Demolition and abatement begins at Jones Mill Industrial Park

A crowd of officials met Monday morning at the Jones Mill Industrial Park out on Hwy. 270 to commemorate breaking ground on a demolition and abatement project that will prep the 120-acre industrial park for future businesses to move to the location. Officials in attendance were excited for the promise of economic development coming to Hot Spring County and surrounding areas.

“This is an exciting day for Hot Spring County,” County Judge Dennis Thornton said to the large crowd of officials, which included members of the HSC Quorum Court, officials from the HSC Solid Waste Authority, Rep. Rick Mcclure, local and state officials with the ADEQ, Lance Howell with the Malvern/ HSC Chamber of Commerce and Gary Troutman, President of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce. “It’s been a long time coming.”

The industrial site is the former home of Remmel Dam

Aluminum Plant, built in the early 1940’s by the U.S. government as a defense plant for the war effort. Reynolds Metals Company bought the site after WWII and quickly became essential to the community as the biggest employer around, employing close to 1,200 local workers at their peak of operations.

“There’s a lot of history to this plant, it actually changed the very face of Hot Spring County,” Thornton said, adding that when Reynolds pulled most of their operations from the site in the mid1980s, it “tore a gaping hole within our county that we really have never been able to overcome.”

Thornton made it a priority when he was first elected in 2016 to explore opportunities at the old Reynolds site. Favorable findings from the ADEQ about the park’s viability, along with funds made available through the American Rescue Plan Act and the Quorum Court’s authority, allowed county officials to finally move ahead with the project in the last few months.

“We want to get this park shovel-ready,” Thornton said, noting that the park is a prime location for businesses because of the active railroad, major gas pipeline, electric output from Remmel Dam, water and sewer, and its close proximity to the interstate.

“I think demolition should be done around November or December of this year, so you’re going to see some really quick changes,” Thornton said. Crist Engineers, Inc., took the lead in assessing for the county the scope and scale of work to be done, and DT Specialized Services, Inc., were awarded the bid for demolition.

Many remnants of the site’s former life as an aluminum plant, including large dilapidated structures that have been a familiar part of the Hwy 270 landscape for decades, will be cleared from the property during the coming year. Phase 1 should be complete around the end of April, with the entire project’s completion set to wrap up before the end of the year.