City donates land for ASMSA building project

The director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts told the Hot Springs Board of Directors Tuesday the school expects to vacate the St. Joseph’s Hospital complex by 2024.

Cory Alderdice made the statement prior to the board adopting a resolution authorizing the mayor to convey part of the old hospital campus for the new administration building ASMSA plans to build. The resolution was pulled from the agenda of the board’s May 3 business meeting amid questions about the school’s timeline to vacate the hospital complex and assume ownership of the Academic and Administration Building at 200 Whittington Ave.

The resolution wasn’t on Tuesday night’s agenda but was added at the start of the meeting. The 1.1-acre donation comprised the Student Center Courtyard and the old hospital’s chapel and convent but not the hospital complex. All four are on the same 3.4-acre parcel, requiring the Hot Springs Planning Commission to approve a lot line adjustment before construction of the administration building can begin.

The University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees said it will consider the donation at its May 25-26 meeting in Batesville.

The city acquired the hospital property from St. Joseph’s Regional Health Center for $300,000, according to the 1992 ordinance authorizing the purchase, in expectation of ASMSA locating its campus in Hot Springs. The school began leasing the property for $1 a year in 1993, with the city parceling out pieces as the school implemented its redevelopment plan.

The city said the school’s lease has been month to month since the University of Arkansas System took control of it from the state Department of Education in 2004.

A January 2010 resolution the board adopted expressed the city’s commitment to donate land for new facilities. The nonbinding commitment came in advance of the city deeding 2.6 acres for the school’s $18.3 million Student Center. It included a commitment to demolish the main hospital building and its Pine Street wing by Jan. 1, 2012,

or within six months of receiving ASMSA’s notice to vacate.

Twelve years later, the school has yet to vacate the hospital or its Pine and Cedar street wings. Mechanical systems for faculty offices in the Pine Street wing and the maintenance shop in the Cedar Street wing are housed in the main building.

The city said the estimated $1.75 million demolition cost from 2010 has more than doubled, with the most recent estimate exceeding $4 million. The $2 million the city set aside to raze and abate the hospital complex notwithstanding, the demolition project represents one of its largest unfunded liabilities.

The board pressed Alderdice to commit to a timeline for vacating the hospital complex and taking ownership of the Academic and Administration Building during its May 10 work session. A cost report the city presented showed it had committed $684,511 to the maintenance and operation of the hospital complex and Academic and Administration Building from 2017 to 2021.

Alderdice said the school has worked diligently to allocate a portion of its annual operating budget to the construction of new buildings for staff currently housed in the hospital’s wings, telling directors the 2010 resolution didn’t commit ASMSA to a timeline for leaving the hospital complex.

“My reading of that is that an expectation was that the city not be able to take any action no earlier than Jan. 1, 2012,” he said. “Initially that was when construction was estimated to be complete, but securing funding piecemeal throughout the process necessitated a slightly longer than anticipated timeline.

“I’m not sure there really is a statement on the school’s part that implied the turnaround between construction of the Student Center and then the vacation of the hospital would happen in relatively quick terms.”

He noted most of the work the cost report cited was in the Academic and Administration Building, not in the hospital complex that’s slated for demolition. He said the former is the school’s primary classroom space and part of its long-term facilities plan.

“Yes, a portion of that money we can certainly look at as throwing good after bad on a complex that has a short shelf life,” he told the board. “The majority of the funds in this five-year report are for a building that still very much has 20 years left in it, at least.”

The school has contributed to the building’s upkeep, using its Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding to pay for a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. The city paid $366,809 to replace the building’s two elevator systems last year.

“Part of the challenge I think in some of the deferred maintenance is it has not been addressed until something has critically broken on it,” Alderdice told the board. “The HVAC system and elevator are good examples of that. I certainly would like us to replace that roof before it caves in on the fifth floor, and the math department also starts teaching swimming lessons.”

City Attorney Brian Albright said the school has been a good tenant, as evidenced by its $5.5 million renovation of the cityowned chapel and convent.

“They’re spending money without the benefit of ownership,” he told the board.

Alderdice said the school expects to commit to a 2024 vacation of the hospital later this year, when the chapel and convent project is completed and construction of the new administration building gets underway. He said a plan to relocate the maintenance shop from the Cedar Street wing should be in place by October.

The removal of the hospital complex will give the school an additional campus zone, joining the academic zone in the 200 block of Whittington and the residential zone on Alumni Lane.

“After the hospital is gone we’ll potentially have an additional zone for campus, possibly focused more on the arts,” Alderdice said.