Pine Bluff Convention Center and Hotel Public Facilities Board members Friday accepted an intralocal agreement with the city calling for the board to pay back any profits from the future Courtyard by Marriott hotel.
The city in June agreed, under Ordinance No. 6837, to loan the Public Facilities Board $3 million toward the project to tear down the decaying Plaza Hotel at the Convention Center and replace it with a Courtyard by Marriott. The original hotel opened in 1988 as Wilson World but has not been in operation in recent years.
“We are at a stage where we can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” board Chair Letrece Harris said at the start of Friday’s virtual meeting. “The Plaza Hotel is fenced in and ready for demolition. We are ready to move. The demolition process is underway.”
The financing, Harris noted, will go toward fixtures, furniture and equipment to be installed.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Mayor Shirley Washington said the city was promised demolition would begin by Thursday, adding that preparation would actually begin six days earlier.
According to the intralocal agreement, the $3 million loan will bear an annual interest rate of 4.5% and will be repaid from general revenue of the city in five equal installments to be paid over five years.
The agreement states in part: “… the City and Public Facilities Board have agreed that, to the extent the Hotel Project generates surplus revenues and it is legally permissible for the Public Facilities Board to transfer said surplus revenues, the Public Facilities Board will transfer surplus revenues to the City” annually on or before Dec. 31 each year “in excess of the amounts reasonably estimated to be needed during the next succeeding year to pay recurring or extraordinary expenses of the Public Facilities Board and to maintain net worth and debt service coverage ratios” as required. The loan is made under Amendment 78 of the state constitution and Act 1808 of 2001.
The board secured a 32-year, $18 million loan from Farmers State Bank of Alto Pass, Ill. Harris said Farmers will file for an extension on the deadline to close on the loan from Sept. 30 to Dec. 31 with the USDA, which is guaranteeing 80% of the loan.
“At the point the hotel is profitable and making necessary payments, and has enough money to set aside for future payments … the public facilities board will reimburse the city,” said Gordon Wilbourn, the project’s legal counsel.
The board also made a $344,887 payment to Memphis development firm The P3 Group and Atlanta’s CHASM Architecture in July.
“We’re at a good place,” Harris said. “I am looking forward to seeing it built. There’s a lot of great things going on in Pine Bluff. It’s a city of progress, on the move.”
In other business, Roland Watley was voted the board’s secretary and treasurer, and Washington urged the board to continue its search for an additional board member.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article mentioned a $2 million contribution that actually went toward another capital project in Pine Bluff.