Arts district aims to bring connections

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a four-part series on plans made by the 2017 recipients of grants from the Walton Family Foundation’s Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program.

FAYETTEVILLE — City leaders want to take what everyone loves about downtown and make it better by creating an arts district.

The plan focuses on the Fay Jones wooded parkland next to the library, the Walton Arts Center parking lot, and more connections downtown with sidewalks, trails and road improvements. The district will span about 50 acres surrounding either side of West Avenue from Dickson Street south to Prairie Street.

The Walton Arts Center, the soon-to-come new Theatre Squared building and an expanded public library will serve as the anchor points of the corridor. The Razorback Greenway and Tanglewood Branch also run through it.

The district’s design will marry outdoor elements with the key destinations visitors already enjoy downtown, said Peter Nierengarten, the city’s director of sustainability and parking.

An outdoor amphitheater could go in the woods, which would flow seamlessly into the courtyard of the library’s expansion, the city said in a grant application for the district. Dogs and their owners would enjoy a tasty treat at a plaza sitting on the edge of a parking lot. Better lighting and streetscapes would make

Brian and Megan Anderson, of Plano, Texas, jog Dec. 26 on the Razorback Greenway that runs through the Fay Jones Parkland located west of West Avenue near the Fayetteville Public Library. The city of Fayetteville will get nearly $1.8 million, from the...