Fix decrepit buildings via eminent domain

The subject of downtown buildings has been a sore one in Pine Bluff. And contentious and dangerous. And when they fall, they’re a complete nuisance.

Back in the day, when they were in use by businesses that took care of them, probably no one thought much about them. It was a downtown, and there were buildings. Yawn. Every city of any size had them to a greater or lesser degree.

Then, these mainstay businesses exited the scene, perhaps hastened by the opening of The Pines mall. Then other smaller businesses took up residence in the old buildings. For a time, that worked. But the smaller outfits didn’t have the financial wherewithal to keep up the old buildings. Slowly, the roof leaks got more severe, and the structures got less sound. And then one day, they started toppling into the street. That was quite the wake-up call.

We all should recall when, in 2014, Garland Trice’s building on Main Street collapsed, tossing bricks into the street, damaging a building next door and closing the street for two years. Why the city put up with a closed street for two years is a head-scratcher, but we digress.

Trice’s building would not be the only one to collapse. Others were at risk — and still are.

Fast forward to today. The Pine Bluff Urban Renewal Agency is tasked with improving the downtown area. It’s buying old buildings, stabilizing them, fixing them up to an extent and making them ready for business occupancy. There are a finite number of buildings in the downtown area, and as the agency expands what it wants to do, it is bumping up against property owners who own dilapidated buildings and who do not want to sell — or if they want to sell them, it is at a cost said to be laughable.

What’s a city to do? Some have suggested condemning the buildings, which would see them torn down.

But another alternative being suggested is to exercise eminent domain, the process by which a public entity takes someone’s property and pays them a fair market value for it, all in the name of the greater good.

That would seem to be the appropriate route if negotiations with property owners continue to falter since it would preserve the buildings, giving others the opportunity to bring them back to life.

Dee Herring makes a good case for doing that, and she should know. She owns several buildings downtown, and she’s the former chairman of the Pine Bluff Historic District Commission. Herring points out these old buildings are part of the fabric of Pine Bluff’s history, and when they are gone, they take much with them.

“We have all these assets here,” she said, “and Pine Bluff needs to be looking at all of our downtown as one huge asset instead of looking at them as liabilities and wanting to condemn them and tear them down.”

There’s a lot of truth to that. Have you ever stood in awe of the structures in a strip mall? We didn’t think so. But a cute downtown, with its shops and restaurants tucked inside old buildings — now you’re talking about an attraction, which was Herring’s point.

And the city is getting there, but at the end of this journey, we will need the old buildings intact, and to make that happen, the city will have to exercise its authority. No one really wants to go there because eminent domain is an option of last resort and not very pretty by the time it slogs its way through court if that’s the direction it takes. But it may be the only option. A decade from now, we’ll all be glad something was done today to make our tomorrow more attractive.