BENTONVILLE -- The School District sold its warehouse to a buyer planning to develop the downtown property into an office building.
The district sold the property at 1003 S. Main St. for $1 million, according to Janet Schwanhausser, the district's finance director. The deal closed Aug. 29.
The 0.8 acres, across the street from the Thaden School, was on the market for about a year. It was appraised at $825,000 last year.
Newmark Moses Tucker Partners represented the buyer, 10th & Main LLC, in the purchase of the 12,518-square-foot building. The commercial real estate firm has been hired to develop the property.
Jeffrey Snyder is listed as the incorporator of 10th & Main. He is also managing director of the Northwest Arkansas division of Newmark Moses Tucker Partners.
Red 5 Construction and Nielsen Architecture, both Bentonville firms, will do the work on the plan to renovate the warehouse into office space, according to a news release from the real estate firm.
The $3 million project is scheduled to be completed by next summer. More than 36 percent of the space in the building has been leased, according to the release.
"We love the property's location at 10th and Main streets, as it will provide our tenants easy access to downtown businesses, housing, recreation and restaurants," Snyder said.
The School District bought the property in 1991 from Shaffer Sportswear for $135,000, according to Benton County property records.
The district received two other offers on the property within the past year, but both were rescinded, Schwanhausser said.
A need for additional space spurred the district to seek a new warehouse. The district last year bought the Ambassadors for Christ Academy property on Ford Springs Road for $2.8 million. The academy closed at the end of the 2016-17 school year.
The School Board approved spending about $1.5 million to renovate that building into a warehouse with more than four times the space of the Main Street warehouse.
The district agreed to vacate the warehouse by Oct. 1. The extra time allows for renovation work on the Ford Springs Road building to be completed, Schwanhausser said.
Expanding warehouse space has been high on the district's to-do list for more than a decade.
Ted Viala, executive broker with Lindsey &Associates, represented the district on the Main Street property. Viala has served as the district's real estate agent on other property transactions.
The downtown area is a hot real estate market, he said. The southeast downtown area has been transformed in the past several years.
The 8th Street Market, anchored by Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food, opened in 2017. The Thaden School opened in 2017 and is continuing to develop its campus on the former Benton County Fairgrounds.
Momentary, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's 63,000-square-foot space for contemporary art, will be in the former Kraft plant at 507 S.E. E St. It will feature visual, performing and culinary arts, as well as an artist-in-residency program. Momentary is scheduled to open in 2020.
NW News on 09/06/2018