Vacant Fayetteville Hotel Donated to Razorback Foundation

A vacant hotel in Fayetteville, at one point one of the city’s largest and most successful, has been donated to the Razorback Foundation.
According to Washington County property records, the 197-room hotel at 1255 S. Shiloh Drive — frequently referred to as the former Clarion Hotel — was deeded from H&C Fayetteville Clarion LLC to TSSD LLC. The ownership was transferred June 15.
Fayetteville attorney Kenneth Mourton, board chairman of the Razorback Foundation, confirmed that TSSD is a subsidiary of the nonprofit organization that serves as the private fundraising arm of the University of Arkansas athletics department.
The 81,098-SF property, opened originally in 1986, has been closed since the spring of 2015, when it was operating as a Grand Hotel.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do with it,” Mourton said, adding that he expected the organization to have “a reasonable discussion” in the coming months about the property’s best use.
H&C Fayetteville is an affiliate of Fort Smith-based Hobbs & Curry Family LP, an investment conglomerate centered on hotel ownership that recovered the property at auction in March.
Hobbs & Curry previously owned the 7.05-acre property for several years until 2012, when it was sold to JGHG LLC — which listed Jasdeep Grewal as the registered agent — and Charles Wilkerson for $1.5 million.
The hotel struggled financially after that, including bankruptcy, and was reflagged twice, first as Guesthouse International Inn & Suites in 2013 and later to Grand Hotel.
Multiple phone messages left with Hobbs & Curry were not returned.
Gifts of real estate and land to the Razorback Foundation are not uncommon. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who attended the University of Arkansas and was a member of the school’s 1964 national championship football team, donated 256 acres of Fayetteville land in January 2015.
According to the Razorback Foundation website, members who donate property may receive a significant tax benefit in the form of a tax deduction, based on the property’s value on the day’s it’s received.
According to the Washington County assessor’s office, the most recent appraisal of the Fayetteville hotel was $3.1 million in 2015.