KJW

Fascinating City WIre article on Bentonville's market district: http://www.thecitywire.com/node/36147#.VL_GnkfF_UQ

BTW, forgot to add, something going in just to the east of the new Walmart NHM in Centerton, but wouldn't be surprised if it was just a Murphy's. Also, more housing development starting to ramp up along the far west end of the Bentonville school district which will be served by the aforementioned West High school. Pretty amazing how much stuff is going in here right now.

Sure, jb1087. I remember several of them along I-35 in the southwest area of the city, from around the south end of University to the county line at least (they may have been in Saline County to Benton as well). There were news stories done about those. I remember my wife and I going out to eat one night and seeing a ton of emergency vehicles in the distance; turns out some people had been killed, sadly, on one of those in a near head-on collision as one vehicle exited I-35.

Anyone remember the "slip ramps" of Little Rock back in the 80s/90s, where people would come off the interstate at highway speed onto the parallel access road, right into or in front of oncoming traffic? Some people lost their lives in terrible accidents on those. While they're not quite (emphasis on "quite") as dangerous, bkern1989 refers to, among other things, the Airport Road turnoff off of Walton, which is a curved road coming onto a curved road. I don't know if there's a name for this type of interchange, but I worry about them. Another such interchange, almost exactly, is on far west Central Avenue onto Herbaugh Road, which will be the most significant interchange closest to the new Bentonville West High School. What's bad is that people are also coming at highway speed on this turnoff from Bella Vista and Gravette while people from Bentonville are trying to turn off onto Herbaugh Road. Thinking of teenagers who may be late for school and take chances, I very much worry for the deadly accident potential at this soon-to-be-very-busy interchange. I hope the AHTD or City of Centerton (and Bentonville in the case of bkern's intersection) have a plan for this.

"Razor rail?" http://www.nwahomepage.com/fulltext-news/d/story/razor-rail-offers-unique-transportation-to-hogs-ga/16644/A6H6Us5GXEG9VncfoRE78Q

I'm going to get laughed at for this but...fascinating that BNSF has such a large building planned. I know you go one county north to Monett and you can see intermodal, transcontinental trains filled with J.B.Hunt stacks. BNSF has a HUGE partnership with JBH so it's understood why they would want an NWA presence for that company alone (let alone Walmart and Tyson) but I'm surprised they have that much space. EDIT: Duh...I knew BNSF is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire-Hathaway in Omaha, but I didn't know BNSF logistics was HQed in Springdale. Fascinating: http://www.bnsflogistics.com/

Estimated northwest Arkansas population today: 503,624

Hmmm...there are so many charter schools going in, I wonder what they're thinking of? "Bentonville Country Day School", perhaps? (And that's not meant as a put down.) Estimated NWA population today: 503,216.

Tyson's going to have to sell a hog-trading business, maybe something else but this deal is getting closer to being consummated. And I didn't know that these brands are also fixin' to call Arkansas "home" (apparently): and;

According to this article today, XNA may pass 600,000 enplanements this year, putting it on a level with Huntsville, AL. ...or at least it would have in 2011, using this list as a comparison. The metro NWA population is something like 502,156 people as of today. Still thinking that "transportation, transportation, transportation" will be the next big positive change we see as the metro moves past this benchmark, but that's just my opinion.

Estimated population of the Northwest Arkansas metro area on Monday, August 11th, 2014 (using the "24 new people per day" calculation): 501,800

New NHM approved for Bentonville, east side of N. Walton between 15th and 14th. That's awfully close to the new Harp's. I was told by a Bentonville businesswoman that there are going to be a lot of changes in this area coming, and to keep an eye on it. http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2014/aug/06/zoning-approved-for-bentonville-neighbo/

NWACC (sidebar story): http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2014/jul/27/northwest-arkansas-community-college-to/

Bubba, that would be interesting. It's right between 8th and Central, that land is. Man, more subdivisions that have lain fallow are coming to life with the new Bennie West High School being built. There are 5 or more homes under construction in the Tuscany subdivision (north Centerton southwest of Tallamoore), which had about 7 homes built around 2006 then had everything stop.

