The Pine Bluff Convention Center and Hotel Public Facilities Board has ratified a city ordinance from Feb. 20 allowing the board to close on an $18 million senior loan and $1.9 million junior loan toward a Courtyard by Marriott hotel next to the Convention Center.
The Public Facilities Board will officially acquire the property once loan documents are signed sometime this week. The city, which also loaned the board $3 million, will have no liability to repay the debt.
“We knew the principal amount of the bank loan and junior debt, and the board approved that in February, but we didn’t have all the documents in final form at that point,” said Gordon Wilbourn, legal counsel for the hotel project. “They reaffirmed their formal approval and then approved the documents.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which guarantees up to 80% of the senior loan from Farmers State Bank of Alto Pass, Ill., granted the Public Facilities Board an extension from Sept. 30 to Dec. 31 to close on the loan.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“The reason for that was a demolition issue,” board chairwoman Letrece Harris said. “Anytime you have a demolition process, they find things that they didn’t realize was there, such as the asbestos.”
Demolition on the Plaza Hotel, which opened in 1988 as Wilson World, began in August but needed to be complete before closure on the loan, according to board officials. Today the lot where the old hotel, rotting to its ultimate demise, once stood is now clear, giving the corner of Eighth Avenue and Convention Center Drive a pre-1988 look.
The $3 million loan from the city went toward fixtures, furniture and equipment for the new hotel. The P3 Group, the developer on the project, submitted an invoice for the remaining balance of the city’s loan, $1,254,657.
With the junior loan, Wilbourn said, The P3 Group is buying one part of the ownership worth $1.7 million and hotel operator Beechwood Pinnacle Management is purchasing another part worth $200,000.
Construction on the new hotel is not likely to begin until after Jan. 1, Wilbourn said. A date for a groundbreaking ceremony is yet to be determined.
“It’s pretty phenomenal we’re at this point,” Harris said. “There was a time many didn’t think this would ever happen. And you know what? This is a project of the people because it’s their tax dollars they have invested into this hotel, so everyone has played a part.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article mentioned a $2 million contribution that actually went toward another capital project in Pine Bluff.