We recall the jaw-dropping news that Kemmons Wilson, founder of the Holiday Inn empire, was going to build a Wilson World hotel right here in river city, next to the Pine Bluff Convention Center. That was in the late ’80s.
Fast forward to today, and in so doing, rush past all the lodging iterations Wilson’s structure has had. The building at this moment is vacant with pieces of the outside veneer occasionally leaping to the ground.
The question stands: tear it down or fix it up?
Joseph McCorvey, executive director of the Pine Bluff Convention Center, has been a proponent of tearing it down. There are too many problems associated with the old building, he said, and too many design flaws that don’t fly anymore, like a pool in the lobby.
He also has lobbied to put something there that the Hilton line of hotels would buy into.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Now that seems unlikely, with the Hilton folks saying they didn’t think Pine Bluff was quite pulled together enough to merit one of their inns.
But all is not lost. At a recent meeting, it was said that Marriott was interested.
What stands in the way? Another study.
That miffed some of the council members who asked why another feasibility study was needed when there was one just done for what Hilton might have had in mind. The answer is that Hilton would have wanted 200 rooms and Marriott would only require 125.
According to the P3 Group, bonds could be issued for the cost of the structure but that would only happen if the feasibility study shows that such a facility would be profitable. That’s a necessary and reasonable check on an undertaking of this size.
McCorvey is correct in saying that he loses convention center business when organizers hear that there is no hotel connected to the center. But a few conventions each year is not going to keep a hotel in the black.
To make a hotel profitable, business people and visitors to town would have to want to stay there on their own. But how long will that take to happen?
According to Sheri Storie, director of the Advertising and Promotion Commission, Pine Bluff has zilch in the way of tourism. So, if you were counting on tourists coming to town and spending the night, those folks don’t exist, at least for now.
And then there’s the brightly lit elephant in the room. Saracen Casino Resort has plans to build a 13-floor, 300-room hotel attached to its very successful casino, which already has several restaurants already established.
If your brother and his wife are coming to see you — and they don’t want to listen to your crying kids — would they stay at the Marriott at the convention center or at the casino?
Even if the Marriott, if that’s what ends up there, is a fine place to stay, the casino hotel is going to take a big cut of the lodging pie here. And a good feasibility study needs to take that into consideration.
All that said, we look forward to seeing what the study finds. More than that, we look forward to having this issue settled.
There was nothing there when Wilson swept in lo those many years ago, so it all seemed easy. But even he might have a hard time figuring out what to do with that property today.