See video and photos below.
The City of Benton Planning Commission met Tuesday night, April 2nd to vote on a few agenda items, including some variation requests, a sign request, and a site plan for a Buc-ee’s travel center. I’ll stop right there for a second, because some of you thought Buc-ee’s wasn’t coming to Benton, Arkansas. Others of you may have heard it’s now official that they are. The truth is actually somewhere in between.
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City documents showed in March 2023 the area where the City would be purchasing hundreds of acres of land from Jim Thomas and family, for use as a park and campground. Click image to enlarge.
MySaline was the first to report in July 2023 that Buc-ee’s had plans to come to an approximately 30-acre slice of land at the north side of Interstate 30’s Exit 114. They struck a deal with the current owner of that land, the City of Benton, that would allow Buc-ee’s and their representatives to research, survey, dig, plan, etc., for the purpose of figuring out whether they would absolutely-for-certain-for-sure-no-doubt put a Buc-ee’s travel center on that piece of land.
Buc-ee’s would have a year to begin construction, and 3 years to finish construction, according to the contract with the City. That first year is because of all the prep work they have to do before they are able to figure out if it’s going to work. And you can bet they have been doing a lot to get it figured out. They’ve already thrown a bunch of money at their goal.
But the deal isn’t official. The City still owns that land. And here it is the beginning of April, so we have somewhere around 4 months left before Buc-ee’s would be in breach of contract for not beginning construction. I personally hope it doesn’t come to that. After watching the Planning Commission meeting tonight, it’s my opinion that they are very close to closing the deal. But no, it’s not done.
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In the video below, I explain what happened in the City of Benton Planning Commission from Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024, and the status of Buc-ee’s opening a travel center in Benton.
Simply put, it takes time for a project of this magnitude. You won’t always see what’s going on behind the scenes. It takes time to plan and prep and cook for dinner. It takes time to plan and prep and travel for a big vacation. It takes time to plan and prep for building a travel center on 30 acres on the side of the interstate. They are definitely closer to their goal, but it is still not official.
Having said that, I realize that there was an article circulating very recently that created some confusion. The article was from the news source, Arkadelphian, and it said that Buc-ee’s decided against Benton and was coming to the city of Arkadelphia instead. I began hearing about this article and around 6:00 a.m. on Monday…. Monday April 1st… April Fool’s Day. If people had read through the article, they would have known it was a joke… and Buc-ee’s is still planning on coming to Benton!
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Alright I’m done preaching about business construction, so let’s go back to what actually happened at the Planning Commission Meeting. A representative from Buc-ee’s drove in from Texas to ask if it was okay for their sign to be a certain height, and there were a couple of landscaping issues and something about having a private sewer and maintaining it themselves. They also presented a site plan, which included all of these things in it. The only thing that was not approved was the maximum height for their sign. More on that below.
This Google map shows the approximate location of the land that the City of Benton is purchasing for a park and campground. Buc-ee’s had a contract to possibly purchase 29+ acres on the southwest corner of the property.
I’m going to stop a minute again to camp out on the site plan and then I’ll come back to something interesting about the sign. The Planning Commissioners approved the site plan Tuesday night and because of that, some people watching the video of the meeting thought this made it official that Buc-ee’s is coming. But there is a lot more that needs to happen before it is official. I just wanted to insert that, because at least one other news source was reporting that it’s official. I guess it depends on how you define official in this case, but I’ve already used up a few paragraphs to tell you why it’s not official (but I feel very positive that it will be).
Okay back to the sign. The representative from Buc-ee’s said that there are three heights of signs that they normally use at their travel centers – 100 feet tall, 125 feet tall, and 150 feet tall. So the request was to allow a maximum height of 150 feet for their sign at Exit 114. Commissioner Pamela Gibson asked a few questions and ultimately made a motion to table the item because Buc-ee’s still has to do something called a “balloon study.” The company will erect a big balloon – presumably over 100 feet high – and then they drive far away and see how visible the balloon is. So if you see a big balloon on the north side of Exit 114 sometime in the next 4 months, now you know what’s happening.
The video below is the full meeting of the City of Benton Planning Commission from Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024.
MySaline.com : I’m not saying it’s a Buc-ee’s, but… – Magnolia Reporter
Mega travel center Buc-ee’s is apparently coming to Benton – Arkansas Times
Buc-ee’s chain considers Benton – Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Is Benton getting a Buc-ee’s? – Arkansas Money and Politics
Signs point to Buc-ee’s Travel Center coming to Arkansas – KARK News 4
Is Arkansas getting a Buc-ee’s? – THV11
Is Arkansas About To Get It’s First Buc-ee’s? Signs Point To, Yes – Kicker 102.5 FM Royce City, TX
See more business articles at www.mysaline.com/business-news.