There’s never a dull moment at the Pine Bluff Urban Renewal Agency, and this week’s meeting was no different.
Executive Director Maurice Taggart presented the board of directors with a couple of opportunities that were accepted. One was to purchase the old Crown Motel and the other was to buy the abandoned Southeast Middle School.
First the Crown Motel; can anyone remember when it was a real motel? Apparently, it was. Here’s a review from a hotel site that was posted in 2015:
My husband is a truck driver, and he was spending the night there. He called me around 1:30 the next morning complaining about no heat and how the roaches were attacking him. He asked for another room and he was told this was the best they could do. In addition to that, the bed was on floor and no pillowcases were on the pillows. He also complained of a large gush of air that kept coming from under the door? Do not stay at this hotel. U will leave with roaches in your bag!
Oh, the headline to the post was: Bad, Bad, Bad Hotel. That pretty much sums it up.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Even when it was in operation in that not-too-distant past, it was a mess. Litter, disrepair, room doors wide open, windows broken and stained curtains blowing through the gaps, people milling around who had to be thinking they would be better off somewhere — anywhere — else.
At least when it closed its doors, a lot of that stopped. But it’s been a big eyesore for a long, long time, what with the checkerboard exterior with each square sporting a different layer of a previous paint job.
Yes, we’ve all sighed while sitting at the light in front of the place over the years.
Taggart said he tried one other time to buy the place but that he and the seller couldn’t make it work. Then the situation changed, and now the agency has an agreement with the seller to buy the place for $35,000, with the due diligence and paperwork yet to be handled.
As board chairman Jimmy Dill said: “He walks away with $35,000 and we end up getting a building hopefully we can eventually tear down, get rid of a huge rat trap that’s right in the middle of downtown.”
Perhaps there can be a garden there someday. Actually, just dirt and weeds would be a big improvement.
We’ve said it before in this space, but sometimes adding beauty in town is simply subtracting some ugly. The absence of this structure will be one less reason for someone to pass through town and say ‘ick.’
For the other property, the plan is to put it to use. Mayor Shirley Washington has been looking for a place for some affordable housing. She tried to get the state Education Department to donate the middle school property to the city, but that was going nowhere, so the city offered $25,000 and the state officials said yes the next day. So once that structure comes down, the city, through the Housing Authority and an investor, can create affordable places to live.
It was a profitable week for the Urban Renewal Agency, the activities of which are driven by Go Forward Pine Bluff. One negative leaving and one positive coming. Jobs well done.