The Future of Fayetteville

[Mith242]

This has been mentioned a lot and it's been in the news a lot recently. But I was curious what people thought on the direction Fayetteville will take. There seems to be a rather vocal contingent that want very little change or to try to keep the city close to what it is now with keeping what development there is on a rather small scale. There's certainly some on the City Council that seem to be leaning more towards this direction too. Is Fayetteville going to remain a low rise city that will eventually be passed up in developments and population by other NWA cities like Rogers? Or will the population and economic growth eventually push the city into becoming a bit more development friendly and the city will eventually start having more of an appearance of a city of it's size with larger developments? Or perhaps somewhere in between. Just curious to see what people think if a lot of the current trends are here to stay or as time goes on and there's more growth that it will begin to alter Fayetteville's present course.

[ythpstr2000]

My point of view concerns restaurants since I am in so many. I also have as customers Walmart, nursing facilities, and processing plants, but the area that I have seen hurt by Fayettevilles policies are the restaurants. That and the church for which I am youth pastor and on the board. Years ago we looked at some of our options as far as signs go. We are right off the freeway and THOUSANDS of people pass by our building daily. But because we are in Fayetteville we had hardly any options when it came to signs. That surprised me. But then as we discussed this I learned in the same time frame that the sign ordinance was a huge reason why Cracker Barrel ended up in Springdale as opposed to Fayetteville. The next big hit on Fayetteville came with the smoking ordinance. Now that the state now has a ban, it is less of an issue, but when you do it in just a city it does make a difference. The arguments prior to the ordinance were very misleading, often showing statistics where entire states banned smoking and saw no changes. Well driving into another city to be able to smoke is alot different than driving to another state. After the ban begin Flapjacks in Springdale experienced a rise in sales. Many regulars of Village Inn in Fayetteville, who were smokers, began making the drive. Now I am no smoker. Never have been. But I am pro business and pro freedom. My personal feeling is that Fayetteville is not either of those. So I was not at all surprised when they passed the ordinance recently about building size. The area is growing. Many outlaying towns and cities will gladly take up some of the growth when Fayetteville decides to remain in the 70's with hippyish policies. Growth will not occur if the policies continue to go in this direction. Fayetteville will be relegated either to a bed room community, or a sort of museum.

But thats just my opinion. Extremely politicaly driven. Extremely pro business driven. Extremely small government driven.

[masons_dad1]

Honestly I think Fayetteville can have a 6 story cap on building height and still be high density urban. Not all the buildings in New York city are skyscrapers and most are actually only around 6 stories with skyscrapers planted here and there. Imagine Fayetteville with a lot of gorgeous 6 story buildings spreading out from the town square and Dickson Street. It may push some developers to build their skyscraper dreams in Rogers or elsewhere but it won't stop those same developers from building some great 6 story buildings in Fayetteville. I believe Fayetteville will stay popular because it didn't "sell out" to developers and with the U of A leading the way Fayetteville will still be the flagship city in NWA where anyone would feel privileged to live. Add to that the commercial and retail mecca of College & Joyce and the planned communities surrounding the core of the city and you've got one hell of a city.

Did I just say that?