luvhotsprings

Sadly I do not, but if that does end up happening that would be great! I always thought Hot Springs has had enough traffic for 2-3 Starbucks.

A $10,000,000 permit was taken out on the Thompson Building this week. The Thompson building will be branded under Ascend from Choice Hotels. Also, the old Howard Johnson is in the process of being demolished by First United Methodist Church. The Majestic Hotel clean-up should start mid-November with the latest start being at the beginning of December. Also, there are two new shopping centers planned - East Ridge at the corner of Carpenter Dam & Malvern and Keystone Shopping Center at the corner of Section Line & Files Road. Good things happening all around town!!

The John L. Webb house is being restored and being turned into a community resource center and a museum for Hot Springs African-American history. Also, in the downtown area, Rocket Fizz Soda & Candy shop is opening up where the Blue Moon Gallery is. Good things happening in the downtown area. On the other sides of town, Daily Dish is opening a second location on Shady Grove & Carpenter Dam; and O'Reilly Auto Parts is building its third location in Hot Springs, on Airport Road, next to Arvest Bank.

RockStep Capital from Houston bought Hot Springs Mall, with the sale finalizing August 12th. Sears, JCPenney, and Dillards are all strong anchors, but the new owners are still weary about Goody's. They have been trying to get the property for three years and have finally succeeded! Apparently, they are in talks with a few national tenants willing to come to the mall; however, there are some local tenants who want to open up shop right away. RockStep Capital intends to replace the 80's looking signage and update the facade of the outside when new stores come aboard. Stores coming include: apparel, hard-line stores, and more entertainment options in the center court. I hope things finally get up and going, because if something is not done, this is going to be a dead mall.

Dave and Busters is going to be at 10900 Bass Pro Pkwy, according to today's plumbing permits.

Home2 Suites by Hilton is going to build a 91-room hotel at the corner of Central Avenue & Catalina Circle on 7South. Also, the Majestic property will have a closing date of August 21st with cleanup expected to start soon after on the yellow brick portion of the building. The Thompson Building is now in the process of being renovated into a boutique hotel - lots of great things going on downtown.

You can now add: Skechers, Hot Topic, Journeys, Christopher & Banks, and Uniform Destination.

Another Walmart Neighborhood Market is coming to Hot Springs! This WNM will have a fuel station unlike the one planned on Malvern Ave. It will be on the corner of Majestic Lodge Road and Airport Road. The only concern for me is the traffic, because they are already tons of wrecks at that intersection, already.

Yesterday, an open forum was held in the Medical Arts Building lobby to put thoughts and ideas to further help revitalize downtown. Some ideas were having a tech center downtown, and for citizens to have more parking. Today, there is a special Board of Directors meeting for the purchase of the Majestic Hotel. Hopefully this is good news for the city and the rubble will be taken care of. Besides downtown, the mall was auctioned off for 5.5 million dollars. Whomever the new owners are, I hope they can fill the empty vacancies with known stores that the people of Hot Springs want, because not everyone wants to travel to Little Rock to shop.

I agree, the Arlington does need a lot of work, but great pictures of the natural scenery downtown! Walmart Neighborhood Market has been confirmed in the Indiandale Shopping Center off of Malvern.WNM will start construction late fall. Plans are to destroy the buildings that once held Alco and Save-A-Lot. Also, the Arvest Bank there currently will also be demolished and the land will be used for more parking. Arvest Bank will be building a new branch at the corner of Shady Grove and Malvern.

The Austin is being converted into a Holiday Inn, and it will connect to the convention center. Another hotel is going to built next to the Holiday Inn, and will also connect to the convention center. It will be globally branded. And while downtown is on a boom, the mall is being auctioned off, which can't be a good thing. I hope the mall will find a good owner who will fill in the vacancies.

Kilwin's opened last Thursday downtown, which is a great plus. Also, a plumbing permit has been pulled for the Hungry Greek, and it will be next to Subway in the Central City Shopping Center.

The Howe Hotel, also known as the Desoto Hotel has sold to a new owner, and plans could include a rooftop restaurant and garden. This is great news, and I assume more great things are going to happen to Downtown in the near future.

Kollective Coffee & Tea opened today downtown. On the downside, Park Island Market & Cafe is possibly closing its doors, which will be detrimental to the Park Ave. revitalization, if more businesses close their doors. Hopefully, the Majestic and the sleazebag motels get cleaned up soon.

Hot Springs Baseball Museum is opening at 211 E. Grand Ave. This will be a great addition to the downtown area.

Don Juan's is opening its third location in the Indiandale Shopping Center, off of Malvern Avenue, tomorrow. The mall has also started renovating the empty storefronts, and one more store has gone out of business since I was last there. There were a total of 18 empty storefronts, so hopefully the group that bought it - the same group who owns the NWA Mall - can fill those vacancies.

MedExpress is building a location at 3412 Central Avenue, where a bar used to be, in the same parking lot as John's Honda.

There's a person who started a group on Facebook urging condemnation, so they can get developers more interested. It doesn't make any sense to me either, but I guess good luck to them. I'm ready to see what happens to the Medical Arts Building, though.

The bottom floor of the Medical Arts building has been purchased by TKZ LLC, which also are the owners of the Dugan-Stuart and Thompson buildings. In the Sentinel Record, TKZ said they are already making improvements to the bottom floor, and they have a list of potential tenants that are wanting to occupy the bottom floor. A group on Facebook is trying to push the city to condemn the building, but TKZ said that if the city does condemn, that could cause problems with people already trying to buy the remainder of the Medical Arts Building. I, personally, hope that they restore the Medical Arts Building, because it truly is an amazing building and a huge part of Hot Spring's Downtown. More and more is going to continue to go downtown; with more retail, restaurant, hotel, and apartment options, the downtown will thrive like it used to.

According to plumbing permits, Spa City Wine Girls is going downtown at 258 Central Avenue, along with a coffee shop called, Kolletive Coffee & Tea at 110 Central Avenue. Off of 70 West, on Marion Anderson, a crepe restaurant is opening up called, Alexa's Cafe el Creperie. Also, the Perkins and Shell Station are completely demolished, and construction has begun on the CVS.

The Hungry Greek has pulled a beer and wine permit. It will be in the Central City shopping center, next to Subway, most likely.

First National Bank was bought out by a bank called Bear State Financial; a bank headquartered in Harrison, Arkansas.

The Waffle House by the racetrack is set to open back up - after an extensive remodel - is set to open in a week or so.

Fountain Lake High School was approved to be a charter school. Also, a new Regions bank is going to be built at 302 Malvern Avenue - downtown - along with a new parking deck. A new Vietnamese restaurant has also opened up at the old Fuji Japanese Restaurant on E. Grand.

I was looking at the plumbing permits, and it listed a Chinese restaurant for the outlet mall - China Max.