Downtown landmark’s handoff to feds imminent
The state will vacate the Army and Navy General Hospital Tuesday, beginning the process of the 105 Reserve St. property’s reversion to the federal government.
What happens next to the imposing Mission/Spanish style building that’s overlooked downtown since 1933 is uncertain. But Preserve Arkansas Executive Director Rachel Patton said she was able to gain some insight into what’s been an opaque process since the state announced last May that it was ending the residential job training program that had been housed in the building since 1960.
The deed transferring the property to the state stipulated it will revert to the federal government if it’s not being used for rehabilitation, education or public health purposes.
Patton said she learned from a recent conversation with the Army’s federal preservation officer that the building, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, has been offered to the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Army provided her a copy of its June 15 letter offering the building to the Interior Department and Hot Springs National Park.
“According to the letter, there’s no stipulation as far as how many days they have to respond,” said Patton, whose nonprofit organization placed the building on its 2020 list of the state’s Most Endangered Places. “They don’t put any kind of time limit on it. They just offer it to them.
“If Interior says yes, great, then we have someone who will hopefully put forth a plan of how to manage the property and what to do with it. The National Park Service has a good record with its historic leasing program in Hot Springs on Bathhouse Row. Perhaps they can do something like that.”
Patton said the preservation officer told her the property will go to the General Services Administration if the Interior Department doesn’t want it. The officer said the Army will be responsible for the building until a new caretaker is found.
“The Army technically has responsibility for it,” she said. “I asked him what that would entail. He said I can’t really give you specifics of what that would be, but he said it would be treated as surplus property.
“You can’t get any kind of information out of them of what that would mean. If it were to go all the way through the process and sit with GSA for however long, there’s still going to be very little to no maintenance.”
Chip McAfee, the director of communications for Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, the state agency that’s occupied the building for 60 years, said water and electricity will be maintained for fire protection purposes until the property’s reversion to the federal government is completed.
“This process could take up to six months, although the exact time frame is unknown,” he said in an email.
The Hot Springs Fire Department has said electricity is needed to operate pumps that pressurize the building’s water supply system. Fighting a fire without the system would be difficult, the department said. Other officials have said the building’s antiquated wiring would make it difficult to restore electricity if service were interrupted for an extended period of time.
Patton said the longer the building sits empty the more dire its prospects become.
“With any building, if it sits empty it tends to deteriorate at a faster pace, because nobody is there day in, day out monitoring what is going on,” she said. “If it does go to the GSA they will be able to dispose of the property as surplus, so they will be looking for a buyer. Who knows what the timeline for that is going to be.”