Texarkana business embraces history

Owners envision downtown ‘heartbeat’ for concerts, parties with nod to past

TEXARKANA — Owners of an old, historic building in downtown Texarkana intend to turn the space into a multipurpose entertainment venue that recalls the building’s history.

The CrossTies Texarkana project gets underway in earnest now that the new ownership team closed on the deal to buy Moore’s Home Furnishings on Wednesday.

Justin Jones, Joe Gay and Les Munn are partnering on the project, which reimagines a vast commercial building — 36,000 square feet reworked for the future.

“We envision a place in the downtown area, now that we have the new entertainment district downtown, that will give everybody in this town a place to come to as kind of like your heartbeat of the downtown entertainment district,” Munn said. “We’re going to be able to hold weddings, parties, concerts.”

They have purchased the building and lots beside the building, including the land up to the caboose at Front Street Festival Plaza.

“We’re not going to waste any space. We’re going to utilize the entire building — upstairs, downstairs, the lots, all of it,” Munn said.

Jones and Gay are brothers, while Munn is a friend, who as a Texarkana police officer, experiences downtown events and interacts with the community. They started talking about what they could do to help enliven downtown.

“And create something to wake it up, get it vitalized, get things going on down here,” Munn said. “We needed a place, we needed an idea.”

Seeing that the Moore’s building was for sale inspired them to start batting ideas around.

What was the specific draw for the three of them?

“Location, land and space, and downtown on the Arkansas side,” Gay said.

They want the space looking like it did in the past with exposed beams and brick, original wood columns brought back.

“All the original hardwood floor upstairs brought back to life,” Gay said. Artistic touches will be added.

Said Jones, “We want to bring back some history, bring some character into every room and every design we’re doing.”

They have studied the building’s history.

“We’ve been doing our research and we can put it back to 1903. It was one of the original Coca-Cola plants here. It’s been a fire department for the city at one point. It has been a livery stable for this side of the building where they used to keep the horses and the wagons back in the day. It’s been a barber shop, it’s been a saloon. It’s been a department store, it’s been a car sales place,” Munn said.

They intend to display that history and also mix it with the downtown entertainment district theme.

Main Street Arkansas officials will help with consultation. Main Street Arkansas is a program that provides resources, education and professional assistance on downtown commercial revitalization. The program, part of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, has worked with officials in Rogers, El Dorado and the SoMa area of Little Rock, among other places.

“We’re shooting for an opening of late April, early May,” Munn said, adding, “You’re going to see things starting to happen here in the next couple weeks.”

The venue website declares, “We hope to provide a unique entertainment venue. We will host weddings, all types of parties, corporate events, social gatherings, festivals, concerts and so much more.”

Moore’s Home Furnishings served Texarkana for decades, first under the name Moore Tire and Appliance. Since it opened in the 1950s, two families ran the business: first the Moores and then the McNatts. Now that they’ve reached retirement age, the McNatt family decided to sell the longtime business fixture.

In a mid-December Texarkana Gazette article, Gary McNatt said, “The recently formed entertainment district is a big influencer of this decision as downtown Texarkana enters a new period and seems poised for a renaissance. We are going to let things take their course, and we wish the new owners of the property well.”

Ina McDowell, Main Street Texarkana’s executive director, is excited to see this development downtown.

“Main Street (Arkansas) staff will be coming in and assisting the new owners with interior and exterior design and ultimately provide renderings for use of the space,” McDowell said. “The new owners have already been talking to them with ideas of what they think they would like to see, such as new awning on the side, signage.”

With this much space, there are plenty of uses, she said. Main Street staff will advise about that, too.

“I think it’s great as another anchor on this end of our downtown. I think the name is perfect that ties in obviously with the railroad,” McDowell said.