FAYETTEVILLE — Bob McKinney, 84, didn’t miss a step as he headed down to the basement of the Old Post Office building in downtown Fayetteville.
When he got there, he looked around the room, which has been either a nightclub or a bar for the better part of four decades.
“They used to have a band right there,” McKinney said, pointing to the middle of the floor. “Of course, rock ‘n’ roll was a big deal.”
McKinney, who has lived in Fayetteville since 1939, paused for a moment.
“A lot of good memories,” he said.
The Old Post Office at 1 W. Center St., the historic red-brick anchor of the Fayetteville Square, is on the market.
It can be had for a cool $1.5 million - fixtures included.
“It’s the most prestigious address in Fayetteville,” said Mark Risk, principal broker and owner of The Real Estate Consultants in Fayetteville, the firm representing owner Ron Bumpass. “It’s probably one of the most beautiful and unique properties in Arkansas, period. How many centers of a town square in Arkansas can somebody buy ?”
The building is often featured in brochures and advertising promoting both Fayetteville and Arkansas tourism.
Risk is marketing the property as a “great spot for a fine restaurant [and] bar,” but he said someone could convert the 101-year-old building into another type of business or even call it home.
Risk held an open house for the property on Saturday.
The popular Fayetteville Farmers Market going on Saturday around the Old Post Office was crowded with people, many wearingArkansas Razorbacks gear and enjoying sunny skies and a breeze.
Risk wasn’t going to do a head-count on how many attended the open house because he figured most of the attendees were just curious. But he said he hoped for that one “serious buyer.”
The Old Post Off ice, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, has sat nearly vacant for almost three years. Bumpass, a Fayetteville attorney, is retiring and closing his office on the third floor.
It features 11,579 square feet of heated space, according to Washington County property records. An appraisal performed for Bumpass by Tom Rife of Bentonville put the square footage at 13,668, however.
Rife appraised the building for $1.5 million, Risk said.
“We had a real appraisal as to what was done by the city,” Risk said, referring to a drawn-out negotiation with the Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission.
The commission wanted to buy the building but five months of negotiations ended in May when it couldn’t strike a deal with Bumpass.
The commission uses city hotel, motel and restaurant taxes to promote tourism. It is not a city-run organization, but the Fayetteville City Council must approve its commissioners.
The commission initially wanted to lease the building with an option to purchase and use it as artists’ studios, gallery space and some sort of city museum.
Bumpass has said that he thought a public museum would be a fitting use for the building.
The commission offered $730,000 after an appraisal performed by Fayettevillebased Parrish Appraisals, but Bumpass stuck to his asking price of $1.5 million.
The Old Post Office appraised for $541,500 in 2010, according to the Washington County assessor’s office.
Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan, greeting visitors to the farmers market Saturday morning, said the Old Post Office “is one of the foundation buildings of this city.”
“It’s a tremendous building,” Jordan said. “We certainly want to see a business thrive in there.”
The post office was completed on the site in 1911 and operated until the early 1960s, when a new post office opened on Dickson Street.
Two of the first visitors to the open house Saturday morning were David Pryor and his wife, Barbara.
Pryor, a former Arkansas governor, congressman and senator, called it a “beautiful building.” He graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1957 and also earned a law degree there. Barbara Lunsford Pryor grew up on Fayetteville’s Mount Sequoyah.
They remembered when the building was a post office and gathering place for people to pick up their mail.
“These are the original floors,” Barbara Pryor said, tapping her shoe on the century-old terrazzo. “These are all over Northwest Arkansas because the Italian folks in Tontitown knew how to make it.”
Gus Rusher of Fayetteville stopped in out of “curiosity,” he said as he closed a heavy iron door to a side room that used to be a lounge.
“I never knew they had a safe, but that’s interesting,” he said.
Bumpass’ parents bought the building from the Fayetteville Housing Authority in 1978 when it was being considered for demolition, according to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette archives.
In 1979, Bumpass and business partner Keith Cearley opened The Old Post Office Restaurant, according to the archives.
That restaurant closed in 1995, and in 1997 the Hog City Diner opened in its place, with new operators leasing the space as a ground-level restaurant and basement sports bar.
The managers of the Hog City Diner were evicted from the premises in June 2002 by order of the Washington County sheriff ’s office for nonpayment of back rent.
Two more restaurants opened and closed in the ensuing seven years: Sodie’s Fountain and Grill, and Urban Table Bar and Grill.
Sodie’s occupied the first floor of the building and also ran Sodie’s Underground, a sports bar, in the basement.It closed in March 2006.
“You can’t do a restaurant in that location,” said Maureen Fancher, who owned Sodie’s with her husband, Gary. “There’s no parking and the city lets the farmers market block it off three days a week.
“[Ron] Bumpass was fine to me,” she said. “He did not treat me ill at all.”
The farmers market is open on the square in the mornings on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from April through October.
“It’s a big building and it is in pretty good shape,” Fancher said. “It has some beautiful construction. I loved the building.”
Closing “broke my heart,” she said.
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Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 09/02/2012