Council OKs grant to help with City Hall expansion planning

BENTONVILLE — The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a grant that will help with a plan for possible expansion of City Hall.

The City Council voted 7-0 with one member absent for a $520,000 budget adjustment to recognize the Walton Family Foundation grant.

The nine-month grant will be used to complete a master plan and conceptual design as part of the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence program, according to council documents.

City Hall at 305 S.W. A St. is approximately 10,000 square feet, said Debbie Griffin, director of administration.

The grant will allow the city to select a firm to lead staff and the public through a feasibility study and conceptual master plan to expand City Hall into a campus to serve the community for the next 20 years, Tyler Overstreet, city planning and community development director, wrote in a letter to the City Council.

“We envision the future City Hall campus as the ‘living room’ of the city, providing opportunities for public gathering, participation and governing,” Overstreet said. “This includes conducting a spatial analysis and facility needs assessment with departments who currently reside in City Hall, as well as potential future occupants.”

The campus should be a one-stop shop for development, permitting and commerce. The plan should also analyze existing space at 402 S. Main St., which is southeast of City Hall, to determine the best future use of the property. The master planning process should not only study internal space for offices and public events, but also analyze parking conditions to determine future needs, Overstreet said.

“The grant would help us not only design, but look at the city buildings in close proximity and advise on the best way to expand,” Griffin said. “Those buildings include the current City Hall, the library, downtown parks and recreation and what we refer to as the old AT&T building that housed utility billing drive-thru and meter readers.”

In the planning part of the meeting, the City Council unanimously approved a rezoning request from agriculture to planned unit development at Southwest Regional Airport Boulevard and Southwest Opal Road. Buffington Barron proposes a development of 411 residential lots. The site is just over 95 acres.

The City Council also discussed a rezoning request from agricultural to neighborhood commercial for 40 acres at the northwest corner of Southwest Opal Road and Southwest Adams Road for Anglin Properties. The request passed 6-1.