New Owner For Fayetteville's Former SouthPass Site

Dallas Cowboys’ Jerry Jones Buys Land, Donates It To Razorback Foundation Affiliate

STAFF PHOTO DAVID GOTTSCHALK A view north from the trailhead at the site of Fayetteville’s Regional Park off Cato Springs Road in Fayetteville. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and a University of Arkansas alumnus, bought 250 acres in southwest Fayetteville and donated it to a company affiliated with Sean Rochelle, executive director of the Razorback Foundation. The land is next to the site of Fayetteville’s planned regional park and the Mount Kessler Reserve, which the city bought in March using a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.
STAFF PHOTO DAVID GOTTSCHALK A view north from the trailhead at the site of Fayetteville’s Regional Park off Cato Springs Road in Fayetteville. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and a University of Arkansas alumnus, bought 250 acres in southwest Fayetteville and donated it to a company affiliated with Sean Rochelle, executive director of the Razorback Foundation. The land is next to the site of Fayetteville’s planned regional park and the Mount Kessler Reserve, which the city bought in March using a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

FAYETTEVILLE-- Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and a University of Arkansas alumnus, purchased more than 250 acres in southwest Fayetteville and donated it to a company affiliated with the Razorback Foundation, property records show.

Jones, of 1 Cowboys Parkway, Irving, Texas, paid Danville-based Chambers Bank about $7.3 million for the land, according to a deed filed Dec. 30 in the Washington County Clerk's office.

At A Glance

Former SouthPass Property

The City Council in February agreed to buy 328 acres west of Fayetteville’s planned regional park from Chambers Bank for $3 million. The purchase was paid for with $1.5 million in reserve and a $1.5 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation. The Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association pledged to raise $300,000 to offset the city’s expenditure.

The transaction left more than 250 acres of bank-owned property north and east of the regional park.

Chambers Bank sold the remaining land to Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, on Dec. 30 for $7.3 million. Jones then donated the land to Cato Springs Road LLC, a company registered to Sean Rochelle, executive director of the Razorback Foundation.

Source: Staff Report

He donated the land the next day to Cato Springs Road LLC. The company is registered to Sean Rochelle, executive director of the Razorback Foundation. The company lists the foundation's mailing address in a filing with the Arkansas Secretary of State's office.

The Razorback Foundation is the private fundraising arm of the university's Athletic Department.

It's unclear what's planned on the property, where a massive mixed-use development called SouthPass was once envisioned. The land lies next to Fayetteville's planned regional park and the Mount Kessler reserve, which the city purchased in March using a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Rochelle declined to comment on the donation Wednesday. Rich Dalrymple, Cowboys vice president of public relations, didn't return a phone message.

Mike Johnson, university associate vice chancellor for facilities, and Kevin Trainor, associate athletic director for public relations, referred questions to the Razorback Foundation.

The university in April paid $2.6 million for 51 acres northeast of the Cato Springs Road interchange on Interstate 49, just up the street from the former SouthPass site. Jeremy Battjes, University Recreation director, said at the time new intramural fields were planned on the land.

The University of Arkansas board in September agreed to buy an additional 9.7 acres southwest of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Beechwood Avenue, behind the University House apartments, for $3.5 million. The property will be used for intramural purposes, according to a memo from Donald Bobbitt, University of Arkansas System president.

Prior to the purchases, advocates for preserving land atop Mount Kessler encouraged university officials to buy the land the city ended up acquiring from Chambers Bank. After the university board opted, instead, to buy land up the street, Battjes said the Mount Kessler property wasn't suited for ball fields.

The City Council approved zoning and development plans for the SouthPass project, southwest of the Cato Springs Road interchange, in 2008. At the time, the project, proposed by John Nock, Richard Alexander, Hank Broyles and Steve Aust, was supposed to feature as many as 800 houses, 2,900 apartments, 630 condominiums and 344,000 square feet of commercial space on more than 800 acres. The land included a roughly 200-acre public park. Development never occurred, and Chambers Bank acquired the property in lieu of foreclosure in 2010. The bank eventually made good on SouthPass developers' pledge of giving 200 acres to the city for a park.

After Chambers Bank sold 328 acres to the city in March, Hunter Haynes, a bank consultant, worked with city officials to rezone remaining bank land. The new zoning allows for many of the same commercial and residential uses SouthPass developers envisioned.

Jeremy Pate, Fayetteville Development Services director, said Wednesday city zoning wouldn't apply if the university were to develop the property.

"If it's university, state-owned property, they do not have to comply with the city's zoning requirements," Pate explained.

Jones has close ties to Arkansas business leaders and the university.

Jones is the brother-in-law and an occasional business partner of John Ed Chambers III, CEO of Chambers Bank. Jones was an offensive lineman on the Razorbacks' 1964 championship football team under former coach Frank Broyles.

Haynes and Connie Edmonston, director of the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Department, both said the prospect of a regional park in close proximity to the former SouthPass site had a role to play in Jones' property transaction with Chambers Bank.

"Having the city as a neighbor certainly was a wonderful thing, and the use that was identified and is coming to fruition out there only served to help the entire surrounding area," Haynes said. "(The regional park) is really a game-changer for that part of Fayetteville."

Edmonston said city officials plan to break ground on the first phase of the park in March. The park's first phase, which will feature six soccer fields, three or four baseball diamonds, a "great lawn" and associated infrastructure, is expected to be complete by fall 2016.

NW News on 01/08/2015

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