BENTONVILLE -- Benton County planners discussed a pair of businesses Wednesday that began without official sanction and are seeking approval to expand.
The Planning Board had two businesses bring plans before it during the Technical Advisory Committee portion of the meeting. The TAC allows the board to have an initial look at plans and point out potential problems or questions they would like to see addressed if the project proceeds to a public hearing before the board.
The first business plan was for a pair of commercial buildings in the Prairie Creek area at 14428 and 14438 E. Arkansas 12 that have been in use since the early 1990s. The larger of the buildings, at 4,800 square feet, is a "community shopping center" and the smaller structure, at 2,400 square feet, is an office building. The plans presented to the county call for the demolition of the office building and its replacement with a larger building that will house a restaurant.
"It's pretty straightforward," said Eric Heller, representing the owner. "We just want to demo and replace the existing building."
The board asked few questions. When the issue of a landscape buffer between the proposed building and the adjacent property, a real estate office building, was raised the planners indicated the buffering wouldn't be needed.
"Given that these are existing businesses I'd be included to accept a waiver on this," board member Jim Cole said. "It's two parking lots."
The board also had few questions for the second proposal to expand the storage business owned by SPJ Enterprises, at 19632 Arkansas 127 near Garfield. Albert Roos, representing the owner, said the storage buildings had been on the site since the mid-1990s at least and the planning regulations, adopted in 2014, allows the buildings to be "grandfathered in" with the existing setbacks. The proposed new building, which adds 13,744 square feet of storage space, is in the interior of the lot and complies with county requirements.
The only discussion was on the issues of parking and solid waste disposal. Roos said the plan met parking requirements if the loading and unloading spaces in front of each of the storage bays were counted as parking spaces. He said there are no employees on site and the customers drive to their units to load or unload without the need to park anywhere else. Jones satisfied the board about solid waste disposal, saying he has a Dumpster on the property.
Both items were forwarded to the Board's Sept. 7 meeting for public hearings.
NW News on 08/18/2016