BENTONVILLE — The site of the city’s community center lies squarely between the Bentonville of yesteryear and the city Bentonville has become.
To the south of the planned 80,000-square-foot community center sits a sprawling farm, the smell of manure floating on the breeze, and free-range chickens running across the front yard of the farmhouse. North of the mounds of dirt at the construction site are rows and rows of $250,000 houses, their gabled roofs pointy against the open sky.
At A Glance
Community Center
Plans for the Bentonville Community Center include:
• Community rooms
• Jogging track
• Craft rooms
• Child care area
• Basketball/volleyball courts
• Fitness rooms
• Swimming pools
Source: City Of Bentonville
The community center will straddle these two worlds when it opens in 2014 or 2015. The site off Arkansas 112 in southwest Bentonville is quiet now as the city continues to build up money for the project.
A finished ring road with decorative lamp posts and newly planted trees encircles the site, with leveled ball fields marked off and awaiting spring planting. Crossland Construction recently finished site work for the center, coming in $30,000 under budget.
“We’re shovel ready,” said David Wright, director of the Parks and Recreation Department. “We’ve bought the land, designed the building and built the infrastructure.”
The only hitch is the money. The Parks Department received $15 million in a bond issue approved by voters in 2008. With that money, the department built Orchards Park, revamped Memorial Park and took on numerous smaller projects. A portion of the bond money will go toward the community center, which is projected to cost about $15 million.
The city already has invested $3 million into the project so far. The investment covered road construction, parking lots, ponds, sports fields and building pads.
“Right now, we just don’t yet have the money to finish it,” Wright said. “But that’s coming. We know it’s happening.”
The city is getting “dangerously close” to having the full amount available. Staff is awaiting results of grant applications and relying on money set aside in previous years to round out fundraising, Wright said.
Wright is hopeful workers will be back out at the site to continue work on the project sometime next year. Once started, the community center should be open within 18 months, he said.
The building will be worth the wait, he said. It will have indoor swimming pools, basketball courts, fitness areas, a small library and meeting spaces.
“We’ve designed a nice building,” Wright said. “It will feel like an extension of our living rooms. While kids are playing basketball or swimming, the parents will have a social area, a library.”
The community center isn’t the only Parks Department project under way. The department is constructing a new sign at Phillips Park, thanks to a $10,000 donation from the John Phillips family. The family donated land and provided contributions to build the park years ago.
Mary Baggett, City Council member, said John Phillips contacted her to see what could be done to help update the park’s sign. The city switched over to concrete, monument-style signs for all its parks and city buildings since the park’s initial design.
Construction of the new sign that honors Harlan Phillips started Wednesday, Wright said. Harlan Phillips was the founder of Phillips Food Centers and Food 4 Less grocery stores. The park has five baseball and two football fields and plays host to the adult baseball games, lacrosse teams and the Boys & Girls Club football program.
The city recently opened Austin-Baggett Park at the corner of Southeast D and Southeast Sixth streets. The 1-acre park fast became a favorite with neighborhood children, Wright said.
“You can go there any time and see kids on that playground,” Wright said. “The neighbors really feel ownership. They feel like it’s their park.”
The park is named after council members Ed Austin and Baggett, according to the city’s website. Austin completed his last council meeting Tuesday after 25 years of service.
Baggett said her parents lived near the park, so visiting the park feels like “coming come.”
“I am so grateful,” said Baggett, who was re-elected Nov. 6. “Everything I do, I do because I love it. It’s a beautiful neighborhood park.”