Developer emailed about Spa City site - Zhongshan Toilet Co.,Ltd

HOT SPRINGS -- The group marketing the Majestic Hotel site told the Hot Springs Board of Directors it's contacted the developer who was under contract to buy the property and build an amphitheater on the four vacant parcels the city acquired in 2015.

"We did send him a packet," Cole McCaskill, vice president of economic development for the Hot Springs Metro Partnership and a member of the Majestic Site Development Committee, referring to R.A. Wilson Enterprises President/CEO Rick Wilson, told the board Tuesday.

He was responding to District 4 Director Dudley Webb, who had asked if the development committee had spoken to Wilson since his renewed interest in the site was detailed in a series of articles The Sentinel-Record ran last month.

Wilson shared an email McCaskill sent him less than an hour before the board's business meeting Tuesday night. Attached was the marketing package the committee sent to a dozen developers earlier this year.

"Last year, you said you were no longer interested in the Majestic site," McCaskill said in the email. "That's why we have not contacted you during our efforts to market the site."

McCaskill told the board Tuesday that the Hot Springs Metro Partnership had assisted Wilson's company during the 12 months it had the property under contract.

"We have a great relationship with Rick," he said. "We worked with him extensively on that amphitheater project. We really felt like a member of his team. We had tons of meetings. We sent the Walton Arts market assessment out to all of our marketing channels."

Walton Arts Center President/CEO Peter Lane told the board last year the Northwest Arkansas nonprofit and R.A. Wilson reached a "framework of understanding" on a memorandum of agreement for the lease and operation of an outdoor entertainment venue at the Majestic site.

The real estate contract required an agreement with a venue operator subject to board approval. Wilson told the newspaper last month the operator provision proved too onerous and ultimately led to his terminating the $2.16 million purchase and sale agreement a week before $25,000 of the $100,000 deposit became nonrefundable on July 20 of last year.

The termination letter said the site wouldn't support the capacity needed to make an amphitheater profitable for venue operators/promoters. Wilson said last month he was interested in pursuing a smaller amphitheater than what he sold the board on in 2021.

He proposed an earthen amphitheater that could accommodate about 2,000 patrons and require less excavation and parking than the venue he was under contract to build, qualifying that the venue's success would be contingent on the city becoming a partner.

"It's not going to be Carrie Underwood," he said. "It's not going to be Jason Aldean. Those are the guys we were after when we were going for nine or 10,000 capacity. But it will be other arts and entertainment interests.

"That's what Hot Springs overwhelmingly supported in our marketing study and survey. The city doesn't need to ignore that and go to the chamber of commerce or go to a broker and say 'Go see if you can find someone who'll be interested in buying it.'"

The termination letter he delivered to City Hall last summer noted R.A. Wilson and WAC were looking for locations that could support a larger venue than what could be built on the Majestic site. WAC said it's still interested in operating a local entertainment venue.

"We are still in conversation with Mr. Wilson about this project, and we are still interested in operating the venue," WAC Public Relations Director Jennifer Wilson said last month.

The city turned over the marketing of the Majestic site to Hot Springs Metro Partnership last fall, expanding the scope of the partnership's $100,000 contract for economic development services to include finding a buyer for the Park Avenue site that's sat idle since 2006.

In March, the newspaper requested the names on what McCaskill has described as a "dream team prospect list" that the Metro Partnership solicited in February, but the committee, asserting the competitive advantage exemption in the state's open records law, declined the request.

Webb asked Tuesday if any of the 12 had responded to the solicitation.

"We sent it out and didn't hear anything back," McCaskill said. "We have had quite a few prospects reach out during that time and ongoing. In fact, I've had two calls today about the project. There has been follow-up on those initial 12, but still nobody on the line."

He said the committee had developed two new prospects since it updated the board last month.

"We do have two upcoming meetings with out-of-state prospects next month that are scheduled, then we followed up with another prospect that had visited out of state, had a conversation with them," McCaskill said.

Webb asked how many prospects the Metro Partnership was talking to.

"Right now I could say we have a handful of prospects, more than five, less than 10," McCaskill said.

Per its contract with the city, the partnership's status as the clearinghouse for all offers for the Majestic ends Nov. 1.

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