Strong-Turner chapter at ASU endorses O’Reilly convention center

A proposed convention center on the campus of Arkansas State University will help the university and North Jonesboro, claims a letter sent to Jonesboro Mayor Harold Perrin from the Strong-Turner Alumni Chapter.

The letter from Peggy Wright, the Strong-Turner Alumni Chapter on-campus liaison, also said the group believes the area could support two convention center projects that are under consideration. The alumni chapter, made up of 400 African American alumni at ASU, is active on campus in several different projects including supporting community revitalization.

Earlier this year, officials with Missouri-based O’Reilly Hospitality Management and Illinois-based Keller Enterprises announced plans to build convention centers in Jonesboro.

Under the O-Reilly proposal, a 200-room Embassy Suites hotel, a 40,000-square-foot conference center and a Houlihan’s restaurant would be built at the former ASU track complex just off U.S. 49. The project from Keller would include a 152-room Hyatt Place Hotel and Conference Center at the site of the former Arkansas Services Center just off U.S. 63.

The alumni group is asking Perrin and the Jonesboro City Council to do three things.

“With further elaboration to follow in subsequent paragraphs, the three S-TAC requests are as follows – 1] that you as our Mayor and the city council immediately pass a resolution of endorsement and support for the Arkansas State University-Jonesboro and O’Reilly Hospitality Management project proposal; 2] that the City of Jonesboro collaborate with Arkansas State University-Jonesboro, to organize a North Jonesboro Anchor Institution Compact to mobilize state, federal, corporate and foundation funds and related resources in support of the A-State/OHM project within the organizational context of the NJNI; and 3] that you as Mayor and the city council use your good offices, influence and authority to have the Jonesboro Advertising & Promotion Commission begin immediate deliberations with A-State/OHM regarding this on-campus project as being proposed,” the letter noted.

Wright also suggested the O’Reilly project could be a “cleansing experience.”

“This project is significant not only for the future growth and development of North Jonesboro, but in a sense a community cleansing experience for those of us who can recall the 1970s and the destitute living conditions confronting African Americans and low-income families in North Jonesboro and along Mathews Avenue and its side streets near downtown. Mayor Perrin, you, your staff, the city council and residents deserve commendation for the redevelopment accomplishments of the NJNI to date. Yet, much still remains to be done,” Wright wrote in the letter.

Perrin said he received the letter and would sit down and analyze the information. He said he would respond to the letter from Wright, but noted he could respond to several aspects of the letter. On the endorsement letter, Perrin said the city “endorses everything” about the convention center projects and is willing to “help everything we can.” But Perrin said the city could not pass a resolution for any particular project.

However, Wright countered in the letter that the group believes Jonesboro could support both projects and that the group supports both projects.

“As additional background to S-TAC’s third and final request, Mayor Perrin, without benefit of the financials for the respective hotel-convention center projects or reputable technical analysis to the contrary, S-TAC firmly believes that Jonesboro’s steadily growing emergent metropolitan economy can support two projects of this type and scale,” Wright wrote. “To S-TAC, the correct public policy issue and decision before you as our Mayor and the city government is not, is not, whether one project should be selected over the other, but how can you as our Mayor, the city council and other city government agencies/commissions expeditiously help bring each project, in this case both projects on-line in a fair, timely, transparent, efficient and cost-effective manner.”

Perrin said while the North Jonesboro initiative is no longer part of the city, officials have worked and will continue to work with the group.

“We will definitely sit down and help them,” Perrin said.

In the past several years, the initiative has sought to remove blighted and dilapidated homes as well as work on community-based policing in the area.

On the A&P issue, Perrin said while his office appoints members to the board, he said he cannot tell board members how to vote.

The letter also credited Perrin for working on the convention center projects, building support for a plan that was abandoned several years ago.

“Despite this setback, today under your leadership the city has two viable hotel-convention center sites and developers to consider. The two sites, respectively, are located in different neighborhoods of Jonesboro, one south and one north, each with unique surrounding neighborhood characteristics. The site along Highway 63, soon to be Interstate 555, is recently rezoned from residential to commercial, while the other site is strategically located on A-State’s campus in a transportation growth corridor.  The site along Highway 63 is a site assembled under your leadership, Mayor Perrin, albeit with the full cooperation and support of then Governor Beebe, and the Arkansas State University Board of Trustees – as one of the five original state agency owners of the site,” the letter noted.