The former Pizza Hut The building at 1706 W. Third St. across from the State Capitol is gone. Once a gas station, the building housed several restaurants over the past few decades, including Solar Cafe, Olde World Pizza (also known as OW Pizza), The Capital’s Seafood House and Fresh: An Urban Eatery.
If you’ve lived in Little Rock long enough, I’ll bet you $10-$20 that you’ve heard someone say something like, “This location is perfect for a restaurant,” because of its proximity to the Capitol and all the commuters that drive in and out of downtown on a daily basis.
But for some reason, when restaurants were still open there, people mostly just drove by. I spoke to a former Olde World employee who worked there in the early 2000s. He said they got a fair amount of customers at lunchtime, but “couldn’t make it work at night.” He said they tried to boost nighttime business by putting on shows, and people came to drink beer and watch the bands, but it wasn’t enough.
Lobbyists Ted Mullenix And Julie Mullenix owns the property and has been purchasing parcels across from the Capitol on the north side of Third Street along Bishop Street for several years.
Ted Mullenix said in a phone call Tuesday that the Olde World building is “old, old, old” and difficult to rehabilitate. He said the Capitol Zoning District Commission agreed it needed to be leveled, but plans for the property have not been finalized. Mullinex said they also own two surrounding properties totaling 1.2 acres.
“Plenty of room for a nice office building,” he said. “My wife, Julie, and I are trying our best to build something there that will blend in with the State Capitol.” Mullinex, a former Republican state representative, said they had “a bite or two” for an office building.
“We hope we can find a solution,” he said.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in May that a company owned by the Mullinexes had submitted a proposal to the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System to build a two-story, 3710-square-foot building at 1700 W. Third St. to house the system’s new offices. APERS has been looking to buy a building rather than continue leasing office space in the Union Plaza building in downtown Little Rock, the newspaper reported.
“We hope that’s still possible,” Mulinex said. “APERS is a big fund and they deserve to own their own building.”
Here is a depiction of the proposed building, linked in reporter Mike Wickline’s story in the Dem-Gaz.
The process was held up in part because “people from downtown got involved and didn’t think they needed another office building,” Mullinex said.
He replied that the area around the Capitol was included in the new Master Plan for Downtown Little Rockwhich was approved by the Little Rock City Council in July. The master plan aims to double the downtown population over the next decade by implementing several strategies, including expanding public transit and walking trails and leveraging access to the Arkansas River.
“Some people have the attitude that everything has to be downtown,” Mullinex said. “That’s not true.”
Mullinex also owns the property directly west at 1900 W. Third St., which is home to a Mexican seafood restaurant. Sea and Earth was located there for a short time (it closed a few months ago).
He said the future of the place is currently uncertain. They would ideally like to lease it for a restaurant: “Something very nice for lunch, but not overpriced,” he said, adding that it has a large patio with views of the downtown skyline (and tracks that see extremely long and loud freight trains day and night) and could be a good place for a lounge in the evenings (many years ago it was a bar/nightclub called Star Bar).
Mullinex said the site could also be used as a commercial building and he would not say no if someone wanted to rent it for office space.
