Pine Bluff’s new Marriott hotel will help the local economy

Pine Bluff, Arkansas – A plan to convert the Plaza Hotel into a Courtyard by Marriott was approved by Pine Bluff officials on Thursday.

Although this project has been in the works for a while, the Plaza Hotel was demolished starting in August.

According to Ryan Watley, CEO of Go Forward Pine Bluff, “we’ve been working on this for about six plus years.”

According to Watley, the city will benefit economically from the new hotel, which will be attached to the Pine Bluff Convention Center.

He gave the example of visiting football teams coming to town.

Watley stated, “Those teams don’t stay in Pine Bluff when they come here, which means our local businesses don’t have a chance to serve them and boost our economy. We’re tackling that issue because we’ve heard of Pine Bluff High School reunions happening in Little Rock and other locations due to a lack of facilities.

The P3 Group of Memphis is the project’s developer, and according to their CEO, Dee Brown, he supports the initiative.

“We will supervise the new hotel’s construction,” Brown stated. Together with the city, we have contributed $1.7 million to demonstrate our dedication to and faith in the initiative. We will thus remain here until the doors open.

A USDA grant of about $18 million covered a large portion of the hotel’s construction costs.
However, other people don’t think the project is a good idea at all.

According to Pine Bluff City Council member Glen Brown Sr., the city could have renovated the Plaza Hotel or looked at other, less expensive possibilities.

“I propose that we establish a hotel there,” Brown Sr. stated. “Why not renovate the one we already had and invest $5 to $10 million in it? It’s ours.”

Over $20 million will be spent on the new project. Additionally, according to Brown Sr., Pine Bluff does not currently have enough tourists to warrant a hotel of this kind, particularly not in the downtown area, where he claimed there are insufficient dining and entertainment alternatives to draw guests in.

Brown Sr. stated, “We’re going to have a hotel with 125-175 rooms, and they’re not going to be full.” “There will be a loss for the hotel itself.”

Watley said the Courtyard by Marriott will be a starting point that might lead to greater and better things, but he noted that Pine Bluff still has more work to do.

Watley stated, “This is just one of the many things that Pine Bluff needs.” “Therefore, we will persist in our efforts to attend to the other necessities as well.”

Watley added that he didn’t believe it would have been wise to renovate the Plaza Hotel.

According to Watley, “it fell into ruins because different leadership did not reinvest in the hotel over time.” “Therefore, we have a flagship hotel that everyone knows, and once more, we will be able to have that hotel/convention center complex where they can use each other to their advantage for prosperity.”

According to Dee Brown, he anticipates a groundbreaking ceremony for the new hotel sometime in the upcoming year.