City’s southwest to get medical clinic, retail space

BENTONVILLE — A few more commercial developments are making their way to the city’s southwest, helping to balance the residential rooftops in the city’s fastest growing area.

The Planning Commission approved development plans for a medical clinic and a retail building as well as a permit for a religious facility during its meeting Tuesday.

Mercy Health Northwest Arkansas is planning a 13,800-square-foot clinic at 4344 S.W. I St., just south of the Bentonville Community Center, according to meeting documents.

There will be 93 parking spots. Access to the building will be from a curb cut on Southwest 41st Street and a cut onto Southwest I Street.

Mercy is in the middle of a $247 million expansion in Northwest Arkansas adding seven clinics and a 150-bed patient tower at Mercy Hospital in Rogers as well as add 1,000 jobs, system officials have said.

Mercy Clinic Primary Care in Pea Ridge held a groundbreaking March 9, the first of the seven planned clinics to do so.

The Shoppes at Uptown Village will be built about a half mile north at 3316 S.W. I St, just south of Fire Station No. 6 and north of the Walmart Neighborhood Market fuel station. The construction of a 400-unit apartment complex is underway to the northwest.

Access to the single-story, 7,800-square-foot retail building will be from an existing curb cut on to Southwest I Street, according to meeting documents.

Commissioners also approved a permit for Church Alive to turn an unoccupied building at 5121 S.W. Runway Drive into a 210-seat sanctuary. It’s west of the Wal-Mart Distribution Center and northeast of the Flagstone Creek Apartments.

There will also be a daycare for newborns through preschool ages that will operate out of the neighborhood church, according to meeting documents. The daycare will be able to serve up to 70 children.

Residential housing is popping up quickly throughout the city’s southwest area but commercial development has come at slower pace.

There have been 621 building permits issued west of Walton Boulevard and south of Southwest 14th Street in 2015 and 2016, according to city data. Of those, 555 have been for single-family homes, 31 for duplexes, 28 for multifamily developments with more than five units.

Only seven were for commercial developments.

The development plans and permit approved Tuesday will help balance the residential growth, Beau Thompson, city planner, said after the meeting.

Balance between commercial and residential developments reduces motorist trips into the city’s core because they don’t have to travel as far for goods and services, which helps with traffic congestion, he said.

There’s still a lot of vacant land that has opportunity for more commercial projects, Thompson added.

“We’re just getting started in that area,” he said.

Commissioners discussed renting a shuttle and taking a tour of the southwest corner together to get a better understanding of the infrastructure and how certain types of developments could impact the area.

“It would be good to just go out there physically and be on those roads and feel those spaces,” said Commissioner Scott Eccleston.

A date wasn’t decided on, but Thompson said he would work on finding transportation.