Arvest data center to be built in Rogers

ROGERS -- Arvest Bank plans to build a corporate data center on the west side of Dodson Road and north of Stoney Brook Road.

"We have a need to support our customers as we move into the digital age," said Steve Smith, manager of Arvest Enterprise Data Center, during a previous meeting. "This [site] supports that. It's low density, it's a quiet operation."

City Council overturned on Tuesday a Planning Commission decision made earlier this month to deny rezoning the 20.23 acres from agricultural to residential office.

Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce President Raymond Burns spoke for the decision during a public hearing. "I feel like this project makes sense," he said.

"It's difficult to ascertain why it was denied" in the meeting, said Bill Watkins, an attorney representing the project.

Greg Robins, a Rogers resident who lives in a neighborhood next to the anticipated project, spoke extensively at the Sept. 6 meeting about the negative effect on traffic and infrastructure, which he said was already strained. Watkins said the comments kept the focus on those elements rather than considering the project objectively as a whole.

The issues with the land could be addressed in the large scale development process, said Chris Griffin, senior staff attorney for Rogers, in the previous meeting.

"If traffic is your concern, be careful what you wish for," Watkins said. "This use is what's best for everybody."

The 20 acres could easily be rezoned to multifamily, such as a subdivision, and could support as many as 100 houses, Watkins said. As it is, plans are for the center to employ about 12 people and not conduct customer service transactions, which would have less overall traffic than a subdivision and other Arvest sites.

Jacob Shy, an engineer for the project, said in the earlier meeting that the property was ideal for the project. At the time he couldn't state why. Watkins said the property is near a station that serves electrical needs and could promptly get service for the bank to get back online quickly in the event of an outage. In a storm path analysis, the Dodson Road site would be unlikely to be hit by the same storms as those that would cross the corporate office at Lowell, which makes the company better able to keep operating in the event of an emergency, Watkins said.

A denied request by Great Northwest Development LLC to rezone 3 acres from commercial to residential office was also overturned by City Council. Chamber president Raymond Burns also spoke in favor of the project during the public hearing.

"I've spent a considerable amount of time looking at this," Burns said. "Please overturn this decision, it's warranted."

"It's not clear to me why it's not approved," said Tom Allen, who represented the project. Allen said there was not much discussion to draw conclusions from during the previous meeting.

The strip of land originally zoned commercial is 75 feet, which "is not enough to do anything with where C2 is concerned," Allen said. If the concern was the need for a buffer, an existing large easement for a power line could offer that buffer, Allen said.

City Council overturned the commission's decision and granted the rezoning.

NW News on 09/28/2016

Upcoming Events