Couple plans restoration of downtown building as a long-term labor of love

 Patti Goesl speaks about renovating an old Texarkana building across the street from the Perot Theatre to have a 1930's style.
Patti Goesl speaks about renovating an old Texarkana building across the street from the Perot Theatre to have a 1930's style.

A jail, offices for a "county attorney" and a justice of the peace, a dress shop, business college, photography studio, a restaurant-such are the types of establishments that once called 214-216 Main St. home in Texarkana, Texas.

Now, Patti Goesl looks up and down the vast, dusty building space, which she and her husband Brian, executive director at Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council, are renovating, and sees potential: apartment living upstairs, maybe an old-fashioned ice cream and soda fountain downstairs.

Such are the possibilities for a truly long-term project. It may be years before the Goesls tackle it substantially, but if anyone has seen the buildings recently, the new, handsome facade is apparent and adds a prettier face to this building right across from the Perot Theatre and Pecan Point Gastropub and Brewery.

That facade work and an effort to preserve the building for the future are what's important now.

Save something for when dreams become reality, that is the plan.

"Our main objective was to save the building, to make sure the roof was sound. That's how we've lost a lot of downtown is just poor roofs, and then the inside's destroyed," Patti said.

The "building" at each address is actually a few different ones cobbled together. Walking down the alley that runs alongside 214 Main, Goesl points to where the back half of that address was at one time right on the street; this was before what is now the front section was built.

This back side housed a jail, she said. According to Goesl, suspects for the Phantom Killer were questioned there. Former jail windows are visible.

"I had a home health patient tell me one time he went from the tailor shop that's next to Pecan Point and he would walk down here to go to one of the places to get something to eat, and he says he would walk down the alley and the prisoners would be hanging out of the jail, going, 'Give me a dollar, give me a dollar,'" Goesl said.

She said there's not much known about either 214 structure. She's found one photo of the front of the main one. They've talked to local historian Dr. Beverly Rowe to learn more. That back half, says Goesl, was built prior to 1900. The front at 214-216? "Nineteen-thirty-one is when it shows up in the phone books and records," she said.

The two addresses share a common second floor, the stairwell sandwiched between each building and leading up to where offices are arrayed on either side. One office door reads: "2 Bun L. Hutchinson County Attorney Entrance."

Downstairs, the restaurant John's Place served hungry customers on the street level. TRAHC's Arts on Main is next door to all this. Where John's Place once was, Goesl said, she found an order book and a glass pitcher.

"Before we started, 214 was vacant. Two-sixteen had a payday loan place in it, Citizens Finance, that was still doing business," Goesl said about the condition before they started on these buildings. TRAHC owned one side. It was covered by an aluminum facade, and remnants of storms tore down part of the metal. That made an entryway for pigeons.

"So we had our own ecosystem going on up there," Goesl said, noting for a long time these two addresses didn't look like one big building. She bought one side first from Frank Howell, then the other side from TRAHC two years later (it had been donated to TRAHC by Stewart Title when that business donated what's now Arts on Main, she explains).

In addition to saving the structures, the Goesls want to ensure they look like they used to in the past. "I wanted it to look like the one picture that I have," Patti said. The arched brick work that can be seen now? They removed $700 worth of aluminum before they saw that was even there. They did the work themselves.

"We wanted to put it back like a building would have looked when it was built: '30s, '40s, somewhere through there," Goesl said. "I want to see the actual brick color." Doorways at both addresses have been revamped so they look the same.

"Even though it looks like one structure, there are lots of things going on everywhere," Goesl said about the space now.

Back when she and Brian lived in Canyon, Texas, they renovated a 1920s home. "We did so much work in that. That was the nine years before we had children, so we did a lot of that," she said, adding, "I just have always loved old structures."

Her father worked at Texarkana National Bank for more than four decades, so coming downtown was a regular part of her childhood.

Walking upstairs at the Main Street property, self-professed old soul Goesl gestures to the small rooms that once were home to the hustle and bustle of doing the daily business.

"This side over here at one point were lawyer offices. Their names are on some of the doors still," she said.

With the stucco removed, at last the natural light falls through windows to illuminate the bare bones of what's still here. The skylight needed repairs, but now that's another source of light.

Via a Main Street program, they received a $10,000 no-interest loan for the facade work, which is close to being completed. When aluminum siding was first put up, the brick was hidden and stone molding was chipped off, Goesl said, explaining that a heavy duty polystyrene foam will be used to replicate that former molding.

Apartments and living spaces are what the Goesls want to see on the second floor. They opened up the downstairs area so people can now walk between 214 and 216.

"Downstairs, some kind of bar or eating establishment," Patti said about that dream.

Perhaps it could be a grocery store. The plan is to use it for different things, perhaps a diner for late-night patrons who need a post-Perot Theatre show. In this way, it's similar to a few other downtown projects with living quarters upstairs, commercial space downstairs.

With kids in college and other projects, they may not be able to realize these dreams now, but they have worked to save the space, protect it for the future. It's a lot of property to fix.

"We wanted to save it, first of all, and have the front of it look pretty," Goesl said. "One of these days it will all make sense, and it will happen."

Upcoming Events