FAYETTEVILLE — A resolution seeking an injunction to stop the Walton Arts Center from building a 2,200-seat hall in Bentonville will be presented to the Fayetteville City Council later this month, City Attorney Kit Williams said Friday.
Williams, who had voiced opposition even before the arts center’s board of directors voted Wednesday to split its expansion plans between Bentonville and Fayetteville, maintains that Fayetteville and University of Arkansas own the center and that city taxpayers who helped finance it beginning in the 1980s have an expectation to reap the economic benefits of an expansion.
“Two aldermen have given me the authority to draft the resolution authorizing me to file an injunctive suit to undo the hasty and improper action Wednesday by the Walton Arts Center,” Williams said, adding he needs just one sponsor.
“Brenda Thiel talked to me this morning, and she agreed to be a co-sponsor,” Williams said, adding he received fellow Alderman Adella Gray’s support Thursday afternoon.
Williams likely will aim to place the resolution on the council’s Dec. 21 regularly scheduled meeting, for which an agenda session is planned for Dec. 14, allowing time for the public to learn more about the issue.
He contends that a 1986 “interlocal cooperation agreement,” later amended, as well as a 1994, 25-year lease establish the city and UA as “owners/lessors” of the arts center, with the center’s administration being a nonprofit corporation with duties to “construct, operate, manage and maintain” the arts center as agent for the city and UA.
The arts center opened in April 1992. Built for $11 million, the 55,000-square-foot facility was largely made possible by a $5 million gift from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam M. Walton and his wife, Helen.
In a June 22 letter to the arts center, the Walton Family Foundation wrote that it did not “foresee being the lead donor for a new performing arts facility in a location other than Bentonville,” saying officials there believe that having facilities in Fayetteville and Bentonville“would give our region strong performing arts ‘anchors.’”
In its decision Wednesday, the arts center board chose to construct a 2,200-seat performance hall “in or near downtown Bentonville” and a 600-seat multipurpose venue in Fayetteville “on or adjacent to the current WAC facility.”
Previously, the two venues had been discussed in terms of one expansion location that would not replace the current arts center campus, which is on Fayetteville’s Dickson Street just blocks from the UA campus.
Arts center officials sought expansion proposals, and 25 groups responded, with their offers made public Aug. 3 and later narrowed to 15 finalists. The groups included Northwest Arkansas cities, chambers of commerce, private developers and landowners, and two college campuses: UA and Northwest Arkansas Community College.
UA partnered with the city, as it had done with the original center. Their joint proposal offered to add 7.04 acres to the arts center’s current footprint, enlarging it to 11.58 acres, among other amenities that included parking.
But Wednesday’s board decision specified no specific proposals as winners, just that the two cities’ venues must be built within generally specified areas and meet other specific criteria.
The arts center’s vice president of communications, Jodi Beznoska, responded to news of Williams’ plan Friday by saying the staff there is proud of the work the board and its facilities committee performed in evaluating proposed expansion offers.
“At this point, we really can’t speculate on what may happen,” Beznoska said Friday afternoon. “It’s disappointing, and it’s unfortunate, because we see this as a really exciting time for Walton Arts Center.”
She said Wednesday’s decision provides “a dramatic increase in the amount of artsand culture the region will get to experience from Fayetteville to Bentonville. In addition, it has huge potential for economic impact throughout the entire region.”
Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said he’s looking at the issue regionally, saying any time one part of the region gets an improvement, the region as a whole benefits.
“It increases the footprint,” he said. “There’s two bookends now.”
For 19 years, McCaslin said, Northwest Arkansas residents have supported the Walton Arts Center by attending its shows, many of whom drive from Benton County to do so.
“You’re speaking to one,” he added.
Williams said he needs five votes from the eight-member Fayetteville City Council to pass his resolution, adding Mayor Lioneld Jordan has the power to veto. Also, if the vote was tied, Jordan could vote yes or no to break the tie, or refrain from voting, which would allow the measure to fail.
Gray, the city’s Ward 1, Position 1 alderman, said she agreed to support the resolution after reviewing Williams’ research. Unless some new information surfaces that would change her mind, her plan is to vote for the measure.
The city has invested a lot of hard work into the arts center, she said, and other Northwest Arkansas residents have benefited from its efforts for years.
“We thought we put together a fabulous proposal,” Gray said. “It’s just something that was started in Fayetteville - it belongs in Fayetteville.It’s something that the city of Fayetteville should have the profit from.”
City residents should reap the economic rewards of an expanded center, she said.
“Bottom line is, we really found that we’ve got the short end of the stick,” Gray said, and there was little notice of Wednesday’s announcement and no opportunity offered for public comment.
Thiel couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/04/2010