Lake Bella Vista park project is on track, council told

The city hopes to begin engineering the project next month with the goal of the needed permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by June and getting bids on the construction in December.

BENTONVILLE — Plans to convert the area around the drained site of Lake Bella Vista into a park are on track and, if all goes well, construction should begin early next year, the Bentonville City Council was told Monday.

“This is a story we could talk about for hours,” David Wright, city parks director, told a meeting of the council’s Committee of the Whole on Monday.

“It’s not just one project,” Wright said.

Besides cleaning up the remains of the ruptured dam that created the lake, there is trail construction and stream restoration, requiring a hydrology study of the whole area, he said.

Flooding damaged the dam in 2008. The dam was topped by flooding again in 2011, 2013 and 2015. Then floodwater breached and washed out part of the weakened dam on April 28, 2021. The council voted in December 2022 to approve an agreement with Cooper Realty Investments to remove the dam.

The city would pay to transform the property into an environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing and financially sustainable public park in a settlement with area residents concerned about degradation of Little Sugar Creek. The creek had been dammed to create Lake Bella Vista. Erosion from the driedout lake bed and dam residue hurt the stream, residents said.

The severe drop-off in the stream’s route needs smoothing out, Wright said. There are no current caost estimates for fixing the stream bed, straightening some severe curves in the water’s route and making the park on the 150 acres involved in the project, Wright said in an interview after his presentation.

The city hopes to begin engineering the project next month with the goal of the needed permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by June and getting bids on the construction in December.

“The main thing to know is to allow the water to go where it wants to go,” Wright told the council. The natural path of Little Sugar Creek is visible in aerial photos taken in the 1940s, he said.

In other business, the Garver Engineering firm estimates the city will need $230 million in water supply projects in the next 10 years to keep pace with city growth and rising demand. The firm on Monday presented its findings from a study ordered by the city. The city’s population is expected to exceed 240,000 by 2045, the study says. Council member Bill Burckart said the study’s growth estimates are too low.