PINE BLUFF -- Another business is going away on Main Street in Pine Bluff, the latest blow to a once bustling city that is trying to come to grips with a drastic population decline and a decaying commercial landscape.
Young Lee, owner of Fashion Wigs at 323 S. Main St., said Wednesday that she is closing her doors after 36 years at the location because a maze of detours required to navigate around two rubble-strewn sections of the street has made it difficult for customers to get to her shop.
Three blocks of Main Street have been deemed impassable by the city because of debris from century-old buildings that have fallen apart, and it has affected businesses in the area, store owners contend.
"Not that many people coming," Lee said. "They say buildings are falling down."
Shuttered storefronts outnumber viable businesses along Main Street, a portion of which has been closed for more than two years, Lee said. The two-way thoroughfare has been barricaded between Fourth and Fifth avenues and between Sixth and Eighth avenues, which has forced motorists to take alternate routes.
Danny Bradshaw, owner of Mr. Brick Antique Brick Buy and Sell, owns four buildings on the east side of the 400 block of Main Street and is in the process of demolishing them and reclaiming the brick, trusses and wooden beams for resale. Unusable leftovers will be taken to landfills.
The block has become a staging area of sorts for Bradshaw. Beams and scrubbed brick are bundled up on pallets for transport.
Lee and others blame the demolition, the time it is taking to remove the debris, and a lack of directional signs at street closings for driving away customers.
Kendrick "Pop" Williams owns Pop's Barber & Beauty Shop, located one block north of Lee's shop. He has concerns about the mess, too.
Before the demolition started, Williams closed a purchase on a building at 400 S. Main St. with plans to move there to have nearly triple the space he has at his current location. He's been at the shop's current spot since 2003 and employs 10 other barbers.
"It's hurting the city all the way around," Williams said over the buzz of his razor Wednesday. "It's not attractive to any new business."
There is no written contract or set timeline between the city and Bradshaw pertaining to his work on the debris that remains in the street.
The Pine Bluff City Council voted down a resolution Monday that would have given Bradshaw a June 30 deadline for clearing the street. Alderman Steven Mays, who made the proposal, said that without a cutoff point, "the work could go on forever." He estimated Bradshaw's work as being about 30 percent complete.
"The process is not moving in a fashionable manner like it should be," Mays said.
An ordinance by Mays that would set guidelines for future demolition work remains before the City Council. The measure gives property owners no more than 90 days to complete the work with an allowance for a 30-day extension. A $50-per-day fine would be levied for those who go beyond the allotted time and extension.
Pine Bluff Mayor Debe Hollingsworth said it could cost upward of $500,000 to do the work Bradshaw is doing. She has said she would prefer to give Bradshaw more time rather than saddle taxpayers with such an expense.
Calls to Bradshaw were directed to Dee Herring-Gatlin, chairman of the Pine Bluff Historic District Commission and Bradshaw's real estate broker. Herring-Gatlin said Bradshaw expects to have the street cleared in front of his properties by May 15. Hollingsworth has been given an estimate in that time frame, as well.
Sitting in a barber's chair Wednesday at Pop's Barber & Beauty Shop, the Rev. Calvin Giles said the idea that Bradshaw has been given time to clean the bricks and stack the wood on site is "preposterous." Giles said the debris should be hauled off for sorting elsewhere.
"The citizens of Pine Bluff are sick of this, sick to our stomach of this," said Giles, who owns a barbecue catering business in the city. "We're tired of excuses. We want action."
Some pointed to such decisions as contributing factors to the area's decline in population.
The latest population estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau show the three counties that make up the Pine Bluff metropolitan area are second in the nation in percentage of population decrease. Figures show the number of residents in the area encompassing Cleveland, Jefferson and Lincoln counties dropped by more than 6 percent, from 100,083 to 93,696, between 2010 and 2015.
"Other cities around us, they're growing," Williams said. "We're dying."
Hollingsworth was hesitant to put a dollar amount on business that Main Street could have gained had parts of the street not been closed.
"Realistically, if the street was closed one day that would have an impact on any business, therefore given the timeline that [Bradshaw] has stated, it is very difficult to estimate any future potential lost," the mayor said Wednesday in an email.
The closure between Sixth and Eighth avenues is due to a three-story building under threat of collapse at 620 S. Main St. The property is owned by Garland Trice through Medic Transport Inc., Herring-Gatlin said. Two blocks had to be closed because of the layout of one-way streets in the area.
Records show Bradshaw owns the vacant lot at 401 S. Main; the former home of J.C. Penney & Co. at 407 S. Main; the former home of Mid-South Music Co. Inc. at 411 S. Main St.; the old Kahn Jewelers building at 415 S. Main St.; and the former Band Museum at 423 and 425 S. Main.
Herring-Gatlin said Bradshaw paid $7,500 for the lot and building next to it. The other properties were deeded over to Bradshaw. He "took on these buildings to clean up this mess," she said.
Bradshaw is also working to demolish and reclaim material from a fifth building -- the former VFW post at 417 S. Main -- but he hasn't been able to buy it because the post is abandoned and he's been unable to contact the owner, Herring-Gatlin said.
The venture hasn't been nearly as successful as Bradshaw envisioned, Herring-Gatlin added. When Bradshaw started, he estimated he would reclaim about 300,000 bricks for resale, but most were crumbling or falling apart.
"He may get 100,000 bricks out of it," she said. "He'll be doing well if he breaks even."
Bradshaw plans to move the debris to the vacant lot to clear the street, Herring-Gatlin said.
"The people who are complaining the most are totally missing the point ... and that's that it was not Mr. Bradshaw's responsibility in the first place," Herring-Gatlin said. "He stepped in after the fact."
Metro on 04/07/2016