Party is interested in Port Authority building

— By BRADLY GILL

Staff writer

The Camden Port Authority revealed during a meeting on Wednesday that it has entered into preliminary talks with Little Custom Homes of Wilson, Arkansas, in order to possibly lease the port warehouse.

Members present for the meeting were, Steven Word, Ed Horton, Robert Davis, David Reynolds, James Lee Silliman, City Attorney Michael Frey and Camden Mayor Marie Trisollini

Little Custom Homes provides prefabricated houses ranging from 600 squared feet to a 1,000 squared feet. The port warehouse would be used as a manufacturing facility.

“They have expressed an interest to the mayor and others on starting up an operation here, and I assisted them on potential locations on buildings that might work for them to manufacture these little custom homes," Silliman said.

"They’re nice. The mayor has actually toured some of these homes in Wilson.”

The homes typically sell anywhere from $60,000 - $120,000, with options available for traditional home financing through a lender.

Little Custom Homes also leases the homes with rent at a rate of $1,200 a month with all utilities included.

Silliman also stated that a number of the city-owned vacant lots could contain these homes as potential starter homes or retirement homes.

Residents of Camden would also be employed as laborers at the site, while at the same time being taught a trade.

“I do think that their service to the community would be noteworthy because the homes that they build would fit very nicely in any of the neighborhoods where we have some blight," Trisollini said.

"It would improve the neighborhood just by having a couple of better houses in the neighborhood. It kind of lifts the atmosphere.

Silliman backed up that statement and said:

“They have experienced, where they put some of these homes in older neighborhoods, the neighborhoods have experienced a revitalization. The neighborhoods may have been in a declining state, and there were homes, such as we have here in Camden where the city had to go in and condemn the houses and tear them down … They could go in and build these homes and hopefully revitalize those neighborhoods.”

The Port Authority advertised the lease for the warehouse and Little Custom Homes was the only company to show interest according to the mayor.

It was stated that a few modifications would be needed before the building is operational: A 25-foot-door is needed to transport the homes from the warehouse, and a concrete ramp would also need to be constructed.

A contractor estimated these modifications would cost $22,000 - $25,000.

Silliman said one option would be for Little Custom Homes to pay for the modification and the Port Authority could apply those expenses to the cost of the lease.

The Port Authority requested that Trisollini and Silliman ask other cities - such as Wilson - the nature of the lease on the buildings where Little Custom Homes is located at in those towns.

Silliman also said he was contacted by a logistics company interested in shipping large equipment from the port to Arkadelphia in order to build a paper mill. It was stated that the company was willing to pay fees to the Port Authority.

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