Something to CROW about
Preservation group recognizes Morrilton construction firm
According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, “restore” means “to bring back to or put back into a former or original state.” That’s exactly what Crow Group Inc. has done to the former 20,000-square-foot Coca-Cola Bottling Plant at 210 N. Moose St. in Morrilton.
“We bought the building from the city of Morrilton in 2018,” said Brian Rohlman of Morrilton, president and principal in charge for Crow Group, which has made the building its corporate headquarters for its construction and engineering services. “We gutted it … down to the bare bones. It’s a design-build project for us. That’s the kind of construction work we do.
“We worked with the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and the National Park Service Historic Preservation Department to receive tax credits and grants, and to see that we retained the original elements we needed to keep it historically correct.”
The Coca-Cola Bottling Co. was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Crow Group completed the $2.2 million restoration project in August 2019. Since then, the company has received several accolades for the restoration project, the latest being the Award for Excellence in Preservation Through Restoration from Preserve Arkansas. Crow Group will be recognized, along with other winners, at the Arkansas Preservation Awards Ceremony on Friday at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock. Tickets are sold out, but virtual tickets are available for $25 each at preservearkansas.org.
“We’re really pleased to be part of the historic renovation in downtown Morrilton and are excited to continue to contribute to similar projects in the future,” said Mike Miller of Morrilton, owner, along with his wife, Suzan, of Crow Group since 2014. “We’re grateful for organizations like Preserve Arkansas that highlight the work that goes into these restoration projects. It’s an honor to be recognized for the transformation of the Coca-Cola building to our Crow Group headquarters.”
Rohlman said Crow Group is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the state.
“We were known as Crow Paving Inc. for many years. Then in 2014, we came under new ownership and have been diversifying and growing ever since, said Rohlman, who joined the company in 2014.
“We had a field-operations office across town, and we knew we needed more space. We knew we could build a new office anywhere, but what grabbed my heart was downtown Morrilton. The city was willing to sell us this building,” he said, noting that the building began as the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant in 1929, then housed the Walmart No. 8 Store in the 1960s and the Morrilton City Hall and Police Department when the city acquired the building in 1978.
“This made a lot of sense to me … to us. However, old buildings are costly to rehabilitate. From an economic standpoint,
it didn’t make much sense, but for self-use, it did. We could come downtown and anchor downtown Morrilton … get the ball rolling on revitalizing our town,” Rohlman said, smiling. “Such has been the case.
“We have seen other projects come along, and Crow Group just recently restored another building … the Adams Building, now called the Adams Office Center, at 116. N. Moose St., and we own the old First National Bank building on the corner of Moose and Main streets, for which we have big plans … maybe a boutique hotel or condos … something exciting in the future.”
“Crow Group’s careful restoration of the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant at Morrilton went above and beyond the minimum standards for a historic tax-credit project,” said Rachel Patton, executive director of Preserve Arkansas. “They chose to recreate elements of the original building that had been replaced over the years, based on the original Charles Thompson architectural drawings.”
Patton noted that the bottling plant was constructed in 1929 and designed by the well-known architectural firm of Thompson, Sanders and Ginocchio.
“They were not deterred by surprise discoveries throughout the project, and now the building is an excellent example of preservation as a tool for community and economic development,” Patton said. “More projects have been completed or are currently in the works in Morrilton as a result of this successful project.”
She said the city, when it purchased the building, installed drop ceilings, wood paneling, and linoleum and carpet.
“Many areas were divided into smaller spaces to suit the needs of the city, which included 20 jail cells made of concrete and steel. The building’s National Register nomination didn’t mention anything about its interior,” Patton said.
“Of course, at that time, there was nothing visible worth mentioning. Crow Group pursued federal and state historic tax credits to help with the cost of rehabilitation, so photos were taken to document the existing condition of the building before selective demolition began to remove nonhistoric alterations. Everyone was surprised to uncover an ornate plaster frieze with life-size Coca-Cola bottles, as well as black and white ceramic tile on the walls, in the original bottling room,” Patton said.
The Old State House Museum provided copies of the original Charles Thompson drawings for the building, she said.
“Architect Terry Burrus used the original plans to replicate missing elements of the bottling-room frieze and wall tile,” Patton said. “The plans were also used to recreate the front-facade windows and front door. Period-appropriate lighting was installed at original locations, apparent from plaster medallions on the ceiling. With a lot of elbow grease, Crow Group was able to restore a section of the original mosaic tile floor, now the perfect entryway into the bottling room.
“Steel-frame windows were restored or fabricated, based on the original plans, and reinstalled. The yellow terracotta block interior wall on the Walmart side of the building was restored and incorporated into the office design. This project also included the installation of solar panels with the help of a [U.S. Department of Agriculture] Rural Energy for America Program historic tax credit. Not only did Crow Group meet the surprise challenge of restoring the bottling room; they received a modest compliment from the National Park Service, being emailed ‘nice job’ from the tax-credit reviewer, who literally wrote the book on preservation standards.”
Patton said the awards are chosen by a selection committee made up of Preserve Arkansas board members and members at large, architects and historians from throughout the state. This year’s committee was chaired by Mason Ellis, American Institute of Architects, of Little Rock and consisted of Jessica Cogburn, Little Rock; Kyle Cook, AIA, Jonesboro; Suzzette Goldmon, Ph.D., Monticello; Steven Kite, Ph.D., Fort Smith; and Ruth O’Loughlin, Lake Village. The tax-credit reviewer was Anne Grimmer at the National Park Service.
“We organized the building to meet our needs. We have a variety of professionals working here … engineers, program managers and more,” Rohlman said.
“They all have their own space. We also have a full kitchen, break room and employee gym, as well as an event space, which we use for training and special events for employees. Crow Group has about 100 employees, total. We have about 30 working here in this building with room to grow. This was a fun project,” Rohlman said of the restoration.
“I was heavily involved. I’ve always been a dreamer. It’s been great to be a part of the downtown revitalization. We didn’t do this for recognition, but it’s great to be recognized as a quality project. It’s exciting to be a part of history and to pay tribute to what it was before. We love to show it off. But what’s even better is to be able to see young people move back to their hometown and get good jobs,” he said, adding that he is a 2004 graduate of Sacred Heart Catholic High School and a 2008 graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree.
“When I graduated from U of A, I thought I would have to move to Little Rock or Bentonville for a good job. My first job was at Conway Corp, and then I was able to get a job here. Now we have young people from Morrilton working for us right out of college. That’s great. I think you can achieve just about anything with a lot of hard work,” said Rohlman, who is a licensed professional civil engineer and is nationally certified as an associate design-build professional by the Design-Build Institute of America.
He is also a member of the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton Advisory Committee for Industrial Mechanics and Maintenance, a board member of the Conway County Economic Development Corp. and a member of the Sacred Heart Capital Campaign Steering Committee.
Since its grand opening on Sept. 27, 2019, Crow Group Inc. has been named the 2019 Business Site of the Year by the Morrilton Chamber of Commerce, with owner Mike Miller named the 2019 Earl Love Business Leader of the Year, and has received the 2020 Excellence in Construction Award from the Associated Builders and Contractors of Arkansas and the 2020 Best Downtown Improvement Project Award presented by Main Street Arkansas.