Input is sought for uses of school
Housing option for Ole Main out
The proximity of the vacant Ole Main High School building to North Little Rock’s current high school poses limitations on what can be done with the building, officials said.
The Ole Main Task Force, created in 2019, is gathering community input to create a list of recommendations on ways to preserve Ole Main, which will be presented to the North Little Rock Board of Education and the school district. The Ole Main building was built in 1928, but it has stood empty since May 2016.
Officials have said it can’t be used as apartments, criminal law offices, or an entertainment venue with alcohol because of its proximity to the current high school at 101 W. 22nd St.
Paula Lively, a task force member, said during a public forum last week that plans call for the school district to house its administration offices in the Ole Main building, but the offices will occupy only about 25,000 square feet of the 40,000-square-foot building.
“There is also the option for them to not move there,” Lively said during last week’s task force meeting. “Nothing is set in stone. We are just here to figure out what else we can put in the building.”
In addition to the building’s location, Lively noted that Ole Main belongs to the North Little Rock School District. That means the building will have limited parking, limited access to the general public, and
smoking and drinking will be banned within the facility.
“We [have] got to consider foremost the safety of the students,” Lively said. “How do we vet the public in and out of the building? How do we protect all of our students?”
The task force won’t take budget concerns into consideration when it comes to ideas for the building, Lively said.
“For example, if we decided to turn the building into a doggy daycare then we would submit to the school board, and they will be the ones who figure out how to make it happen,” Lively said.
That didn’t soothe the concerns of some who thought any idea would come at a cost to city taxpayers.
“The elephant in the room is how the school is going to afford this,” said Dana Chadwick, who attended the meeting and is a former employee at Ole Main. “Nothing has been updated in that building in 40 years.”
The building needs to be accessible to people with disabilities and has limited electrical capabilities, Chadwick noted.
“This is a massive undertaking, and considering the school district’s financial situation, I can almost promise none of this will be feasible at the end without a tax increase,” he said.
Robert Birch, director of Workforce Development and Education for North Little Rock, said the school district knows how much it will cost to update the building and that money has been set aside.
“Taxpayers will get to vote if a new tax is recommended,” Birch said.
Lively said most schools across the nation that have faced similar issues transformed abandoned buildings into apartments, but the North Little Rock campus’ proximity to Ole Main eliminated that option.
The building is also on the National Historic Registry, which limits what the task force can suggest regarding alterations to the building’s structure, Lively said.
“We might lose potential funding for projects if we lose that status,” she said.
Virginia Raum suggested that the school look into working with University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College to establish education programs at Ole Main. Lively said the task force has been in contact with the college to gauge interest in forming a culinary program at Ole Main.
“It has a beautiful kitchen, and we toured the building with Tech officials,” she said.
The use of the auditorium also was suggested, but Birch mentioned it would be in direct competition with the Argenta Community Theater.
Joy Cameron suggested turning some of the space into law offices, but Lively noted that it would have to limit it to non-criminal law because the school probably wouldn’t want potential criminals walking in the same parking lot as students.
All the ideas mentioned during the meeting were included on a list being compiled by the task force. Once the list is complete, North Little Rock residents will be allowed to access the list through social media and other means and will be asked to rank the ideas, which will then go before the task force.
“We are just at the beginning phase,” Lively said. “We are just getting started with all of this.”