Reaching a verdict

Quorum Court makes courts facility site pick

The old real estate cliche suggests the primary desirability measure for a piece of property is “location, location, location.” If that’s true, it would be easy to believe the Benton County Quorum Court’s most critical decision about housing its future judicial system happened last Thursday night.

By a 12-2 vote, the justices of the peace favored construction of a new courts building downtown on Northeast Second Street, between Northeast A and B streets. Readers of this page will know it wasn’t our pick as the best site, but the decision is done and must be viewed as a major milestone, as it has taken years of study and debate to reach last Thursday’s conclusion. Picking a location, however, is really just the start.

It’s a good start, though. Other locations offered benefits and drawbacks and arguments could be made for them, but it is time for Benton County to move forward. In every trial, a jury has to reach a verdict. With the location of the courts, the deliberations have gone on so long a mistrial might have been declared if a defendant was involved.

The justices of the peace rendered their verdict, so now the work turns to designing a courts system that will adequately serve the needs of Benton County for decades to come, or at least will be capable of expanding for those purposes. That will be the chore of County Judge Barry Moehring and the Quorum Court. They have many constituencies to consider.

First and foremost, there are the judges and those who work day in and day out in the courts system. Any new facility must achieve a high level of functionality. Benton County’s current judicial setup, with courts spread among four separate buildings, doesn’t achieve that. A new structure must greatly improve efficiency of operation within the courts system along with heightened security measures that help courts officials manage the highly volatile work of adjudicating criminal cases.

And there are city and business leaders who will want any new building constructed downtown to contribute to the sense of revival and excitement that’s happening in downtown Bentonville.

And there are budgetary hawks in county government who are going to want to pinch as many pennies as possible.

Constituencies also include the public, which has both an interest in having a well-oiled judicial system and in keeping county government on a tight fiscal leash. Can a new courts facility be built without higher taxes? That’s an open question, but even if the county can manage that, a new, multimilliondollar building will likely require issuing bonds, which require a public vote. Sooner or later, the public will have to help make the decisions necessary for the courts facility to happen.

And, naturally with a downtown location, there’s a bit of a dispute over historic preservation. On the corner of Northeast 2nd Street and Northeast A Street — the northeast corner of the downtown square — is a county-owned building that years ago was retrofitted to house one of the courtrooms. Some preservation advocates say the building is historic. Without question, it’s old. At one time, it served as a post office.

“Old” vs. “historic” is a perpetual debate in growing communities, and Bentonville has no reason to be any different. Rogers resident Randy McCrory recently staged a oneman demonstration in front of the structure to raise awareness of its potential plight and call for “saving” the building. “It was built in 1935 so it’s got a lot of history associated with it,” he said.

Unless that “lot of history” can be clearly detailed as significant, one has to question application of historical status. It’s probably not significant enough to suggest a letter from Sam Walton was once mailed from there.

In our book, that qualifies the building as old. Is it historic enough that its preservation should become a priority for the county? That’s a key consideration as the county now moves forward. If it’s saved, how will the building be useful or will it just be a preserved burden for county taxpayers? Or is there an option to sell it? Truth be told, any entity short of a nonprofit organization would probably evaluate the best and highest use of that corner as one that doesn’t include the old post office.

County officials will have to reach a conclusion about whether there’s enough history and love for that building to merit making preservation a high priority, higher than clearing the block for construction of a new courts facility. Is it architecturally significant? Is it a vital piece of the community’s fabric? It’s hard to say many residents have paid much attention to it, except for the often unfortunate ones with business before the court.

Without question, the building doesn’t rise to the level of Walton’s 5 and Dime, or the Harris/Lane Hotel in downtown Rogers or Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus. But every community has to decide for itself what’s worth preserving and what the possibilities are. The question isn’t just whether to preserve, but what to do with the building in the years to come, how much should be spent on it and whether its preservation is worth the challenges it will present to meeting modern-day needs, such as the courts building.

So, was last week’s decision the most difficult one for this project? It hopefully took longer than any future decisions will, but more difficult decisions unquestionably lay ahead. The priority for elected leaders must be seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to modernize and unify a judicial system that will unquestionably need to grow in its capacity to serve an expanding Benton County population.