War Memorial Park will soon include about 4 more acres of green space south of Interstate 630.
Little Rock closed earlier this month on its purchase of the last of 12 properties needed to complete the greenspace project. The purchases - which total about $835,000 before closing and inspection costs - zeroed out the more than $1.3 million that the fund held from the sale of the city’s portion of Ray Winder Field.
The plan for additional green space was hatched as a way to replace the acreage lost by the October 2011 sale of the city’s portion of Ray Winder Field - the former home of the Arkansas Travelers’ Class AA baseball team - to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for $1.32 million.
“That was one of the top priorities the city had identified for that money, but overall the Board of Directors had designated those funds for improvements at War Memorial Park,” said City Manager Bruce Moore.
The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation must now figure out how to transform about a dozen modest houses into open space for neighborhood families and visitors to the nearby Little Rock Zoo and the Central Arkansas Library’s Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center.
Finding the money to demolish the buildings is the next step. Moore said the city may be able to tap the fund that pays for demolition of condemned, unsafe or fire-damaged houses, but he wasn’t sure how much money is left in that annual allocationor if the Little Rock Board of Directors would approve using it for the green-space project.
“It may be a possibility to use that fund, but I need to look into the balance since the board has been fairly aggressive about demolitions so far this year,” Moore said. “The average cost per house is between $3,000 and $5,000, but that could be less in this situation because the houses could be bid out in a package.”
The houses line the east side of South Van Buren Street and stretch down side streets heading east.
The city negotiated to buy the houses from the owners rather than using eminent domain to force the sale of the properties. Sale prices for the homes ranged from $26,000 to $84,000, which in most cases was more than theappraised value set by Pulaski County.
While the city determines how to knock down most of the houses, city officials will be thinking about how to save one house that stands at the corner of Maryland Avenue and Van Buren Street.
“We haven’t decided yet whether to find a new location for the house or to incorporate it into the design of the new green space,” Moore said. “But the city has committed to preserving the home and has recognized its historical value.”
The house at first looks like many of the houses targeted for demolition, but upon closer inspection, its square, shiny tiles on the outside and its gray, concrete roof base begin to stand out.
It is a Lustron house, one of fewer than 2,000 left in the United States. It’s also one of only four known Lustron houses in Arkansas, said Mark Christ, the community outreach director for the Arkansas Historic Preservation program.
According to a website dedicated to helping people preserve the Lustron homes, the buildings were designed to be cheap alternatives for soldiers returning from World War II. When a customer ordered one, it arrived in a kit and could be assembled and the concrete for the roof could be poured and set for much cheaper than a typical home.
“They’re interesting little houses,” he said. “The city should be commended for committing to save it. Weknew about this particular house, but several additions have been made to it, so it isn’t eligible for the national Historic register.”
Christ said the other Lustron homes are in North Little Rock, Helena-West Helena and just a few blocks from the Maryland Avenue home on South Tyler Street in Little Rock.
The homes look similar because they were purchased in 3,000-piece kits.
The houses were shipped to 36 states, including Arkansas, according to the preservation website. They remained in production for almost two decades, and once built, required very little maintenance - just a wax on the sides once a year, according to the instructions.
Regardless of whether the house stays or is moved, the city has high hopes for the green space on the south side of War Memorial Park.
“One of the things that was outlined in our Parks Department Master Plan is the eight-block strategy,” said Little Rock Parks and Recreation Director Truman Tolefree. “We want there to be green space or a park no more than eight blocks from every Little Rock resident. This property will help us by putting much needed green space in this community and by creating a place where mothers can walk to with their kids to get them outside and exercising.”
Tolefree said city officials, including parks departmentstaff members, will meet with area stakeholders to ask for input on what the green space should look like and how it could be used or designed.Some of the partners will be the Children’s Library, the zoo and the residents, but Tolefree said there will be a long list of people invited to the conversation.
Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson, whose ward includes the 12 houses, said he hopes the discussion also involves the 12th Street Corridor planning committee, which helped design the award-winning redevelopment plan for a large portion of 12th Street, a few blocks from the houses.
“I want us to devise some method to get youth input for this space,” he said. “That process was enlightening and extremely worthwhile in designing the Children’s Library. It would benefit us to have that input to further our efforts to make this a safe zone for children, youth and families.”
Richardson wants the city to consider all of its options before moving forward withthe project.
“I hope we will perform our due diligence in determining whether those houses should be torn down or whether they could be moved and inhabitedby a family,” he said.
But, because the fund from the sale of Ray Winder Field now has a zero balance, the money to move the homes may not be available.
In a memorandum sent to city directors Friday, Moore said the fund is empty. He wrote that in addition to buying the green-space properties, the city used some of the money for the War Memorial Splash Pad, the tennis courts in War Memorial Park and the Little Rock Zoo’s parking area.
Richardson said Friday that he was “baffled” by the fund’s zero balance because he had received conflicting reports about the balance over the past few months.
“As recently as June, we were projecting $100,000 to $200,000 in the account when we were finished buying those properties,” he said.
Richardson also questioned some of the listed expenditures, which he said were supposed to be funded by a parks department bond refinancing. He said he plans to ask for a full accounting of the expenditures.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/29/2013