Downtown Bentonville sheds sleepy image as growth draws crowds
BENTONVILLE — The city’s downtown area is growing up quickly.
Buildings several stories tall are under construction. New shops and restaurants continue to pop up in and around the downtown square. Events like the farmers market draw crowds.
It’s a far cry from the sleepy downtown of less than 15 years ago.
“The square used to close at 5,” said David Wright, the city’s parks and recreation director since 2008. “That was the joke. That was the perception. You didn’t have any trouble finding a parking spot on the square.”
The opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2011 certainly spurred development, but other action taken years earlier also laid the groundwork for a downtown boom, according to Wright.
Downtown is now an eclectic mix of housing and businesses. It even has the making of a skyline as the Ledger and Peloton office buildings — both within two blocks of the square — work toward completion. Both will feature parking decks, and Peloton will showcase a skybridge that connects it to its parking deck next to the Walmart Neighborhood Market.
Along with these changes have come steep increases in real estate prices, causing some to worry about the affordability of living in the area.
The City Council last fall established the Housing Affordability Work Group to examine housing availability and affordability citywide. The group has met four times.
“Housing in general is a critical infrastructure, and the intention of the committee is to simply look at all options available,” said Bill Burckart, a City Council member who’s also a member of the committee. “We do believe that there are options for housing of all different price points in downtown.”
Money from a 2007 bond issue was a spark for downtown,
paying for work that included adding red-brick sidewalks, improving the crosswalks around the square and road upgrades, Wright said.
“We made it safe and walkable. That was a seed investment. Downtowns across the country are dying, but ours is thriving,” he said.
Wright told then-Mayor Bob McCaslin the city was swinging and missing with its landscaping efforts downtown. Wright wanted to change the mindset from everyday landscaping to thinking of the square as a public garden.
“The square has a real sense of place. The square is Bentonville’s living room,” Wright said.
Jeff Mores and his family moved to Bentonville in February 2007 from Minneapolis when his wife, Tammy, took a job with Walmart. He said they immediately fell in love with the turn-back-the-clock charm of downtown, but it was very different than it is today.
“A large office supply store that spanned most of the block where Table Mesa Bistro is now had just closed,” he said. “So that block was empty. The only restaurant on — or even near — the square that I can remember was The Station, right next to the Walton’s 5&10.”
But the bones for success were already there, he said. The city had just redone the streetscape. Downtown Bentonville Inc. had begun building up the farmers market and growing events like First Fridays.
“Coming from big cities where everything is so scattered, it was exciting to see the community coming together,” Mores said. “There was so much potential just waiting to happen with downtown Bentonville. And we could see that.”
A BUILDING BOOM
Downtown has seen a building boom since 2012, with more than 300 residential and commercial building permits issued just within a two-block area around the square in the past 10 years or so, according to Jake Feemster, city division chief for Building and Fire Safety.
Bentonville’s population went from 35,301 to 54,164 — a growth rate of 53% — from 2010 to 2020.
Ropeswing Hospitality Group, a firm backed by Steuart and Tom Walton, has opened multiple ventures downtown over the past several years, including restaurants the Pressroom and The Preacher’s Son and the event venue Record.
“What our community has created here is a lifestyle — one filled with unique outdoor, cultural and art experiences and year-round adventures like riding, flying, running, hiking, art-seeking and more — and downtown Bentonville is the hub,” said Krista Cupp, Runway Group vice president of community affairs.
“People want what we have, to be in this incredible place to live, work and play. We know we still have lots of work to do; growth and change can feel overwhelming, but the opportunity it creates for us to build together is remarkable. We all have a role to play to make this a welcoming, vibrant community for all. This is a collaborative effort.”
21c Museum Hotel, just northeast of the square, opened in 2013. It’s a 104-room boutique hotel, contemporary art museum, cultural center and home to The Hive restaurant, according to its website.
A Neighborhood Market opened northwest of the square in 2015. Thaden School, a private school for grades 6-12, opened in 2017 to the southeast of downtown, on what used to be the Benton County Fairgrounds.
The public library at 405 S. Main St. also is planning an expansion. Updated plans show a 22,975-square-foot addition to the existing 38,500-square-foot building.
A $3.1 million project that opened this year added 5,500 square feet to the 28,000-squarefoot historic county courthouse.
Tyler Overstreet, city planning services manager, said the variable that signals the health of downtown development is the mix of development types.
The Bentonville Community Plan stresses the importance of thoughtful growth while prioritizing sense of place, community character and quality of life. Developments that vary in terms of scale, density and land use show movement toward these goals, he said. The plan is the city’s official comprehensive plan.
There are more than 100 businesses in and around the downtown square, according to Downtown Bentonville Inc.
Downtown Bentonville Inc. took over management of the long-established Bentonville Farmers Market 20 years ago.
New events have been established. First Fridays, which launched in 2007, draw 6,000 to 8,000 people downtown monthly from April to November, Heath said.
Parks also have blossomed downtown. In the past decade, the city has renovated Dave Peel Park on Central Avenue and built Lawrence Plaza and the Downtown Activity Center. The Razorback Greenway also cuts through downtown.
The Quilt of Parks Project began as an effort to improve existing parks and plazas downtown by adding new green spaces, plazas and gardens and stitching them together in a cohesive, pedestrian-friendly way.
BIGGER BUILDINGS, MORE PARKING
The Planning Commission in November 2020 approved the large-scale development for the Peloton Office Building.
The property is at 215 N.W. A St., southwest of the Bentonville Church of the Nazarene and directly west of the previously approved Peloton parking garage. The site is 1.27 acres, according to planning documents. Plans call for the construction of a 175,000-square-foot office building.
The Walton Family Foundation will have offices in the building.
At the August meeting of Benton County’s Quorum Court Committee of the Whole, Mike Brown with Off-Street Parking Development District No. 3 announced a parking deck would be built on district property across from the Benton County Administration Building on East Central Avenue. The municipal improvement district isn’t governed by the city or county. County employees now use that area for parking. Work on the parking deck hasn’t started yet.
The Ledger building is a bikeable structure with six stories designed with broad views of downtown, according to its website.
The 230,000-square-foot building will offer custom and private offices, shared work spaces and reservable space, according to its website. There also will be an parking deck associated with the building. City employees will use the first floor of the deck for their parking needs.
Developer Josh Kyles said the Ledger should be done sometime this year.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art commemorated its 10th anniversary in November. It continues to grow and influence the regional economy. Museum officials also announced a 100,000-square-foot expansion last year. A new parking deck also is being built at the museum.
Diane Carroll, chief communications and marketing officer with the museum, said the parking deck has 800 parking spaces. The project is about 50% complete. Pre-construction work on the expansion is underway, she said.
Crystal Bridges’ investment in the area continued with the February 2020 opening of the Momentary, a 63,000-squarefoot, multidisciplinary contemporary art space in what was once a Kraft Foods plant. The Momentary is about 1½ miles from Crystal Bridges near the 8th Street Market and along the Razorback Greenway.
A three-level parking deck at the Momentary with around 600 spaces opened in January, said Angel Horne, Momentary public relations manager. The parking deck is part of phase one of a South of Momentary development project, according to planning documents. Phase two plans include a multifamily housing development with 50 residential units and a small art gallery.
The new Walmart Home Office is just on the outskirts of downtown. It will take up roughly 350 acres on the east side of J Street, between Central Avenue and 14th Street. Plans include 12 office buildings, along with amenity buildings, parking decks and surface lots. The development will be constructed in phases, according to a Walmart webpage.