Old Army, Navy hospital in limbo

Cost to probe hazards put at $400,000

HOT SPRINGS — The Department of the Army estimates it will cost $400,000 to further investigate possible environmental hazards at the Army and Navy General Hospital, the nonprofit that has taken the lead in securing a caretaker for the property said.

Preserve Arkansas Executive Director Rachel Patton said the estimate was provided to U.S. Sen. John Boozman’s office. The nonprofit put the property at 105 Reserve St. on its 2020 list of the state’s Most Endangered Places. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 as the Army and Navy General Hospital Historic District.

“Because the Army has not operated the Hot Springs facility in 60 years, and did not anticipate this expense, it views this as an unfunded requirement,” Patton said.

The state still has title to the hulking Mission/Spanish style building that has overlooked downtown Hot Springs since 1933. The deed conveying the property from the Army to the state in 1960, and the enabling 1959 act of Congress, stipulated that the 20-acre campus would immediately revert to the Army if the secretary of the Army determined that it was no longer being used by the state for health or education.

Arkansas Rehabilitation Services vacated the property in June after announcing in May 2019 that it was discontinuing the residential job training program for young adults with disabilities on the campus known as the Arkansas Career Training Institute, and later the Arkansas Career Development Center.

Patton said the property will not revert to the Army until a full environmental investigation is completed. The phase one environmental assessment report that the state Department of Environmental Quality released in December 2019 indicated possible soil or groundwater contamination from storage drums and underground fuel tanks.

“[The Army] has to agree to take it back,” Patton said. “They won’t do that until they have funds budgeted to take care of the approximately $400,000 assessing the condition of all of the buildings and following up with all of the environmental requirements they have to do by law before they can even pass it along to the [General Services Administration] to act as a real estate broker for that property.

“In other words, they’re not in a rush to take on the unfunded requirement.”

Patton said the Army indicated in its email to Boozman’s office that it had hoped the U.S. Department of the Interior would absorb the campus into Hot Springs National Park. The Interior Department declined to take the property last year. The 1959 statute gave it right of first refusal if the campus reverts to the federal government.

Patton said the agency waived that right in an Oct. 1 letter to the Department of Defense. She said the new secretary of the interior may be amenable to reconsidering the Army’s offer. She has encouraged the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce committee that’s working to keep the building viable to ask the new secretary to accept the property.

Congressman Debra Haaland, D-N.M., has been nominated for the Cabinet post.

“Assuming that Deb Haaland is the new interior secretary, I think that would be a wise course of action to follow up with her and see if she might reconsider the offer,” Patton said. “That would be the fastest resolution for the property’s ownership and continued maintenance.”

Pipes feeding the building’s sprinkler system froze and burst during last month’s winter storms, according to an email that Arkansas Rehabilitation Services sent Feb. 22 to the Garland County Office of Emergency Management that was provided to The Sentinel-Record by Arkansas Rehabilitation Services in response to a records request.

“Building One [the largest structure at 105 Reserve St.] has some standing water in its basement, first floor and third floor,” the email said. “The water has been shut off, and it is draining wherever there are in-floor drains.”

Arkansas Rehabilitation Services told the county Office of Emergency Management on Thursday that it was getting a cost estimate for the damage.

Hot Springs City Manager Bill Burrough said the winter storms didn’t do significant damage to the fire suppression system, which includes a water supply system pressurized by electrical pumps.