Proposals offered
for hotel cleanup
A Little Rock real estate management company has submitted proposals totaling more than $80,000 to remove debris from in and around the Frederica Hotel and to secure the property now closed and in foreclosure.
RPM Management said in a court filing Friday that it has submitted an estimate of $72,737 to remove trash, construction debris and unattached furnishings from the 107-year-old property, the city's second-oldest hotel. It was closed in September by the state for failing to pay state sales taxes.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza in May appointed RPM as receiver of the Frederica as part of a foreclosure lawsuit filed by ReadyCap Lending LLC of New Providence, N.J. against SHG Management. Piazza ordered a monthly update on the hotel's upkeep from RPM.
RPM said ReadyCap Lending already has approved its $8,680 proposal to secure doors with iron bars and to shore up other areas of the hotel, which has been vandalized several times since it closed.
ReadyCap said SHG had defaulted on a $4.6 million loan in August 2016 to buy the hotel, formerly known as The Legacy and, years earlier, as the Hotel Sam Peck.
-- Stephen Steed
Extension service
names Scott chief
Bob Scott, a veteran weed scientist and director of the state's Rice Research and Extension Center in Stuttgart, has been named director of the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.
Scott will succeed Rick Cartwright, who is retiring following a nearly 30-year career with the University of Arkansas system's Division of Agriculture, including three years as director of the cooperative extension service. Scott's appointment is effective on July 1.
Scott joined the UA agriculture division in 2002 as a weed scientist, with a doctorate degree from Mississippi State University and bachelor's and master's degrees from Oklahoma State University.
In 2013, Scott was appointed director of the UA extension centers in Newport and Lonoke. Scott has been director of the 1,000-acre Rice Research and Extension Center in Stuttgart since April 2018.
-- Stephen Steed
Index inches up,
closes at 386.93
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Monday at 386.93, up 0.63.
"Despite news out of the World Health Organization regarding a record rise in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, all three major indexes managed gains on Monday with the biggest gains in technology stocks as investors focused on the potential for more government stimulus measures," said Chris Harkins, managing director at Raymond James & Associates.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.