8th Street Market to finish in phases

Construction continues on Monday, July 11, 2016, on the former Tyson Foods plant at 801 SE 8th Street in Bentonville.
Construction continues on Monday, July 11, 2016, on the former Tyson Foods plant at 801 SE 8th Street in Bentonville.

BENTONVILLE -- The city helped develop a plan so Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food can operate out of The 8th Street Market while the rest of the building continues to be renovated.

The plan puts safety "first and foremost" by creating and identifying exits and temporary walls in the area under construction, Beau Thompson, city planner, told the Planning Commission on Tuesday.

Brightwater, Northwest Arkansas Community College's culinary program, will be an anchor to The 8th Street Market at 801 S.E. Eighth St. in the city's Market District. The building was formerly a Tyson Foods plant.

The culinary school will be ready for classes Jan. 17, Glenn Mack, executive director, said Dec. 2.

The college will lease 27,500 square feet of the 65,742-square-foot building. City officials didn't discuss the anticipated completion dates for the building's other phases.

The west side parking lot will be finished and used by faculty and students while the east side will be the construction entrance, Thompson said.

The city expects to inspect and issue a temporary certificate of occupancy next week, and school officials and equipment will be moving in soon, he said.

"We wanted to get this in front of you in case you saw activity and business being conducted, you would know what's going on," Thompson told commissioners.

The project design won't change. It just won't be finished all at the same time, as originally planned, officials said.

"We thought it made sense to phase this in a way that they could begin to operate as they continued to work on the portions that need work," said Troy Galloway, community and economic development director.

The plan didn't require commission approval.

The culinary program's building capacity is roughly 600 people, which requires three exits, said Brad Kingsley with Hufft Projects, the architecture firm for the 8th Street Market.

Kingsley highlighted the three exits on a diagram for commissioners.

"The occupant load and all the required exit widths, nothing has changed with how the building was originally designed," he said.

Galloway said it's not uncommon for the city to issue temporary certificates of occupancy.

"We're not treating this any different than any other project," he said. "Any other project in a similar situation and they came to us and it made sense and they had a way to isolate a portion of the project that they needed to operate in on a temporary basis until the entire project was finished ... we'll always consider that."

Bike Rack Brewing will be the first retail tenant to lease space in the market. The market is expected to have restaurants and food vendors.

NW News on 12/09/2016

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