The area outlined in yellow is owned by University of Arkansas Board of Trustees. The City of Benton wishes to purchase it. See VIDEO BELOW ? of the structural report, discussion and the final vote.
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED JULY 27, 2021
The Benton City Council voted Monday, July 26th in Council Chambers on whether to purchase a property that was formerly used as a college and junior high.
The question was whether to purchase a roughly 6-acre piece of property at 410 River Street for $425,000 (pictured above), including:
- The building that formerly housed a location for UA Little Rock classes (also formerly Westside Junior High),
- C.W. Lewis Stadium (but not the parking lot on S. Market St., which belongs to First Baptist Church),
- And a few smaller buildings, including one that currently houses wardrobe for the Royal Theatre and one that houses formal wear for Project Prom. Both are non-profits serving the community.
Follow the events of the UALR Benton building turning into Benton City Hall… https://www.mysaline.com/ualr-benton-turning-to-benton-city-hall/
The Council voted 7 to 3 for purchasing the property, after architect Brian Black of Black, Corley, Owens & Hughes, PA, gave his assessment of the main building. See ? video of discussion from the meeting at the end of this article. ?
- Yes votes were Steve Brown, Robin Freeman, Evelyn Reed, Shane Knight, Steve Lee (with pause).
- No votes were Bill Donnor, Jeff Hamm, Frank Baptist.
“It’s still solid. It’s still inhabitable. You could move into it tomorrow and not fix it up,” stated Black. “It wouldn’t be the nicest place in the world, but you could certainly make a fully functional office out of it with very little to do to it. To convert it to something like City hall, the building is pretty stable in my opinion.”
This photo shows a main section of the multi-level building that most recently housed the UALR Benton Center. Photo by Shelli Poole.
The next step, now that the Council has approved the offer, is to take it to the UA Little Rock Board of Trustees at their August meeting.
Mayor Tom Farmer stated that if the deal goes through, the plans for the building are to move all the City offices out of the current Municipal Complex on 114 S. East Street to the River Street property. This would allow extra space for the Benton Police Department to spread out. They currently occupy just the lower floor of the Municipal Complex. The plan for CW Lewis is to keep it as a community football field.
UA Little Rock closed the building in May 2020. Read more about the building at https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/ua-little-rock-benton-campus-14566/
- Follow the events of the UALR Benton building turning into Benton City Hall… https://www.mysaline.com/ualr-benton-turning-to-benton-city-hall/
The videos below contain structural reports from architect Brian Black, as well as structural engineer Eric Warford of Heritage Engineering.
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3 – In the video below, see the entire City Council meeting or move the recording forward to 12:30 for UALR property discussion; 33:19 is the voting.
Follow the events of the UALR Benton building turning into Benton City Hall… https://www.mysaline.com/ualr-benton-turning-to-benton-city-hall/