign on to a hotel in that condition," he said. "Nor will they sign on to a hotel with a swimming pool in the middle of the atrium or the lobby. They aren't going to go for that."
McCorvey said, however, that despite his reservations about the existing hotel, the final decision will be up to the commission and the city. And at present, no decision has been made regarding the future of the hotel.
"Once we have our conference call, I'll report to our commissioners and we'll just take it from there," he said. "At this time, we have not made a decision on this project. We've been meeting with folks, getting recommendations, and we need to have that discussion and be able to study all of the options."
Bob Purvis, the former convention center executive director who retired in 2017, said in an interview in January that during his 20 years at the helm, he watched the hotel go into a decline that ultimately forced officials to block the entryway between the two facilities.
"When I came there, it had gone back to being a Wilson World Hotel," Purvis said, noting that over the next several years, the hotel changed hands numerous times and fell more into disrepair.
Purvis said he wasn't certain just when he closed off access between the hotel and the convention center, but the move was necessary because of several factors.
"I don't know if it was 2015 or 2016, but we had wanted that door opened because we wanted the commerce back and forth between the properties," Purvis said.
"But the conditions became so abysmal." He said two or three attempts were made to get the hotel "to at least not have wet mops laying all over the lobby and just generally nasty conditions." Also, "they had some fairly unsavory elements hanging out over there, and we never knew from one day to the next if they were even in business, [so] to secure the convention center, we finally just closed the door."
Asked if the hotel's decline hurt the convention center's business, Purvis was unequivocal.
"Oh, yes, definitely," he said. "In Pine Bluff, the things we had to market ourselves as a convention facility was that it was within an easy drive from Central Arkansas, we had good prices, we had good customer service in our facility, and we had a hotel attached to us."
McCorvey echoed those comments, saying that regardless of what is ultimately decided, the convention center in order to be viable needs a quality hotel as a selling point.
"One of the first questions anyone asks when considering a site for a convention," he said recently, "is 'Do you have a hotel?'"