Fascinating fact about Bentonville that I think is appropriate because this falls under "public utilities" (for another city...namely, our friendly neighbor to the west, Tulsa (skyline below)), and I think it will be interesting for NWA "Urban Planeteers" who don't know about it: It's appropriate that the Arkansas River is at the bottom of this picture. How many of you knew that, in spite of that River's presence within the city, for a period of no less than 87 years the and now "a" primary source of the City of Tulsa's/Tulsa metro's drinking water begins from a small spring located two blocks inside the west boundary of the Bentonville School District, on property with a Bentonville mailing address? This link on the City of Tulsa's web site talks about the Eucha and Spavinaw watersheds and their importance to Tulsa. At the beginning of last century when Tulsa was becoming the (then, before Houston assumed the monicker) "Oil capital of the world", the city tried to get water from the mineral-laden-out-of-Kansas Arkansas River (ever driven between Wichita and Lamar, CO, across Kansas by Dodge City and Garden City, seeing how scruffy and muddy the Ar-KANSAS River looks there?) but residents ended up with water the color of chocolate syrup which left silt and minnows in their bathtubs. After a lot of debate, the Spavinaw Creek/River in east Oklahoma was decided as a suitable source coming out of the Ozarks from the east and flowing into the Grand River. First, Spavinaw lake was created (literally one school district length west of Gravette, AR) in Mayes County, two counties east of Tulsa, in 1927, with a flowline laid to Tulsa. In the 50s as Tulsa grew, a second reservoir, Lake Eucha, was created in Delaware County only 8 miles west of the Arkansas line. One can see the Spavinaw Lake pumping station driving from Pryor, OK to Gravette...it's marked "City of Tulsa" in big letters as plainly as if it were within that city's limits, and I'm guessing any facility at Lake Eucha just minutes away from Arkansas carries that same insignia. The Spavinaw was Tulsa's primary water source for 50 years. It should be noted that in 1977 a third lake source, by far the largest, for the Tulsa Water Supply was commissioned, Lake Oologah out of an Oklahoma/Kansas watershed. However, the latter lake's water come from an area where many oil wells have been abandoned and not always properly capped, which is an issue not faced by the Eucha/Spavinaw system. Oologah, Eucha and Spavinaw lakes are the Tulsa city and metro area's primary water sources to this very day. But what's fascinating is that the headwaters of the main branch of the Spavinaw River (which is quite picturesque as it meanders west through Benton County) from which Eucha and Spavinaw Lakes originate, originate theselves from a little spring at the New Heights Christian School off C.P. Rakes Road in Bentonville, about 1 - 1 1/2 miles northwest of where the new Bentonville West high school is being built. You can see the spring and headwaters in this photo gallery on the New Heights web site, along with bridges and little structures they've built at the school alongside the creek. Yep, when an unusually heavy rain happens the wooden bridge is at risk, but this is a place where a LOT of kids (including my daughter, an NHCS alumni) have been helped over the years. (Pooled water at the spring of the Spavinaw Creek/River, which emanates from the little stone structure at the center of the picture built by Mr. Smith of NHCS and his son to keep bugs and other creatures from drowning and collecting at the spring.) And it's amazing that given our metro growth (501,000 in NWA metro officially today) that we're so abundantly blessed with natural resources that we've supplied an out-of-state city, one of the biggest in our nation, with most or much of its water for nearly a century. In a way, this little spring is emblematic of so much that's come out of Arkansas recently...it emerges from the serenity of the state so quietly and unheralded that one has absolutely no idea of how significant it becomes on down the line... Back to the main stuff now.

Remember how NWA hit the 500,000 mark on May 28th? If the math is holding, the metro area went over 501,000 folks as of today at the "24-new-people-per-day" rate, FWIW...

Food for thought (no pun intended). On this 4th of July, many people will be seeing these products on their grills and at their cookouts. Tyson Foods and Hillshire Foods entered into their definitive agreement to merge this week, with the deal being finalized at the end of Tyson's fiscal year which will be in late September. All these brands will be out of Springdale, AR, but the best thing to me (and those who know me know I have a special appreciation for the people of Brazil) is that by outbidding Brazilian based Pilgrim's Pride, Tyson kept these brands in American hands. (And Tyson is now essentially to meat what Procter & Gamble (Cincinnati) is to consumer products, Coca-Cola (Atlanta) is to non-dairy beverages and General Mills (Minneapolis) is to breakfast food and baking goods...this tells me it's no wonder we're seeing Springdale now working to catch up to its fellow NWA cities in redoing its downtown and elsewhere) Happy 4th of July, all! ...and a LOT of history and commercials coming into Springdale and Arkansas with these new brands...here are five YouTube archived commercials: 1. Ball Park Franks commercial from early 90s featuring Michael Jordan: 2. Bryan Foods commercial from early 2000s featuring then-Alabama head football coach Mike Shula and one of his daughters: 3. Sara Lee commercial from the 1960s with a then-well-remembered albeit almost over-repeated jingle: 4. Kahn's Foods commercial from the 1990s to the tune of 3 Dog Night's "Old fashioned love song": 5. Jimmy Dean commercial featuring the company's founder from 1994: (...and in case some haven't heard the song, Jimmy Dean was famous for singing the 1961 tune: ).

Went and snapped this photo right after making a visit to the new Centerton NHM. Yesterday it was that business...Monday, ground will officially be broken for the new Bentonville West High School, which many have been waiting to see built. There are still a few outbuildings and the grove of trees left for the farmstead which once stood there...at the right of the picture is the trailer set up for the construction site.:

Comreguy?

"Ignite Springdale" was officially lit today: http://www.thecitywire.com/node/33524#.U6DjBPldXUQ

They're scraping off land for a construction project roughly between Newell Rubbermaid and Outdoor Cap, but on "I" street. Didn't see a sign for what it is going to be. Also, there's a subdivision that, after receiving paved streets and lights back in the mid-2000s in the far southwest corner of Centerton, had lain fallow for years. Not now. Six new homes already built, a new foundation going in, and lots of dirt being turned for it. The new Bentonville West High school will officially break ground on Monday, June 23 (five days after the Centerton Walmart Neighborhood Market officially opens). Keep an eye on west and north Centerton now.

Fayetteville's Dickson Street Bookstore gets a worldwide honor from Buzzfeed. Would if the store become as big and airy as some of those others, but regardless, congratulations to them.

Article on entrepreneurs and their companies both starting and moving to Bentonville and NWA: http://www.arkansasmoneyandpolitics.com/amp/May-June-2014/Northwestern-Exposure/

Interesting tidbits in this NWA Business Journal article about the 10 story building coming to Pinnacle:

Dan Dang it, Rory12...we at least had one at the Fayetteville White Oak Station. Now it's gone even as places (convenience stores) like Mena and DeQueen DO have Baskin-Robbins locations. B-R uses real ice cream, not ice milk. Love their stuff.