Empty PB bank is considered by casino for hiring, training

The Bank of America Building in Pine Bluff will soon have a new tenant, at least for a short while, if the City Council approves a two-month lease with Saracen Casino Resort.

According to Mayor Shirley Washington’s comments to the council’s Planning and Development Committee, casino officials want to lease the ground floor of the building for two months as a training and hiring facility for the casino.

With the exception of a call center and an insurance agency that rented space in the building for a time, it has been empty since Bank of America left the location in downtown Pine Bluff in 2016.

“The lobby of that building is large enough for them to use for their training, and the annex that leads out to Main Street, they would like to use that for HR,” Washington told committee members Glen Brown Jr., Bruce Lockett, and Win Trafford.

The initial proposal, Washington said, was to lease the building for $3,000 a month, with Saracen officials responsible for utility payments. Washington said casino officials had requested that the monthly lease payment be reduced by $1,000, to $2,000 a month and that the casino be responsible for the electric bill and the city cover the water and gas bills.

The mayor said that the city currently pays utilities for the building and that she did not anticipate the increased water and gas usage to be enough to impact the city.

“There’s some cleanup fees that have to be done, quite a few to get it ready so that it looks real good and clean inside and out,” she said. “They would also wash the whole building on the outside because it’s been sitting there empty for quite awhile and there’s a lot of dust, dirt and cobwebs that have built up all around it.”

Lockett said he favored the proposal, even at the reduced rate.

“Anything that will move that building to some status of usability, I’m in favor of it,” he said.

Brown questioned the omission of the gas and water bills from the lease, noting that both would likely see an increased use due to the increased activity in the building and sanitary measures being undertaken because of covid-19 precautions.

“I would certainly be more comfortable with them taking on all the utilities considering they’ll be the ones occupying the building,” he said. “But to get the building utilized, if we can’t reach that deal, then I would be OK with it.”

Washington then said the original rental agreement required that the tenant pay all gas, water, electricity and telephone bills that resulted from the use of the building, and said she could leave that in the agreement and present it with the cut in the monthly rental payment only.

“I can tell them we’re leaving that in the agreement and see if they accept just reducing the rental amount,” she said.

Brown and Lockett agreed to pass the proposal on to the full council, which meets Monday, for consideration. Trafford, who represents the Quapaw Nation in some real estate and construction matters, recused from the discussion.

Carlton Saffa, project manager at Saracen Casino Resort, said in an email that with close to 1,000 staff members who will eventually be deployed throughout the facility’s gaming floor and seven restaurants finding a venue to accommodate hiring and training was necessary.

“To better accommodate hiring and orientation,” Saffa said, “we’ll need additional space for a few months, and given that the city has the Bank of America building available, utilizing it on a temporary lease is a good fit for us and will provide additional revenue to the city.”

Brown said that although the two-month lease is set to run from Saturday through Sept. 30, and it can’t be ratified by the City Council sooner than Monday, the term of the lease would likely be extended to account for that fact.

“I believe that would be fair, to extend those days out to them if they need them,” Brown said. “They may not need them but I’m sure it won’t be an issue to extend it out for them.”