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By Shannon Sturgis The site for the Firehouse Hostel in MacArthur Park. + Enlarge

LITTLE ROCK — The folks behind the effort to transform Little Rock's Old Fire Station No. 2 in MacArthur Park into a international hostel offering overnight accommodations for travelers exploring the Natural State know full well that those renovations will only take about six months.

The problem is figuring out which six months those will be.

"Presently, we're at about a quarter of our [fundraising] goal," said Greg Hart, president of the board of directors for Hostelling Arkansas, the nonprofit behind the planning for the Firehouse Hostel and Museum (www.firehousehostel.org), which stands to be the first and only international hostel in Little Rock.

"It [the renovation] will take approximately six months after we've raised those funds," he said. "We want to be debt free when we open."

"Those funds" total some $400,000, money that will be used to renovate the Craftsman-style building at 12th and Commerce streets that served the city as a fire station from its construction in 1917 until 1959, when the trucks finally got too big to be housed there. After that it was given over to the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department and used as a children's center, an adults' center and for meetings and storage space. About three years ago, the city entered into an agreement with Hostelling Arkansas, which will use to space to operate a "unique" overnight lodging facility in the heart of downtown that they say will add a missing piece of the tourism puzzle to central Arkansas.

"What people need to know about a hostel, it's not a bad thing. It's a wonderful thing," said Anncha Briggs, the board's vice president. "It doesn't mean [drawing in] people who can't afford to stay in a hotel. Educated people, people with money, choose to stay in hostels for the camaraderie."

And that, says the group, will be abundant at the Firehouse Hostel, which is planned to open with 30 beds, including both dormitory-like bunk accommodations with shared bathrooms and a room for families. Kitchen facilities will be communal, Internet connections available, and although the plans show a TV room, "we may or may not have a TV in the whole building," said John Fordyce, who with his wife Linda is credited with setting the plans to build a hostel in Little Rock in motion.

They, along with Hart and Briggs, have traveled and stayed in hostels internationally and are trying to emphasize the point they're not just for kids backpacking through Europe anymore. While you'll still get your fair share of students, you're liable to find senior citizens, whole families and even church groups staying in hostels - anyone looking for "an inexpensive, nice, clean, affordable, safe place to stay."

"[But] it's a lot different than staying in a hotel room," said Hart. "A lot different."

There's less privacy, of course, but with the shared spaces and communal living, there's a lot of interaction with other guests, and for that reason hostels are "better than any travel guide," Fordyce said, because they're full of people who know about the places to go and things to do. And on that count, the Firehouse Hostel won't disappoint, he explained, as it's literally across the parking lot from the Arkansas Arts Center, located next to a bus stop, and within walking distance of the River Market and the trolley system.

But the vision for the finished structure includes a destination of its own, Hart explained, in that it will include a museum full of authentic firefighter memorabilia, including equipment, pictures and records dating back to the 1870s. Among those items are a 1933 brass pole and trucks from the 1950s. Smaller items will originally be displayed in cases throughout the hostel. Eventually, the group would like to see an annex built to house a vast collection of museum pieces.

But that's not until phase two of the plan. The first step is raising the capital to get it open. Once done, the group plans to affiliate with Hostels International, a membership group including 90 hostel associations operating more than 4,000 hostels worldwide. The expected price of a night's stay, said Fordyce, will be between $15 and $20 a night.

The demand for that, said Briggs, is already here.

"I have to keep calling people everyday apologizing - no, it's not open yet," she said.

As for when that opening will be, Hart is both realistic and vague in his answer: "Six months after we raise the funds," he said.