Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Gathering input
Public gives feedback on Bentonville’s park project.
BENTONVILLE — Residents had an opportunity to provide feedback Saturday on the planning for 8th Street Gateway Park at a drop-in public meeting.
The meeting was featured on Melissa Drive from Southwest Eighth Street to the Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy parking lot and included food trucks, bouncy houses, a heated tent with details on the park site and guided hikes of the park property, said David Wright, Bentonville Parks and Recreation director.
The meeting was done like a special event, rather than a typical input session at an indoor public facility, he said.
“We wanted this to be more grand, because the land’s a lot more grand than a lot of projects that we get to do,” Wright said.
The park was made possible through a donation from Walmart announced in December. The 75 acres are near the intersection of Southwest Eighth and Southwest I streets, according to a news release issued in December.
The land is split into three parcels — 34 acres northwest and southwest of the intersection. The other two pieces are west along Eighth Street, Wright said.
The new park will span almost 100 acres when combined with a nearly 23-acre donation from members of
the Walton family, according to the release. The combined appraised value of the land was just more than $1.6 million, according to the Benton County Assessor’s Office.
“It’s unlike any park that we’ll ever be able to build in this town,” Wright said.
The 8th Street Gateway Park on the west side of town will allow bike trail connectivity between Bella Vista Lake in the north to Citizens Park in South, Wright said.
“Then you’re tied into the Razorback Greenway,” he said of the Citizens Park trails. “You’ve got a 20-mile loop around the entire town.”
Residents who attended the meeting also had an opportunity to fill out a survey about what amenities they’d like to have at the park, he said.
About 400 people have already responded to survey online, which was posted on playbentonville.com about two weeks ago, Wright said. The survey will be available online for public input for about two more weeks, he said.
Planners with Port were on site at the event to gain an understanding of what residents would like the park to include, said Nick McClintock, a designer with Port.
“This is a project for Bentonville, and it’s a project that should come out of what people in Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas want,” McClintock said.
The City Council at its Jan. 14 meeting approved a $445,000 agreement with Port for planning services for the park. Port has offices in Chicago and Philadelphia, according to its website.
Port’s work focuses on analysis, visioning, design and implementation of new forms of collective space and public realm, ranging in scale from plazas, parks and public waterfronts, to institutional framework plans and regional planning strategies, according to its website.
Public input will completely factor into the planning process for the park, McClintock said.
“We’ve only been working on this for a couple of weeks, and we’re just starting to introduce ourselves,” he said. “Now is the time for people to really tell us what they out of the project.”
Mark Mallett lives on Glover Street. He said he attended the event because he’s concerned about being able to access the park safely from his residence without a vehicle.
Mallett said he had tried to cross Walton Boulevard on his bicycle just once and won’t try to do so again until a trail system is established allowing someone to access the park from east of the boulevard without having to worry about heavy traffic and accessible crosswalks.
“I would like to see walking trails with nice vistas,” Mallett said, hoping the trails will extend into the park itself. “Perhaps there would be a water feature, a lake of some sort with benches where you could sit and throw stale bread at the ducks.”
The park would be conducive to natural amenities, McClintock said.
“It’s going to be a lot more about hiking trails and nature,” he said. “It’s going to be about people being able to come here and get out of the hustle and bustle of the strip malls and the super center and everything else that surrounds it and really feel like you’re in nature.”
A series of focus groups about the park will be featured on to-be-determined dates, Wright said.
“That will come when we actually nail down what the next phases of design are,” he said.
Planning for the park will begin in March, and the city will reveal the park’s design around May, Wright said.
The projected completion date of the park project is unknown, McClintock said.
“The biggest thing is the opportunity that’s in front of us,” Wright said. “This park really will be the centerpiece of our park system.”
“I would like to see walking trails with nice vistas.” Mark Mallett, Bentonville resident