Quorum court asked to find uses for old armory

County Judge Rick Davis has asked justices of the peace Mary Bournival and Matt Mckee to develop possible uses for the old armory the Arkansas Army National Guard recently donated to the county.

Davis said he asked Bournival and Mckee “to help us figure out what that can be used for because right now, I have too many other issues going on to concentrate on it.”

“We need to do something with it. We need to look at all of our options and see what’s best to do with it,” Davis said. “We have lots of needs, it’s just a matter of whether we can afford all that stuff. There’s lots of different things to think about.”

Bournival, District 4, and Mckee, District 9, will meet at 9 a. m. Monday with Garland County Office of Emergency Management Director Joy Sanders and other county officials to discuss possible uses of the old guard armory. The meeting will be in Sanders’ office in the Garland County Court House.

“That building is an incredible gift,” Bournival said. “The county initially gave them the land but we’re getting a much bigger gift back with that building. It will require some adjustments, some repair work, a lot of cleaning, but it’s really a tremendous boon for the county. We’re all looking for space.”

Mckee is chairman of the Garland County Quorum Court’s Public Works and Buildings Committee and Bournival is vice chairman of the Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee.

The 16,000- square- foot building is located near National Park Community College and Mid- America Science Museum west of Hot Springs. The armory is not far from the Highway 270 west site where the new Garland County Detention Center will be built.

Davis has said the donation is “like a $ 1 million gift” to the county. He said the armory could potentially house the Garland County coroner’s office, the Garland County Office of Emergency Management, or an American Red Cross office.

“We could have a central command station in case of emergencies or disasters where everything is set up for communications,” Davis said.

He said the Garland County Sheriff’s Department could house equipment at the facility.

“Maybe the sheriff’s department could be there because once the jail’s done it would be close to the jail,” he said.