Sam's Club to open Springdale location

Sarah Gordley, Vice President of organizational management for the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, looks at a map and renderings of a new Sam's Club slated to be built near West Sunset and 56th Street in Springdale.
Sarah Gordley, Vice President of organizational management for the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, looks at a map and renderings of a new Sam's Club slated to be built near West Sunset and 56th Street in Springdale.

SPRINGDALE — Sam’s Club is coming back to Springdale.

The store will be built on 56th Street, south of Sunset Avenue — the same area Walmart’s members-only warehouse division had its sights on in 2005.

Company and city leaders made the announcement this morning from the Sam’s Club Community Room at Arvest Ballpark.

The 136,000-square-foot store is slated to open in the spring of 2016 and employ about 175 people.

The Springdale Sam’s Club will be Walmart’s third new store along a three-mile stretch of Interstate 49. A Walmart Supercenter is opening Aug. 13 at the intersection of I-49 and Elm Springs Road. A Neighborhood Market is slated to open in the fall of 2015 off the recently opened Don Tyson Parkway exit.

Sam’s Club operated a store in on South Thompson Street next to a Walmart Supercenter until September 2007. The retailer decided to move the store to Fayetteville after Sam’s Club was denied a liquor permit from state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

Jim Holt and Sue Madison, state senators at the time, were among vocal opponents of the Springdale store getting a liquor permit.

City officials have pointed at the loss of Sam’s Club repeatedly over the years as a reason for a drop in sales tax collection. Mayor Doug Sprouse said at the new Supercenter announcement in December 2012 that the loss of Sam’s Club cost the city about $1 million annually in lost sales tax revenue.

Springdale will be the area’s third Sam’s Club along the the I-49 corridor. Walmart opened a Sam’s Club in Bentonville in 2006. The Bentonville and Fayetteville stores are approximately 21 miles apart.

The retailer operates 621 clubs in the United States and Puerto Rico. The first club opened in Midwest City, Okla., in 1983.

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