The following is a message from ASMSA Executive Director Corey Alderdice shared with the campus community and institutional stakeholders.
August 23rd holds special meaning for ASMSA. On August 23, 1993, students in the Charter Class began their first day of coursework and set this wonderful experiment into motion. This time last year, we looked back at the legacy of so many who fought to shape this institution. Today, I think it's essential that we use this occasion to look at what’s ahead for ASMSA.
Earlier this month, Hot Springs City Manager Bill Burrough shared that he expects next year's budget to include $4 million the Hot Springs Board of Directors reserved to bring down the former St. Joseph's Hospital per a 2010 agreement between the City and University of Arkansas System. This agreement stemmed from a request by then-Gov. Mike Beebe for the community to reaffirm its commitment to the school’s success. Both the decision in 2010 and the investment beginning in 2025 reinforces the city's commitment to the school and demonstrates the mutual benefits of having Arkansas’ premier public high school in downtown Hot Springs.
When it became clear in the mid-2000s that the hospital complex could no longer sustain the needs of students as a residential space, at no time did ASMSA consider relocating from Hot Springs. Instead, campus leadership began work on a facilities plan that would establish ASMSA as a cornerstone of Central Avenue with an eye to the future. In the time since, ASMSA has invested more than $35 million in the redevelopment of the campus. The opening of the new Campus Administration Building this month completed the first phase of our physical transformation. On December 31st, we will officially return the hospital complex to the full ownership of the City of Hot Springs.
The recent news that demolition is expected to begin in 2025 has, understandably, left some members of the community upset about the hospital’s fate. School officials studied the long term viability of the hospital across its first twenty years. In 2015, we conducted a feasibility study to assess the potential of retaining the Cedar Street Wing which concluded such an effort was both logistically and cost prohibitive. In 2019, ASMSA sought approval to restore the former Chapel and Convent into living and gathering spaces that conformed to the original vision for how they could fit into campus life. While saving the full hospital was impractical, campus leadership believed it was necessary to preserve a portion of the structures that was within our capacity to do so.
Now that ASMSA has entered its fourth decade of educational excellence, it is critical that we begin taking active steps to redevelop the hospital’s footprint once the demolition and site rehabilitation are completed over the next few years. I’ve noted regularly that if ASMSA’s needs result in the loss of this small portion of Hot Springs’ history, then we must certainly ensure that something meaningful both to our school and the community at large takes its place.
Over the past year, we began discussions in earnest about what’s ahead. The consensus among our internal and external stakeholders is that spaces that fulfill ASMSA’s legislated visual and performing arts mission along with additional housing that rises to the General Assembly’s vision of expanded school choice throughout Arkansas are both urgently needed and highly-deserving of further investment by the State.
By 2033 and ASMSA’s 40th anniversary celebration, our vision is that we will achieve at least another $25 million in capital investment in both the campus and a thriving downtown Hot Springs. Doing so will require institutional, legislative, and private support; however, we will build on the last fifteen years of success to ensure our students, colleagues, and community have the resources they need to achieve their full potential. Combining ASMSA’s efforts with the ongoing work by the City as well as Hot Springs Metro Partnership to redevelop the former Majestic Hotel site across Cedar Street provides a truly generational opportunity to define these spaces as showpieces at the end of one of the most iconic streets in America.
Hot Springs has a storied past. My sincere hope is that both our city and ASMSA’s future will be even brighter. Let’s work together to make that possibility a reality.