Please click on PHOTOS to ENLARGE
We provided gloves, bats and balls for the use of all who chose to play between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday at Walker Park in south Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Although mostly men actually played, one young woman was apparently the most valuable player for her team. Several men said they had not played in years but had a great time.
Field 8 is next to the soccer fields on the west portion of Walker Park, south of the skating park.
Hope to see others next Sunday and next year!
Hank Broyles in the Democrat/Gazette
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/205678
Thanks the NWA Democrat/Gazette for its good reporting.
Wanted: Builder to fix up property
BY STACEY ROBERTS
Posted on Friday, October 26, 2007
The former partner of an abandoned townhouse development in south Fayetteville has bought the property and is shopping it among local developers.
Hank Broyles and his son, Alexander Broyles, of Broyles Commercial Funding bought the 28-acre property formerly known as Aspen Ridge from Chambers Bank, Hank Broyles said Thursday.
As soon as I can find a direct link to thw story below, I'll delete most of this and insert the link:
Developer hopes to jump-start work on Aspen Ridge property
BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times
Page A5 Friday, Oct. 26, 2007
Aspen Ridge, the unfinished development that was supposed to bring 220 townhomes along with a park and water features to the Sixth Street landscape, has a new, transitional owner and a cloudy future.
Developer Hank Broyles said Wednesday he reacquired the large-scale subdivision that lies southwest of Sixth Street and Hill Avenue in Fayetteville, near the Fayetteville High School.
“Even though my son and I sold our interest in that over two years ago, we kind of feel an obligation to make sure that thing doesn’t become an eyesore for the city,” Broyles said.
Developer hopes to jump-start work on Aspen Ridge property
“We brought a whole lot of new ideas into this area south of downtown, and we hope this starts a revitalization effort in the area,” former owner and Broyles’ partner Hal Forsyth declared at a 2005 groundbreaking for the project, which instead of exemplifying urban renewal came to exemplify the problems associated with unfinished development.
Deeds in lieu of foreclosure for the properties in the project, signed by Forsyth, were recorded in the Washington County Circuit Clerk’s office Oct. 10.
The original project was supposed to be complete by the spring of 2006. It ground to a halt in July 2006 after ongoing disputes between then-owner Forsyth and May Construction Co. of Little Rock. Although much of the street, water and sewer work for phase one is done, no vertical construction ever began, leaving only a series of winding roads visible.
Broyles said he bought Aspen Ridge “mainly to get the stormwater control issues taken care of immediately and to ensure that the people that buy it are going to be a good citizen to the city of Fayetteville and they’re going to bring a good project that we’re all going to want to have down there.”
He said Wednesday work has begun to correct the stormwater issues on the site.
The muddy streets and downed silt fences that indicate stormwater management gone wrong were among the reasons discussed when the Fayetteville City Council not only denied extending a building permit for this project but also began discussion of ways to have leverage to ensure developers finish projects.
A performance bond for Woodstock, a Broyles development, was the first by the city to a private developer specified for erosion control, City Engineer Ron Petrie said. The bond was a condition in the City Council’s approval of the project.
Petrie said Friday that the Engineering Division will meet with the new property owner soon to determine exactly the additional measures needed to move forward with any additional grading.
Although Broyles is committed to “make sure that thing doesn’t become an eyesore,” he said, how and when that happens is unclear.
Broyles said he has several different groups that are interested in the property and expects to have a contract in about a week.
A new owner would have to resubmit a new planned zoning district application for review through the planning process, Jeremy Pate, director of current planning, said Thursday.
“I will assist the group in getting it through the city if they want me to,” Broyles said. He does not plan to develop the property himself, he said.
One problem he anticipates facing is the question of density. The approximately 28 acres are currently zoned as a residential planned zoning district. Construction of 220 homes would be a density of just fewer than eight homes per acre.
Broyles said he thinks it will have to be more — and the sooner the better.
“The big problem with a big project like this is it languishes for three or five years or six years because the city may have an idea that it was originally zoned at, say, seven units an acre,” he said. “Well somebody’s already pumped a bunch of money into it at seven units an acre, and now there’s got to be more money put into it. Seven units an acre won’t work anymore. You can have group after group after group of different buyers who say, ‘We can make this work at 12 density,’ but they never get awarded 12 density so they never do the project and it just sits there.”
It’s an ongoing problem, in his opinion.
“Most of the projects that are dormant in Fayetteville are because they can’t get the density increased to make the project work financially and they (developers) can’t get it financed,” he said.
As for Aspen Ridge, he said he is hopeful that city leaders and neighbors will realize the need for higher density.
“There’s no reason for us to wait for five years until the people in the neighborhood say, ‘Please, do anything to get this thing developed.’” he said. “Why don’t we go ahead. Let’s get the density increased; let’s get a good partner, a good developer in there that’s going to put a good project in and be a good citizen for the city of Fayetteville. That’s what’s going to have to happen.”
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