Proof of support expected to win new region stage
Posted on Sunday, November 9, 2008
Bentonville and Fayetteville city leaders said infrastructure will be the key to clinching a proposed $ 180 million expansion to the Walton Arts Center recommended in late October by a Los Angeles-based consulting firm.
Arts Consulting Group suggested building an expansion in either of the two cities after an 18-month feasibility study that concluded the center should have a 2, 200-seat theater for larger productions as well as other components if the center wants to grow and remain the region’s leading arts presenter.
Consultants looked at 40 sites and narrowed the recommendation down to two cities — Bentonville or Fayetteville — for their “synergy.” Fayetteville already has the University of Arkansas and the downtown-Dickson Street entertainment area. In Bentonville, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is scheduled to open in 2010.
But there will be little the cities can do to recruit the center’s expansion, said Terri Trotter, the art’s center’s interim president and chief executive officer.
“While certainly the location is a hot-button issue, the reality is going to come down to the fact that, because of the scope of the project, this project won’t happen unless it has broad regional support,” she said.
When deciding where the expansion should go, she said, people need to think about where they want the region to be in 10 years.
But leaders are right to be looking at infrastructure, too, she said.
In order to determine where the center may be built and how it’s paid for, consultants also recommended forming a regional committee with a timeline that includes three years of planning before a financial campaign is launched.
The art’s center’s board members haven’t yet decided what to do with the consulting group’s findings and will discuss the study at its regular meeting in November.
Rogers Mayor Steve Womack said he thought the existing infrastructure at Pinnacle Hills would’ve been enough to recruit the arts center.
In March, Pinnacle Investments, which developed the Pinnacle Hills area, submitted plans that included a large theater in a development called The District at Pinnacle Hills, located south of Pauline Whitaker Parkway on the west side of Interstate 540.
The development concept also included a hotel, high-end stores and restaurants.
“Yeah, we’re disappointed,” Womack said of being excluded from the consultants’ recommendations. “We made a very strong pitch, a strong argument for it to be located where infrastructure already exists and the amenities that surround it.”
Theresa Nazario, general counsel and asset manager for Pinnacle Investments, said that plans for The District always included an entertainment venue and that the group offered the development for the arts center when the opportunity presented itself.
Groups from New York and Atlanta are interested in developing a venue, she said, although she wouldn’t elaborate further.
Womack said he thinks the location still is good for a multiuse arena that can host concerts, sports and other events.
“We put that notion on hold anticipating the Walton Arts Center might be something we need to focus on,” he said of the arena. “It appears that opportunity seems to be passing.”
The arena will be the next big step for the greater Rogers-Bentonville area, but admitted it’s a lofty goal, he said.
“I don’t know if it’s going to get done,” he said. “It’s going to be expensive. It’ll need a partnership of some sort.”
In Bentonville, consultants recommended building the arts center expansion adjacent to Crystal Bridges.
Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said there’s numerous places in the city that will work.
The city has been working for about three years to create an exit at Northeast J Street and I-540 that will lead people to the new museum. Crystal Bridges Boulevard, as McCaslin called it, will create new frontage opportunities that can be developed with high -end amenities and shopping, he said.
The developing infrastructure in Bentonville, which includes plans to widen Eighth Street and arterial roads leading to its downtown square and Crystal Bridges, is being done to create an area good for business in general and not to simply recruit the Walton Arts Center, he said.
Ed Clifford, president and chief executive officer of the Bentonville / Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce, agreed that growth is done with the best interest of the city and entire region in mind.
“If you take this project alone, that’s a mistake,” Clifford said. “Twenty-five years from now, that won’t be the only piece of [cultural ] fabric for Northwest Arkansas.”
The confluence of the proposed Bella Vista bypass and a western beltway also will play a significant role in where the center’s expansion may go, he said. It may make the location at the planned Southeast J Street a stronger candidate, Clifford said.
“I think Bentonville will grow up around Crystal Bridges,” he said. “We’ll have galleries, and we’ll have a different look than what we have now — more of an arty look. Fayetteville will be more student and sports driven.”
Competition between Fayetteville and Bentonville to be the home of the arts center expansion is inevitable, said Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody.
“However, it’s important we take the long-term view. It’s more important the performing arts center is built somewhere in Northwest Arkansas than nowhere at all,” he said. “We all want to have a very vibrant and energetic arts and cultural scene in Northwest Arkansas. My fear is that factionalism may keep any city from seeing any success.”
The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce’s advertising and promotion commission is planning a $ 12 million bond issue for capital expenses that would include better access from I-540 and U. S. 71 that would make Sixth Street a nicer road and give better signage for the center near School Street, he said.
Consultants said in October that the expansion could be built to the west of the center where its parking lot currently sits.
Coody has plans for a parking deck and hotels that will fit that proposed footprint and maintain sufficient parking for downtown, he said.
A Fayetteville location would allow Northwest Arkansas to be anchored by the visual arts with Crystal Bridges in Bentonville and the performing arts where it originally was developed, he said.
“That way, the arts scene in Northwest Arkansas really is a regional attraction,” he said.
City leaders would do all they could to keep the center’s expansion downtown, he said, but Dickson Street wouldn’t suffer if a new theater is built in Bentonville because the existing building will continue to operate.
The study revealed information the center didn’t have previously, Trotter said. One example she gave was information about predicted needs.
“There’s lots and lots of detail that’s as much a part of the study as the conclusion,” she said. The study will serve as “back-up material” the center can use to garner regional support for the expansion project to succeed. There is no definite timeline when the board will start considering its options or when work on the expansion’s plans may begin. “Certainly, everyone realizes that tomorrow wouldn’t be the ideal time to launch a $ 180 million fundraising project, and we’re not to that point, yet,” she said. “If it’ll be a year or 10 years, we don’t know.”
To contact this reporter: aotoole@arkansasonline. com
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