Guard plans to close three armories in state

Prescott, Magnolia, Monticello on list

The Arkansas National Guard is proposing closing three south Arkansas armories this year as part of Guard cost-cutting efforts nationwide in the face of budget cuts and downsizing.

Officials met with mayors and other leaders in Prescott, Magnolia and Monticello on Tuesday and Wednesday to talk about what they are proposing and why, said Lt. Col. Joel Lynch, a Guard spokesman.

"Financially we just can't support the centers we've got," he said.

The Guard is proposing turning its closed armory buildings over to local control.

Officials in Magnolia and Monticello were optimistic about the proposals and were interested in the possibilities for the buildings, Lynch said, but leaders in Prescott were not as sold on the idea. The Guard will hold additional meetings with Prescott officials to discuss what that city might do with the building if it reverts to city control.

Prescott Mayor Terry Oliver said Thursday that city officials and some residents were working on plans to talk the Guard into keeping the armory open.

"We want to do everything possible to keep our National Guard armory open," he said. "We're trying to get a strategy together right now.

"The last few years it just seems like we keep losing industries and businesses, and we're just tired of losing stuff. We don't want to see [anything] else close."

Armories are primarily training centers for guardsmen. Arkansas had 62 armories at the beginning of 2015 and 55 at the end of the year. Closing the Prescott, Magnolia and Monticello armories would reduce that to 52.

The Guard closed seven armories during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, after its maintenance budget was cut to $8 million from $10.2 million the previous year.

Lynch said the National Guard's size and scope is hazy at present, and the Guard will continue to downsize to save money and operate more efficiently. He said, however, that there are no plans to close more than the three armories now being discussed.

The Prescott, Magnolia and Monticello armories were all built in the 1970s and are located within 50 miles of newer facilities. Prescott is within 50 miles of four newer armories.

Closing the three armories would save the Guard $130,572 annually. That is what the Guard spent to operate the armories in 2015.

The seven armories closed in 2015 were in Berryville, Blytheville, Brinkley, Crossett, Helena-West Helena, Rector and Wynne. Those closures saved the Guard about $268,500 annually. That is what it paid for maintenance and utilities for those armories in 2014.

Lynch said the Guard plans to eventually reduce the number of guardsmen from 7,900 to 7,000 in anticipation of federal budget cuts, but no soldiers would be forced out of service because of the armory closures. Those troops will train at facilities in neighboring counties.

With the exceptions of Berryville and Monticello, each of the other cities has experienced declining populations in recent years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Population shifts, the proximity of armories to one another and the needs of the state's Guard were all factors studied for a report that was commissioned by the National Guard Bureau to determine how many armories are needed in 12 states. That report concluded that Arkansas needed only 42 armories, not the 62 that it had, Lynch said.

"We think that 42 is more drastic than it needs to be," Lynch said. "But we do need to reduce our size."

Gov. Asa Hutchinson will make the final decision on whether to close the three armories. He approved the seven closures last year but opposed an eighth one -- the armory at Walnut Ridge.

The Guard has already submitted its proposal to close the three armories to Hutchinson but is getting feedback from the communities to submit to the governor before he makes his final decision.

The seven armory buildings closed last year were turned over to the individual cities. Some of the cities used them for their police departments. One plans to turn the building into a learning center, Lynch said.

The buildings in Prescott and Monticello would be turned over to the cities, but the building in Magnolia is on property owned by Southern Arkansas University, which will own that building if Guard proposals are approved.

Lynch said the Guard will push to speed up the closure of the Magnolia armory so the university can begin remodeling the building for use as engineering classrooms for the fall semester. The university is expanding its engineering program, which started two years ago.

"This just worked out perfectly for us," said Jasper Lewis, the school's vice president for facilities. The building "has got enough room to accommodate all our needs, so we'll be very excited to get it."

The school had been contemplating constructing a 30,000-square-foot building to accommodate several labs, a few classrooms and a few offices, Lewis said, at a cost of about $5 million. The school will be able to renovate the 23,318-square-foot armory for less than $2 million, he said.

The armory is on the southwestern side of the university's campus, just off Washington Street north of West University Street.

"I wanted the city to have the building because we wanted a Police Department," Magnolia Mayor Parnell Vann said.

Then, he said, he learned that the armory was on SAU property.

Vann said the city has a good relationship with the university and would seek to build a police station some other way. He said a new building would cost from $700,000 to $800,000 and that the city will likely have to borrow money to pay for it.

Nonetheless, Vann said, he wanted to keep the armory open, if possible. The troops traveling to the town on weekends to train contribute to the town's economy, he said, and losing that business could affect the city's cash flow.

In Monticello, Mayor Zackery Tucker said he doesn't know how the city might use the building there. Nothing is off-limits, he said, and the building could be used for police or for the neighboring school or hospital.

Tucker said he isn't concerned about losing the armory because he doesn't think its loss will prompt anyone to leave the city. The 51 guardsmen in Drew County will train in Warren in Bradley County, about 16 miles from Monticello.

"A lot of people work in Warren but live in Monticello," he said. "Workforce-wise, we don't anticipate any big impact in the area."

Tucker said he understands what the National Guard is facing and has expected to hear that the Monticello armory would be closed. It's older than the Warren armory.

"It makes sense," he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Shea Stewart of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 01/04/2016

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