Development plans made Chaffee Crossing investment good bet for 2

Investing in a retail development at Chaffee Crossing just seemed like a no-brainer to business partners Steve Beam and Rod Blake.

Their Chaffee Commercial Properties bought 11.54 acres in Chaffee Crossing last year for $461,000. They recently announced plans to break ground on the first retail development in Chaffee Crossing, which sits on 7,000 acres of mixed-use land in Fort Smith and Barling.

Frontier Point will sit at the northwest corner of Frontier Road and Chad Colley Boulevard, just a few miles, and in some cases feet, from some of the largest commercial projects in Sebastian County.

Arc-Best is building a new $30 million corporate office, which will be the headquarters for about 900 employees. At least $80 million is being spent on an osteopathic medical school campus that is essentially right across the street.

Residential projects continue to pop up, including a nearby apartment complex that Beam said should be home to about 400 people.

“They’re fixing to have traffic out there,” Beam said. “There will be plenty of population to handle it. We feel like it’s a good place to invest.”

Conversations with potential tenants have been ongoing since the pair bought the land last year. R.H. Ghan & Cooper Commercial Properties, the largest commercial real estate company in Fort Smith, is now representing Chaffee Commercial Properties.

No leases have been signed, but Beam said there are a number of “promises.” Interest has come from coffee and sandwich shops, a dry cleaners, a cellphone store, a local bank and a dentist.

“We’ve turned them loose,” Beam said of the real estate company. “There’s interest from all types of different businesses that would like to fit in out there. I think it’s going to be good.”

Beam and Blake are no strangers to Chaffee Crossing. Both operate businesses in the area and are partners in Industrial Precast, a concrete contracting business, that has been in the redevelopment district since 2007.

APAC-Central, a supplier of construction materials, operates an office on 2.5 acres

they own in Barling. They’re also working together on a residential development in the area.

As partners in residential and commercial projects within Chaffee Crossing, both recognized the need for retail developments. Places to eat and shop have been needed there for years and demand will be particularly high once traffic increases, thanks to ArcBest, the medical school and others.

The first phase of Frontier Plaza will take up about 3 acres and is being designed by Tim Risley & Associates of Fort Smith. Chaffee Commercial Properties has another 11 acres ready to be developed for retail.

Included in phase one are three buildings, divided into suites. The largest of the three buildings will be an estimated 1,500 square feet and feature a drive-thru. Other suites will range between 1,200 and 1,400 square feet. Beam noted that the project does offer some flexibility in suite size for tenants who are on board before construction begins in January. A target date of January 2017 is set for the development’s completion.

“It’s an exciting project,” said Beam, a Fort Smith native and resident of Barling since 1980. “We’re definitely excited about it. We can’t wait to get all the pre-leasing done and get this thing started. The interest has been unbelievable.”

Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority executive director Ivy Owen said the project will be the start of “a boom in commercial and retail businesses.”