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Historic Building In Downtown Fort Smith Preserved, Renovated For 21st Century

FORT SMITH (KFSM) — A building downtown that’s more than 100 years old has undergone a major historic renovation. Steve Clark, the founder and CEO o...

FORT SMITH (KFSM) -- A building downtown that's more than 100 years old has undergone a major historic renovation.

Steve Clark, the founder and CEO of Propak Logistics and about 50 employees just moved into the newly restored Friedman-Mincer building.

“We literally began the demolition by sections internally and dropped what I like to call ‘new bones into old skin’,” Clark said.

Renovations inside the historic Friedman-Mincer building emphasize wood, brick, steel and glass. The walls on the top two floors of office space are covered in art.

“We were really going for kind of an ad agency vibe,” Clark said.

Clark said everything they could reuse from the original structure built in 1911 is incorporated throughout the building. Renovations cost between $2 million and $3 million.

“The reason that this project was important to me is because that`s the kind of city that I want to live in -- a city that shows respect to its historic buildings,” he said.

The Friedman-Mincer building at the corner of Garrison and Towson Avenue, was known to many as the OTASCO building. Today, you can see signatures people left on the outside of the building two generations ago.

“I love to see the historic structures preserved as opposed to being torn down and a new one put in, then you you've lost that history,” Leisa Gramlich, executive director of the Fort Smith Museum of History said.

The roof of the building collapsed in 2012 and was under threat of being demolished.

“It just didn't make any sense to me that we would have an empty gravel lot, should we lose this building as a major entryway into the city,” Clark said.

The structure with so much history is now preserved and repurposed for the 21st century.

“When we did this building, it wasn't just for Propak, it was a message that, you know what, downtown is open for business,” Clark said.

The first floor of the building is currently empty. Clark said he had thought about leasing it out, but now thinks he will save the space for expanding his company.

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