HOW WE SEE IT: Why Be Silent On Arts Center's Future Location?

Monday, November 26, 2012

We get it. Anything involving the performing arts has to have an element of drama. But why are city residents in Bentonville and the rest of Northwest Arkansas still waiting for the Walton Arts Center to identify its expansion site in Bentonville?

Thursday will mark the two-year anniversary of the Walton Arts Center board’s mysterious decision that an expansion of its facilities would happen in Bentonville. The Walton Arts Center from its birth, as most area residents know, has been operated on Fayetteville’s Dickson Street, but it has always been a regional operation.

It’s no mystery why the arts center would want to further tap into the burgeoning Benton County market for audiences, for philanthropic and corporate support and for synergy with the developing arts community bolstered by the opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art funded by the Walton family of Walmart fame.

Yes, that’s the same Walton family that provided major funding — and the name — for the construction and operation of the center in Fayetteville.

Despite the proposal process the arts center went through as part of a expansion process, one can’t be shocked Bentonville ended up as the choice. Months before the announcement, the Walton Family Foundation advised the arts center that it would consider being the lead donor for an expansion only if a new theater was built in Bentonvllle.

That may help explain how Bentonville won the day with a two-page faxed proposal that was so bereft of details it merely qualified as an entry stub in the contest. It gave little information upon which any reasonable evaluation could be made, and the arts center and Bentonville have maintained the secrets for nearly two years now.

Walmart Stores Inc. revived the question about the arts center’s future home with its recent request to rezone a 15-acre tract along East Central Avenue from agricultural to commercial. Its future use? Walmart will get back to us, the city was told. The Planning Commission approved the vague request.

There’s other land, also owned by Walmart interests, in the downtown area and speculation has long centered on those as potential future sites for the arts center. The arts center stance is that offcials there still haven’t chosen a site.

The mystery continues, at least for the public.

Our suspicion is the decision-makers know precisely where the Walton Arts Center expansion is going to go, and they’re making plans for it. When are they going to clue the rest of the community in? Why not give the community as much of an opportunity to get comfortable with the selected site?

Isn’t it better to let the suspense be limited to the stage?

This 24-month delay in providing any specifi cs is certainly perplexing for an institution that would like to help the public feel invested in its future. If this is going to be a major institution in Bentonville, isn’t it time to make the public feel they’re a valued part of the process?

The denials become less plausible the longer no details are forthcoming.

The future of the Walton Arts Center will be great in Bentonville. It’d just be nice if the decision-makers brought the public into the act.