Plan for car wash kindles outcry

Plans to turn a historic downtown building into a car wash have drawn opposition from Little Rock preservationists.

An application seeking approval to construct a Bubble King Car Wash at 300 S. Broadway was scheduled to go before the Little Rock Planning Commission on Thursday but has been withdrawn. Still, the sale of the property to the developer is scheduled to go through Monday.

Currently at the site is the Gay Oil Co. building, which was constructed in the 1920s and is on the National Register of Historic Places, which deems it architecturally significant as an example of an early 20th-century commercial building with neoclassical detailing.

The developer’s application calls for the building to be razed and replaced with a sleek, modern-style commercial carwash.

Patricia Blick, executive director of the Quapaw Quarter Association, wrote in a letter to the developer that the historic preservation organization was “overwhelmingly” opposed to the plans.

Blick wrote that the organization’s request was that the proposal be abandoned, but if not, that the developer would consider not demolishing the building until the proposal is approved, “so that if the proposal to build the car wash is not approved, the historic building has not been lost.”

The building’s National Register listing, which it gained in 2017, is an honorary designation that does not prevent demolition or development. The site isn’t in the jurisdiction of the Little Rock Historic District Commission or the Capitol Zoning District Commission, which could help protect it. The building is not currently in use.

City staff members did not find an application for demolition at 300 S. Broadway on Friday afternoon.

As of Friday afternoon, more than 1,900 people had signed an online petition to save the building. More than 100 comments on Facebook posts from the Quapaw Quarter Association expressed dismay that visitors to downtown Little Rock would see a carwash operating among the historic buildings that include City Hall and the Robinson Center. Some hoped for an alternative plan to develop the building that would allow it to remain and be rehabilitated.