Decoding the Decade, Part 3,
Improvements include two convention centers
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third of the four-part series Decoding the Decade examining the community’s successes and growth. Today’s installment highlights several improvements in Texarkana and the surrounding areas.
2010
■ The Rose Hill area saw two major revitalization efforts in 2010. In late February, more than 100 people gathered to celebrate the completion of the first project in the revitalization of Texarkana, Texas’ Rose Hill Community. The Oaks at Rose Hill, the Housing Authority’s $16 million construction, was built on the site of the former Covington Homes/Bowie Courts.
In late July, plans were announced to raze the 68-year-old Stevens Courts with its 124 apartments bordered by Milam, West 16th, West 15th and Peach streets to buid new townhouse-style dwellings on the eight-acre site. The new homes were part of the Rose Hill Neighborhood revitalization effort. Known as Pecan Ridge, the project was slated to cost about $18 million.
■ In September 2010, the Camp Albert Pike Recreation area in Ouachita National Forest had a limited opening of some of its areas three months after a flash flood over took the area. The flood killed 20 people, with about half of those from the Texarkana area. At the end of the year, a library was opened at Eylau United Methodist Church in honor of Kylee Sullivan, a girl who lost her life in the flood. A local dog park was named after her in ensuing years in honor of her love for animals.
Construction begins on Texas-side convention center
March 2011
Ground was broken in March on the Hilton Garden Inn and Texarkana, Texas, Convention Center on Cowhorn Creek Road.
Jack Daugherty, the hotel developer, said the sites should be open for business in 15 months.
Daugherty Property Group was investing $24 million for the hotel/ convention center, including funds designated from the city’s hotel/ motel tax collections. The city has been setting aside money for a convention center since 2005.
“All of those revenues that come in when a visitor stays here and they pay that hotel/motel tax, that’s what’s being used to go back into this project, so there’s no local dollars in it at all,” City Manager Larry Sullivan said.
The city had set aside about $1 million, which Sullivan said will levy $7 million for the center’s construction. The city will continue designating a portion of the hotel tax revenue for the center’s expense.
The convention center was slated to feature a ballroom with seating for 1,000, which could be cordoned off into separate rooms for multiple events. The six-story Hilton Garden Inn would offer 155 rooms.
Brian Daugherty said the location at 4610 Cowhorn Creek Road was selected because it is at the center of Texarkana’s medical, retail, educational and financial communities. The design would enable Texarkana to host events it could not host previously.
Apartment complex goes up
July 2011
The Dallas-based Encore MultiFamily LLC started construction in July on 168 apartment units on the west side of Pleasant Grove Road at its intersection with the future westward extension of Gibson Lane.
The project cost $14.9 million and was financed by a $12.2 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Encore contributed the other $2.7 million to build these market-rate, nonsubsidized, Class A apartments on 10 acres of land, according to Encore. Encore bought the 10 acres for $828,000.
The 168 units were contained in seven, three-story residential complexes that were completed in about a year.
Rental rates were between $779 and $930 per month for 84 one-bedroom and 84 two-bedroom units.
Groundbreaking on second convention center
October 2011 Groundbreaking for the Texarkana Convention Center and Holiday Inn Hotel in the Crossroads Business Park in October marked the start of Phase 1 of the 22,000-square-foot facility on the Arkansas side.
Phase 2 will involve plans for Holiday Springs Water Park, which will be behind the convention center. The park will be 4 to 5 acres.
“When I first became mayor, I was asked about the convention center. Some said it would never come. I was positive from Day 1, and it’s certainly positive for those naysayers that said this wouldn’t come,” Mayor Wayne Smith said at the time. “It’s coming and it starts today.”
Dr. Hiren Patel and father, Dinesh, were the investors behind the project. The hotel and center eventually ran into financial difficulties and now are under new ownership.
The layout was designed to be a social hub, taking the bar inside the hotel and making it the center of services, which include a restaurant, game room and business center.
The hotel has 127 rooms and suites and a full-service restaurant.
The convention center can host 1,000 people and has several smaller meeting rooms.
Construction would cost $18 million, Patel said at the time, and should be completed in about nine months.
Tenants move into new public housing
December 2011
The first units of the nearly finished $18 million Pecan Ridge apartment town-house buildings were occupied in December.
Pecan Ridge, built on eight acres in the 2200 block of West 15th Street, replaced the former 1942-vintage Stevens Courts public-housing site. The complex consists of about 27 buildings containing 124 apartment units—about 30 of which are designated as public housing.
Unlike the barracks-style exterior and compact interior living quarters offered by the old Stevens Courts, Pecan Ridge offers more spacious living arrangements, said HATT Executive Director Naomi Byrne at the time.
“The look of Pecan Ridge, like the Oaks at Rose Hill, is actually more community and neighborhood friendly,” she said.
Pecan Ridge has its own clubhouse, fitness center, meeting space, washer and dryer room and even a small library.
2012
■ Texarkana, Texas, opened the city’s first splash pad July 2012. The Texas-side City Council fronted $260,000 for the $400,000 splash pad, money that was paid back by the Texarkana Rotary Club over a three-year period. It was a wet and wild year for the city because a water park was also being built in the Crossroads Business Park along Interstate 30. It was estimated the water park would be open by Memorial Day of 2013.
■ Texarkana residents barked up the right tree when they entered a contest to receive money to build a dog park and won. The PetSafe Bark for Your Park competition was under way in May 2012 and included thousands of cities across the country. The top prize: $100,000 to construct a dog park in the winning city. In all, 650,000 votes were cast, with Texarkana receiving 167,373 of those votes.
2013
■ A $2.76 million construction project to expand Bringle Lake Park on its east side began in July 2013 along University Avenue in Texarkana. The funding for the construction came from 2009 bond money and $800,000 in Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone funding.
2014
■ When the Texarkana, Texas, City Council voted to give the green light to developer Sari & Co. to restore the Hotel Grim in April 2014, the packed crowd conveyed their reaction with a standing ovation and cheering. Before the vote, Community Redevelopment and Grants Executive Director Craig Lindholm told the council about how their vote for the Grim, which has sat vacant since it was closed in 1990, would be a step toward allowing downtown a chance to be reborn.
2015
■ In April 2015, city officials were pleased with the completion of the updates to the Interstate 30 water tower. The graphic of the longtime city motto “Texarkana is Twice as Nice” was updated on the tower. Outlines of Texas and Arkansas were also painted on the tower. The tower was built between 1970 and 1971 and had last been last painted in 1995.
2016
■ The Texarkana, Texas, downtown area received a designation in September 2016 by the Texas Commission on the Arts as an official Texas Cultural District—one of just 35 such districts in Texas. This allowed the Texarkana Arts and Historic District to become eligible for state Cultural District Progress Grant funding.
■ Dillard’s department store in the Central Mall underwent extensive remodeling and renovation in order to combine its two separate stores into one.