Early morning sunlight washes the sides of two office buildings in the heart of downtown Texarkana with deep roots in its history. Work stopped during the long Thanksgiving weekend, but is expected to commence again bright and early today. In the foreground is what began life as State First National Bank and later was converted into Ben F. Smith Dry Goods. In recent years, in was renamed the Landmark Building and repurposed into office space. To the right of it is the building that started life as Texarkana National Bank, has housed several other banking ventures and has been vacant recently. It is being converted to apartments with some retail and office space by private developers.
The buildings sit side by side across State Line Avenue from each other at the Broad Street intersection. In their glory days, State First National Bank would have faced out on East Broad Street and Texarkana National Bank on West Broad Street and this crossing would have been the center of much commercial activity.
While both are getting simultaneous but unrelated makeovers, the makeovers themselves are almost opposite of each other. The Landmark building is repairing the east side of the building where a fire to a once-connected building damage the wall. The wall is being fixed to make it match the existing and most recent facade.
Across the street at the Texarkana National Bank reclamation project, a facade that dates back 50 years is being taken down to expose the original brick building. The building had been covered up with a variety of panels to make it look more modern. Those are coming down and the developer hopes his preservation efforts will allow this building to gain historic status.
In the photograph above, the north end of the east wall of TNB is still covered with the "modern" facade. The south end of the east wall (brownish with plastic in the window openings) displays the original brick walls, which will soon represent the buildings "new" old look.
Exterior work continues at both locations with the Landmark Building work scheduled to wrap up soon. Texarkana Bank has a much longer timeline. Even after the exterior is stripped of dated material, work on the buildings interior with carry on without a scheduled completion date.
-Les Minor