Spa City's bathhouse revival draws lawmaker praise

HOT SPRINGS -- Testimony at a recent U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources hearing shows that Hot Springs National Park's Historic Properties Leasing Program works and can be implemented elsewhere, two members of the committee said.

The committee convened in Hot Springs last month, and committee members heard from Hot Springs area lessees, then toured Bathhouse Row to see firsthand the work that has been done in preserving federal historic buildings for modern-day uses.

Under the program, the Park Service offers federal historic properties for businesses to lease. The properties are renovated to tenant-ready condition using federal funding, according to the Park Service's website.

Committee member U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., said the work in Hot Springs left a good impression with the committee that will carry throughout the country.

"The feedback I got was that this is a good program," Westerman told The Sentinel-Record. "I think it was educational," he said of committee members' tour. He said he thought the members were "surprised at what all was happening in Hot Springs."

For decades, Hot Springs was the state's premier resort destination. Sick people, Hollywood celebrities, sports stars and gangsters flocked there to partake of the geothermal waters at the various bathhouses along Bathhouse Row.

But over the years, the federal properties deteriorated, and eventually, nearly all of the bathhouses closed.

In 2003, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Bathhouse Row on its annual list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

"Folks around here can remember that time when the federal side of the street was dark and closed up," said Cole McCaskill, vice president of economic development with the Hot Springs Metro Partnership.

That changed after the National Park Service began partnering with businesses, he said recently.

"It's been a very successful program, a way that the public and the private sector can work together," he said. "Six of the eight bathhouses along Bathhouse Row have been leased and several of those businesses are doing some really world-class things and getting a lot of national attention."

For instance, a brewery in the old Superior Bathhouse "is the only brewery that makes thermal beer in the world with thermal water. They've been featured nationally and internationally," McCaskill said.

And the Hale Bathhouse is being transformed into a boutique lodging facility.

Bathhouse Row is no longer on the endangered list.

The number of visitors to Hot Springs National Park has climbed from 1,325,719 in 2013 to 1,561,616 in 2017.

Westerman said last month that the public-private efforts have been great for the Hot Springs economy.

"You can't really put a value on how much additional revenue that's brought into the city through tourism by having those bathhouses functioning," he said.

The arrangement is also good for the government. Instead of being a burden, the buildings can be a revenue generator, he said. It's money the National Park Service could use, Westerman said.

The committee's tour last month began at Quapaw Baths & Spa where co-lessee Anthony Taylor shared some of the hurdles he and fellow architect Bob Kempkes faced when trying to turn their business venture into a reality on federal property.

It was a couple of years of work to get the Park Service regional field office in Omaha, Neb., to understand "what we were trying to do here," Taylor said.

He explained that a window that now looks out on three thermal pools from the building's lobby was a renovation that the state historic preservation office and the U.S. Department of the Interior did not want to approve initially because they thought it would destroy the building's character.

"Our contention was we needed people to come in here and see what was going on back there to know what they were about to spend their money on," Taylor said. He commended the Hot Springs National Park superintendent at the time, Josie Fernandez.

"I remember very well. I can almost quote her," he said. "She said 'you can either change with the times and allow these buildings to be reused in a modern way or you can have six or seven empty buildings on Bathhouse Row.' So they allowed us to do that," he said of the window.

The committee's tour also included a stop at the Maurice Bathhouse, which is the only building on Bathhouse Row that has no prospects of lease agreements.

After the natural resources meeting and tour, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the committee's chairman, said Hot Springs National Park has a "very successful program that can be implemented in other places."

Westerman was pleased. He said seeing is believing, which is why he invited the committee to visit Hot Springs.

"It's always good to get out in the field and actually see what's happening, and when we consider the $12 billion of maintenance backlog within the Park Service and we see what Hot Springs National Park has done to alleviate that backlog here, I think it's a great story to share with the rest of the country."

"Getting the committee here, getting Chairman Bishop here is a really good way to highlight that," he said.

Westerman said he hopes that the takeaway for the committee is that the lease program works and can be implemented in other parks across the country. The goal, he said, is to attract long-term lessees to use the federal structures and help local economies.

And Hot Springs, he said, has a lot of experience that can be shared with others in order to streamline the lease processes "so that it can be used without as much headache as what we heard from some of the testimony."

"It's hard to get stuff along through Washington, D.C., but when you have locals who see the value of good relationships with the Park Service, that helps," Westerman said.

Bishop and Westerman commended Hot Springs National Park Superintendent Laura Miller, a native of Bryant who had previously told the Sentinel-Record that she spent a lot of time in Hot Springs growing up and has worked closely with local Park Service personnel through the years in other projects across the state.

Bishop said it's obvious that she cares about the area. "Oftentimes when we bring land managers from other areas of the country, they don't have that native understanding. ... This is successful because the community is totally buying into that," he said.

Westerman said he was proud of the local Park Service and the Hot Springs community. "I think we made a good impression, and the story of Hot Springs will be told throughout the country."

"Even though these large historic buildings have a lot of needs as far as fixing the infrastructure, fixing the roofs," Miller said, "they're big buildings, they're old buildings and they're not cheap to restore."

But, "it's worth it in the end because they can live again and become something exciting and useful," she said.

Information for this article was contributed by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 10/14/2018

Upcoming Events