FAYETTEVILLE — Planning commissioners on Monday quickly approved plans for upcoming expansion of the Walton Arts Center, an addition to the Boys & Girls Club of Fayetteville and development of another five-story apartment complex at Center Street and Duncan Avenue.
The bulk of Monday’s discussion focused on how drivers should access a planned Kum & Go convenience store at the northwest corner of Mount Comfort Road and Shiloh Drive.
After about an hour of back-and-forth, commissioners decided to revisit the issue Jan. 27.
Designs for the Kum & Go by CEI Engineering Associates show a driveway on Mount Comfort Road at the west end of the 1.7-acre site and two driveways on Shiloh Drive.
The city’s access management ordinance only allows one driveway, however, on the less trafficked of the two streets.
According to 2012 traffic counts by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, 15,000 cars travel Mount Comfort Road west of the Interstate 540 interchange each day. Approximately 3,300 cars use Shiloh Drive north of Mount Comfort.
Additionally, both driveways on Shiloh Drive would be less than the required 250 feet from the Mount Comfort/Shiloh intersection, according to Jesse Fulcher, senior planner.
“Our biggest concern is Mount Comfort Road,” Fulcher said Monday.
Planning Commission
Also on Monday, the Fayetteville Planning Commission:
Extended development approval for another year for a 591-bedroom apartment complex near Lafayette Street and Campbell Avenue where the University Baptist Church activity center is located; and
Recommended the City Council enact a set of ordinance changes that would allow more chickens as well as goats and beehives in non-agricultural zones. The City Council is scheduled to consider the proposal Feb. 4.
Source: Staff Report
Multiple commissioners said they would be more comfortable if turning movements into and out of the development were restricted to right turns only or if a dedicated left-turn lane were added on Mount Comfort. Commissioners also suggested the driveway closest to the intersection on Shiloh Drive be eliminated.
Staff Engineer Glenn Newman in a two-page memo explained the dangers of unprotected left turns across busy streets. Drivers trying to access northbound I-540 from eastbound Mount Comfort Road would either have to wait for cars to turn left into the Kum & Go or weave around traffic to get back into the left lane.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever driven down that road at 8, 8:30 in the morning,” Commissioner Craig Honchell said. “Traveling due east, you’re looking right at that big orange sun, and you are blinded. Most of the time you can’t even see the stoplight.”
“No matter what you do for left turns,” Honchell added, “people are taking a lot of risk.”
Rob Wadle, project manager with Kum & Go, said full access is needed on Mount Comfort Road in order for the project to move forward.
“There’s three pillars that have got to happen to have a successful convenience store,” Wadle said. “Traffic, visibility and access.”
He added that access to Mount Comfort Road is key to Kum & Go’s agreement to buy land from current property owner, Joan Hays.
Wadle said Kum & Go engineers would work with Fayetteville planning staff during the next two weeks to come up with a solution.
He suggested eliminating one of the driveways on Shiloh Drive and possibly placing a deed restriction on the remainder of Hays’ property that would limit Mount Comfort curb cuts in the future west of the Kum & Go site.