FAYETTEVILLE -- Lindsey Management Co. is planning new apartments in Fayetteville for the first time in nearly five years.
The last apartment project Jim Lindsey's company built in town was the Links at Fayetteville, northeast of Wedington Drive and Rupple Road on the city's west side. Phase I of the project features 1,080 bedrooms in 604 units, along with a nine-hole golf course.
Meeting Info
Fayetteville Planning Commission
The Fayetteville Planning Commission is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 26 in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain St. On the agenda is plans for a 19-lot subdivision on 8.6 acres north of Mission Boulevard between Fairview Memorial Cemetery and Westwood Gardens
Source: Staff Report
The City Council approved the development as part of a planned zoning district in 2007. Phase I was finished in fall 2009.
Now, Lindsey is ready for phase II.
"Occupancy has finally stabilized, and the owners of the Links are comfortable that market conditions are acceptable to begin the process of building additional apartment homes," Hugh Jarratt, Lindsey's in-house attorney, said in a Dec. 16 letter to planning staff members.
According to a site plan submitted by Blew & Associates engineers, another 516 units with 826 bedrooms are envisioned on undeveloped land north of the apartments. The plan also shows 39 row houses along Rupple Road, north of Golf Club Drive.
The row houses will have rear garages. Half of them will face Rupple Road. The other half will face the Links' golf course. Jarratt said the row houses will resemble houses off Airport Boulevard in Bentonville, near where a 487-unit apartment complex called the Trails at Rainbow Curve is being built.
The new Links apartments will be similar to existing buildings and will range in size from two-story, 12-unit structures to buildings with three floors and 24 units apiece. According to Lindsey's website, rent for a 1,000-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in phase I of the project starts at $705 per month.
Planning commissioners approved plans for the row houses Monday. The apartment project is up for review Jan. 26. Fugitt & Associates Architects of Fayetteville designed the buildings.
Developers plan to extend a street running through phase I of the complex and connect it to Albany Lane, north of Bryce Davis Park. Another street will connect to Rupple Road on the west side of the development.
The Links' original zoning district called for two traffic signals: one at the complex's entrance on Wedington Drive and the other at Rupple Road and Golf Club Drive. The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department is against the Wedington Drive signal, which would be less than 1,000 feet from a stoplight at Salem Road. A November traffic study by Little Rock-based Peters & Associates determined a traffic signal isn't yet warranted on Rupple Road.
The city often requires developers whose projects will affect traffic to pay for street improvement and/or traffic signals.
Lindsey paid for an additional lane on northbound Rupple Road when phase I of the Links was built. The company also donated land for Bryce Davis Park, where a city dog park is located.
After phase II of the Links, Lindsey will have paid $108,000 into an escrow account for traffic signals. The money could be put toward additional improvement on Rupple Road between Wedington Drive and Mount Comfort Road.
More than 1,000 units have been added to the Fayetteville apartment stock in the past three years. Many of the recent complexes, including the Grove, University House, Sterling Frisco, the Vue and the Cardinal at West Center, rent by the bedroom to University of Arkansas students.
Jarratt said Wednesday he wasn't concerned with the competition.
"Our developments are market rate," he said. "We have some students, but it's not solely student-based development. We are confident in the growth in Fayetteville, and our development's more based on the town as a whole growing -- not necessarily the university -- although the university is a part of it."
Other phases of the Links development could include townhouses and commercial space along Wedington Drive and Rupple Road.
Members of the Planning Commission's subdivision committee recommended approval of the apartment plans Thursday.
"We've seen several projects over at the Links, and they always manage to get everything worked out pretty well," Commissioner Sarah Bunch said.
According to its website, Lindsey Management has more than 160 apartment complexes in Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Tennessee, including more than 50 complexes in Washington and Benton counties.
Jarratt couldn't say Wednesday when construction will begin on the second phase of the Links at Fayetteville.
"That really depends on the projects we are building right now and what's in the pipeline ahead of it," he said.
NW News on 01/17/2015