Rogers planners approve office, retail building

ROGERS — The Rogers Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a largescale development plan for a four-story retail and office building called The Visionary at 3800 S. JB Hunt Drive.

The plan went before the commission’s Board of Adjustment first with developers requesting variances from the city’s pedestrian priority frontage standards.

City code states that pedestrian priority frontage has the highest quality standard for pedestrian-oriented building design. The code states that buildings in the frontage “will be required to address the pedestrian area and provide a higher quality of commercial design standards.”

Libby Topping of Crafton Tull said due to the positioning of the project in relation to the adjacent existing and proposed developments, the variances requested were the most compatible for the space.

For example, one of the variances will allow for a truck loading zone on Founders Way, a street that is considered pedestrian priority frontage. Code does not allow service access from pedestrian priority frontage, but the proposed loading zone positioning was the best for the space, Topping said.

The board approved the three variance requests and agreed they were appropriate for the development.

All four floors of the building will have space that can be leased by businesses, and a parking deck will be on the first and second floors as well. There will be 325 parking spaces in the deck and 42 on-street spaces. Plans show six bike stalls spread between three bike racks will be included. Each rack will have two stalls.

The fourth story of the project has planned tenants, said T.J. Glasse, a project manager at Core Architects. He declined to say who the tenants were.

Plans for the fourth story also include a private dog park and pickleball courts.

In other business, the commission approved plans for a development containing 16 two-story townhomes at 3600 W. Persimmon St.

There are multiple townhome buildings in the surrounding neighborhoods.

The area where the development will be located is currently occupied by four tennis courts.