City seeks grant for Malvern art

The Hot Springs Board of Directors has authorized the city to apply for a federal grant implementing part of its vision to remake the Malvern Avenue approach into downtown.

The board adopted the resolution last week, giving the city the go-ahead to apply for a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant providing up to $200,000 for artist fees and soliciting public input for large-scale artworks.

Parks and Trails Director Jean Wallace told the board the grant application, due Oct. 2, will seek funding for a musician sculpture garden plaza in front of the National Baptist Hotel. The sculpture would honor prominent African-American musicians who performed there when the area was known as Black Broadway.

Wallace said earlier this year the area’s Gateway Community Association had asked that Black Broadway be memorialized as part of the Complete Street Master Plan for the city maintained segment of Malvern Avenue from East Grand Avenue to Spring Street.

Wallace told the board the University of Arkansas Community Design Center recommended the city seek funding for the sculpture project from the Our Town grant program. The city awarded the UACDC a $40,000 contract to develop a concept plan for the eight-block, southern approach into downtown.

Infrastructure projects at the center of the vision for the remade streetscape will provide the 50-percent match required for the grant, Wallace said. The city’s stormwater and street funds would respectively contribute $25,000 and $18,500 for the plan’s stormwater mitigation component, which calls for topiaries, tree lawns and container gardens to capture runoff.

The $100,000 the city allocates the Complete Street program from its annual paving budget would also

go toward the match, as would $56,500 in private funds that have been pledged to bury utility lines in the eight-block stretch. Wallace told the board the hard costs the city is providing for the sculpture garden would serve as the match for the soft costs the NEA grant would reimburse.

“What we’re doing is proposing that the city build the street/plaza where the sculptures will ultimately be placed as a Complete Street project, and it will also count as the 50-percent match for the NEA grant program,” she said. “It’s pretty creative. I’m glad we have so many players that are willing to walk with us down this journey.”

In addition to the sculpture garden, the Malvern Avenue plan envisions appropriating part of the vehicular right of way for pedestrian and bicycles and plazas in front of the National Baptist Hotel and The Hotel Hot Springs & Spa. Its boulevard concept calls for a tree-lined median from East Grand to Grove Street, with trees also flanking both sides of the stretch.

Expanded sidewalks from Bridge Street to Spring Street enable the plan’s outdoor dining element.