PACA revitalizes Park Avenue neighborhood

Although it was originally formed in 1985, the Park Avenue Community Association has stepped up its campaign to revitalize the oldest neighborhood in the city in recent years and has no plans to slow down anytime soon.

"It was a mess," Hannah Mills, a longtime PACA board member and former president, said Friday of Park Avenue in the mid-1980s. Mills notes that District 1 Justice of the Peace David Reagan, who represents the Park Avenue area, was one of PACA's founders.

"It was a group of homeowners who were distressed by the rundown neighborhoods and everything that was affecting property values and the way they lived their lives. You couldn't go outdoors at night. There were all sorts of problems," Mills said.

"They decided the only way to bring the neighborhood back was to start working together," she said. "It was first formed as a neighborhood watch group and then evolved into PACA in 1985."

When Mills moved into the neighborhood in 1995, she got involved. "David would not have it any other way," she said, laughing. "If you were living here, then you were in."

She said the group encountered a lot of negativity in the beginning, but "the people who were determined to make changes slowly but surely changed the attitudes of all those people with negative thoughts. The ones who said 'You can't do anything. It's dead. It's gone.'"

Mills said PACA members were strong in their beliefs "because there is so much to offer in this neighborhood. The vintage homes, the rock walls and the trees. This area is cooler in the summer than the rest of the city."

Angie Ezekiel, current PACA president, said, "We're the greenest neighborhood with the densest tree cover in the city. Parks and Trails did an overall study and we have the most trees. That and the creek make a big difference."

The group's recent "Light Uptown" project, with plans to install 77 antique-style streetlights from the curb where Central Avenue ends all the way to Circle Drive, actually had its origins in 2001 when the city and residents of Park and Whittington avenues joined together to create a plan for the neighborhoods.

Mills said they hired an architect from Little Rock to "draw up a plan" that included sidewalk improvements, curb bump-outs, gardens and decorative lights.

"Everything was underway and the city was ready to move forward with it, but then recessions happened," Ezekiel said. "The plan in place now is much improved over the old one, though."

The group has already installed one light and has purchased eight more that are "on their way" and will be installed soon with McGrew Service Co. donating the electrician labor. Ezekiel noted there will be one with a red pole at the corner of Pullman Street to show bicyclists where the turn is for the entrance to the Northwoods Urban Forest Park.

"We had made a lot of sidewalk improvements and added bike lanes in anticipation of the neighborhood being more safe and having more people coming in and then the Northwoods project came up and we were like, 'Hey, we're totally ready for this,'" Ezekiel said.

"It will be great when the Greenway and Northwoods are both completed and you will be able to bike from the lake all the way up Park Avenue and then to the Northwoods. You'll get the best of everything Hot Springs has to offer."

The new plan included rain gardens being installed among the bump-outs to mitigate flooding, as well as control traffic flow. Ezekiel said they have a few more rain gardens planned, with the next one going in front of Red Light Roastery Coffee House, 1003 Park, where there is "a big dip, almost a gully. We'll put a rain garden there, some boulders."

One of the group's most passionate projects is the completion of the David F. Watkins Memorial Tunnel Park, located in the 800 block of Park Avenue on the site of the former Kloss Motel, named for the late city manager who had championed the cause of getting rid of the dilapidated motel and installing some kind of park.

Once a planned amphitheater at the park is complete, the rest of the infrastructure can be added, Ezekiel said.

"All the seating is completed and work on the stage will happen as soon as the bidding process works correctly," Ezekiel said, noting they opened bids previously but only had one bid. "With any sort of (Department of Housing and Urban Development) funding, you have to have at least three bids and the only one we got came in at twice the budget."

She said the city's Parks and Trails Department has taken over and will be dealing with the bid process from now on.

"It's like a puzzle we're putting together. The Hot Springs Civitan Club is raising funds for playground equipment and are a third of the way toward their goal. We have the lighting and irrigation purchased. We're slowly putting all the pieces together."

Other plans include a butterfly and forageable garden, she said. "We've already got things growing in the nursery and ready for that." The big draw will be the amphitheater with the creek running between the stage and seating area. "You can sit on the bottom step with your feet right above the water and the acoustics are really good."

Ezekiel said it's possible the park could be completed within two years. "We're hoping for a lot sooner," Mills said, "but definitely in two years."

As a means of raising funds for their various projects as well as showing the public its progress, PACA has been hosting Summerfest Uptown events every year with the next scheduled for 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 19 at 610 Park Ave.

"This is our fourth year," Mills, who chairs the Summerfest committee, said. "We started off doing one a month. Were we crazy or what? But it worked. The whole goal of Summerfest at that time was to draw attention to the new Park Avenue to show we are not the unsavory place we used to be."

She said that, according to Hot Springs Police Department statistics recently released, "We have the lowest crime rate in the city. We've gone from probably the highest to the lowest."

PACA also hosts a walking tour of the neighborhood every year, taking people inside many of the historic homes and sharing the colorful history of the area, with the next event scheduled for June 2, with a rain date of June 9. "It's a very limited size group, "Ezekiel said.

Ezekiel's stepson, Drake Ezekiel, a student in EAST lab at Hot Springs World Class High School, is working on a walking history tour app, she said. "So people who can't make it on the tour can download the app and do their own self-guided tour."

The Park Avenue ART Initiative or PAARTI, a subcommittee of PACA, have launched a project to redo the vintage way-finding sign located at 400 Park into a new Welcome to Uptown art sign, and is seeking submissions from artists for the design. Submissions for the sign should be sent to [email protected].

"We have a lot of artists down here who are trying to bring art and sculpture in," Mills said. "Park Avenue still has a lot of elderly, but we have a lot of millennials and younger folk coming in with great ideas and energy."

Ezekiel noted there has been an influx of retirees from Houston and Austin, Texas, "buying houses that have sat dormant for a long time and fixing them up. We're getting a lot of aggressive, fun folks moving here. It's great."

"The price is still right. The area is growing in a good direction and people are seeing that," Mills said. "We embrace the diversity."

"We were already pretty funky and we want to stay that way," Ezekiel said. "We want this to be a neighborhood that is a good home for everyone."

"For the young and the young at heart," Mills added.

PACA is always looking for funding for all its projects, Mills said, noting donations can be sent to PACA, P.O. Box 435, Hot Springs, 71902. Those donating $5,000 to the Light Uptown project can get a light engraved in their name and those donating $500 can be added to a list of names on a pole.

Local on 02/18/2018

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