The Pine Bluff Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a new church at the Jefferson Square Shopping Center and a new motorcycle-themed bar at the former Big Banjo pizza building at the intersection of Sheridan Road and Dollarway Road. It also voted to suggest that local veterans who were denied a permit to host events at a night club-turned-veterans center seek fraternal order status with the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office. Finally, the board discussed potential zoning changes should the Go Forward Pine Bluff sales tax pass in June.
New Life Church, which originated in Conway, was granted a Use Permit on Review Request to establish a church at 2801 S. Olive in the Jefferson Square Shopping Center. The church will occupy 60 percent of the original Campbell Bell store. Church leaders expect to use 200 of 240 parking spaces available, according to the application.
“We have 14 churches in Arkansas, and we want to bring one to Pine Bluff,” New Life representative Seth Jeffrey said. “It’s been on our radar for five years, and the time is finally right to be able to do that.”
“Is it correct that you bring your congregation with you?” one commissioner asked.
“No, sir,” Jeffrey said. “The pastor who comes wants to live in this community for the rest of his life. We don’t want to have someone who comes for a few years and then leaves.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Jeffrey added, “It’s also very important that we tell everyone around that we’re not trying to take people from every other church in town.”
The commission also recommended approval of a new bar at 6000 Sheridan Road to be called Hot Rods Sports Bar. The 2,606-square-foot building, which is shaped like a banjo, formerly housed the Big Banjo pizza parlor.
Most recent bar occupants at the site include The Hitchin Post, The Dawg House and, most recently, The Pit Stop, according to Hot Rods Sports Bar owner David Miller. Given that the site previously sold alcohol, and has not been identified as “a high incident location,” city staff recommended approval.
The commission also considered an application from local veterans that the commission tabled last month. The veterans wanted to host fundraising events with alcoholic beverages at 2221 South Olive Street. However, a nightclub previously housed at the location had prompted the city to develop an ordinance restricting event centers. Commission chairman Lou Taylor suggested the veterans apply with the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office for fraternal order status, and return to the commission with another application.
“That status would allow them to use the facility for their fundraising events,” Taylor said. “Once they acquire that, they can use that status for fundraising. Not a bar, not a club, not any type of venue like that. But from time to time they could hold events there in order to raise funds there for a well-needed and well-deserved activity and facility here in Pine Bluff that’s helping the veterans recover from their service.”
Pine Bluff Inspection and Zoning Department official Lakishia Hill was still unsure whether that solution would be final.
“We’ll need to look at the ordinance that governs events centers,” Hill said. “What zones are [service clubs and fraternal lodges] approved? I know in the B-5 zone. That’s our entertainment district.”
Representatives for the veterans were not in attendance. The commission voted to reject their previous application to hold fundraising events, which had been tabled, with the suggestion the veterans return with a different application. The commission also discussed the Go Forward Pine Bluff initiative. If a proposed five-eighths cent sales tax to fund the plan passes during a June 13 special election, Taylor said Go Forward “wants us and the council to go through and do a lot of rezoning. Expanding zones, expanding commercial areas.”
Larry Reynolds, executive director of the Southeast Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, said that wasn’t exactly the case.
“The city’s land use plan [dates to] 1977 the last time it was adopted,” Reynolds said. “That’s old. So what they want from the committee, they would like to see the city codes updated and adopted. We should have GIS mapping. Your zoning map should be online. They’re looking at trying to get the codes, not just zoning, updated.”
Reynolds said they wanted to look at the growth of particular areas.
“What they want to do is look at neighborhoods,” he said. “What’s the chance of that block going commercial? In the last 20 years, we haven’t had any [of an example neighborhood] go commercial.”
He added that Pine Bluff “allows very little mixed-use [development]. Lots of growing cities allow mixed use. If you want that downtown to develop, you’ll need mixed use.”
Other ideas, Reynolds said, included requirements to install sidewalks.
“If you make your city walkable, you improve your chances for grants,” he said. “This younger generation wants to bike and walk. Any city in Arkansas that’s grown more than 15 percent, they’re a walkable city.”
It does not all have to happen in one day, he said, using Conway as an example. The city built one bike trail “and it boomed,” he said. It built one round-about and now has nine.