Little Rock’s Central High School Neighborhood Historic District is an area full of both beautifully refurbished Craftsman homes and leaning, leaking ruins that have been vacant for years.
It is also in danger of losing its historic district status, according to a July 2022 report from the city. To keep the designation, at least 51% of the buildings in a given area must be contributing structures, meaning they’re of a recognized architectural style and have not been substantially altered. That year, the district was at “59% and dropping,” the report says, with 36 structures demolished between 2010 and 2021.
Paul Dodds, who lives in the neighborhood and owns several Airbnbs and rental properties there, hopes to see the area come back to life and wants to share his enthusiasm with others in hopes of boosting investments, preserving and maintaining houses and safeguarding the historic district designation.
As such, Dodds, who financed the renovation of dozens of vacant houses in the area over the last 20 years, is hosting free walking tours of what he calls the “Ruins of Central High.”
“Why are people throwing this neighborhood away? Like it doesn’t make any sense,” Dodds said. “These are beautiful houses. It’s got these beautiful trees. It’s really convenient. I can ride my bike on quiet streets into downtown in a few minutes. Why is this place not wonderful? Why are all these empty houses here?”
The tours, which Dodds holds on Saturdays, consist of him leading people through the historic neighborhood and pointing out houses that have been sitting empty, some for over a decade, and houses that he’s rehabbed.
Every story is different — some houses are the subject of inheritance disputes and have fallen into limbo, some are owned by people who live out of state and have neglected them — but the result is the same: A house that sits empty for years and slowly crumbles in an otherwise vibrant neighborhood.
Eight people gathered on the corner of 16th and Park streets, right next to Central High School, for the May 18 walking tour.
After an introduction from Dodds about the general state of the neighborhood and his efforts to preserve it, the group set off, winding their way through blocks of vintage houses, many constructed in the 1920s, and newer construction that has filled out the predominantly Black district over the last half-century.
The historic homes in the district run the full spectrum of livability, from pristinely refurbished to completely dilapidated.
A house on 16th Street, with its white-paint exterior flaking and chipping and a gaping hole in the roof letting the elements ravage the interior, has a peeling, sun-baked unsafe notice on it from the Little Rock Department of Housing and Neighborhood Programs. Beneath it, a much newer notice is posted that says the building is being considered for condemnation and demolition. Just across the street, construction workers are building a new addition to Central High School.
This is the kind of property Dodds wants to see cleaned up, cared for and contributing to the area’s historic status, rather than flattened and forgotten about.
Only three people attended Dodds’ first tour on May 11. Dodds hopes to see those numbers increase and for city government to take notice.
“I think things really can be changed, but it takes press coverage. It takes attention,” Dodds said. “It takes the city, and the city’s distracted. There’s a million demands.”
Dodds criticized the city’s approach to vacant properties, which he believes is not working.
“There’s a house here on Dennison [Street] that’s been vacant; it’s been on the UV [Unsafe/Vacant] list for 19 years, something like that. It’s in terrible shape,” Dodds said. “The city bought it for $8,000 and then sold it to someone a year later for $4,000 and it’s still unsafe and vacant five years later. … With no framework and no strategy, stuff like that happens.”
Dodds said the city should implement a plan to take ownership of vacant houses and offer them for free to people willing to do a certified historic rehab on them.
“I was talking to this woman who’s a lawyer from [Center for] Community Progress, and she was astonished that Little Rock actually paid money to buy unsafe and vacant houses,” Dodds said. “It’s like, just take it. Everybody else just takes these things.”
Dodds said the city government has the ability to step in and fine owners who leave vacant properties to rot but lacks a standardized framework for doing so.
“They have the power to levy fines. They have the power to make the fines into liens for people who maintain a nuisance,” Dodds said. “You’re supposed to have habitable homes. You’re not supposed to leave them in the city being dangerous and uninhabitable.”
Dodd said he’s perplexed that there’s not more buy-in to preserve and protect the neighborhood.
“I lived in Boston. History is really big in Boston. They make a lot of money off the history in Boston,” he said. “Just for economic development, it pays to defend an historic district.”
The city report describes the neighborhood as “an endangered historical resource” that “suffers extensively from demolitions, property neglect, and incompatible alterations.”
Historic homes can be repaired and can even regain their contributing structure status if it was previously lost — but once a house is demolished, nothing built in its place can contribute to the historic district.
“They name them National Historic Districts for a reason, because this stuff doesn’t exist [anymore],” Dodds said. “A lot of places you go … a neighborhood full of 100-year-old houses is just unthinkable.”
Two more free neighborhood tours are scheduled for the next two Saturdays, May 25 and June 1, at 10:30 a.m. on the corner of 16th and Park streets.