OK lets Junior League alter downtown building

The Junior League of Little Rock will be allowed to purchase the city-owned facade easement to its historic downtown building, the city Board of Directors unanimously agreed Tuesday.

The revocation of the easement now allows the Junior League to make changes to the building’s exterior without city approval.

The league will purchase the city’s rights to the 50-year facade easement that began 12 years ago on the league’s historic Women’s City Club building at Scott and East Fourth streets for $34,196.16. That amount is the $20,000 grant the city paid the league for the easement in September 2002, along with 6 percent interest.

The payment will be made in one lump sum, and the money will go toward a fund that allows the city to help rehabilitate other historic properties.

The league’s request to purchase the easement came after a disagreement a few months ago in which the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program threatened to have the building taken off the National Register of Historic Places if the league replaced windows instead of repairing them.

After attorneys got involved and the city board deferred a vote on whether the league would be allowed to replace the windows, the league and historic preservationists came to an agreement in October.

The two groups agreed to allow the league to replace 18 windows in the basement and third story as long as the replacements match the old windows in design, color and other visual qualities. There are plans to move a nonprofit center into the third floor of the building in February.

League President Lindsey Gray said that after that process, the league’s board realized it would be best to keep such matters out of City Hall.

The city releasing the facade easement allows the league to do whatever it wants to the outside of the building, though Gray assured the board the league wouldn’t jeopardize the building’s placement on the national register. The title is purely honorary.

When At-large City Director Joan Adcock asked Gray at Tuesday’s meeting why the league wanted to purchase the easement, she said: “Because this is not what we do.

“We don’t do city politics. We just want to get back to the community service projects we do and spending our money and time on that,” Gray said.

Both Ward 6 City Director Doris Wright and At-large City Director Dean Kumpuris said the board was wasting its time debating the issue down to the detail of the windows.

“I don’t think it is right for us to try to encumber them or hold them hostage for a $25,000 [easement] considering a $3 million investment they have made [in the building.] I think we need to trust them and their do-right attitude to continue to take care of this building the way it needs to be taken care of,” Kumpuris said.

The league raised more than $3.5 million in 2001 and 2002 to renovate the Women’s City Club building.

Mayor Mark Stodola said at last week’s agenda meeting that he was surprised the league asked to purchase the easement after all the effort that was made on a settlement for the third-story and basement-level windows. He asked that the league agree in writing to not alter the firstand second-floor windows.

“We’ll see what the real purpose is for this,” Stodola said at the time of the request. “If, in fact, the intentions were real honorable … then they should not have any objection to that request.”

The league, however, did not agree to another covenant, though Gray put in writing in a letter to board members that the league is committed to not changing the windows and to keeping the building on the historic register.

“To buy out of one legally binding document and go into another one is not fiscally responsible on our part,” Gray said.

Ward 3 City Director Stacy Hurst is a sustaining, or retired, league member who spearheaded the 2001 effort to raise funds to renovate the building. She told Gray and more than a dozen league members present to make sure to remember the historic importance in future years.

“I don’t want that to be lost in the future leadership of the league,” Hurst said. “It’s important that the league embrace the fact that this is an important historic structure of our city and to honor that and protect it in the future.”