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Hotel Pines Could Soon Be Site of New Dining SpotLock Icon

2 min read

If permit applications are to be believed, plans are in the works for a microbrewery and restaurant in the 200 block of Barraque St. in Pine Bluff and for a restaurant in the old Hotel Pines at 426 S. Main.

Brooklyn businessman Stuart Hee has applied to the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division for permits for Delta Brewing Co., Front Porch Hospitality Group and the Hotel Pines.

“Lots of exciting things happening in Pine Bluff!” is all a busy Hee had time to write in an email on Thursday, when Arkansas Business goes to press.

Caleb McMahon, economic development director for the Economic Development Alliance of Jefferson County, said he wasn’t sure how much he could share but confirmed that he was meeting with Hee Thursday afternoon.

A group called CatalyticPB is spearheading the effort along with Tom Reilley, founder of Highland Pellets, McMahon said. Highland Pellets is a $229 million wood pellet manufacturing plant that opened in Pine Bluff in late 2016.

“It’s definitely great news,” McMahon allowed in discussing the plans.

Reilley, who lives in New Hampshire and is a former senior managing director in London for investment bank Bear Stearns, is on the board of the nonprofit Pine Bluff Rising.

The charity bought the six-story, 100,000-SF Hotel Pines for $1 on Jan. 17, 2017, to study the feasibility of restoring the historic hotel.

The Hotel Pines, named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, opened in 1913 and was designed by noted Arkansas architect George R. Mann. It closed in 1970 and has been the focus of a number of efforts to save it.

Reilley told Arkansas Business a year ago that he sees Pine Bluff as poised for a rebound. As for the Hotel Pines, “If it can be saved, we want to save it.”

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