Family gives $1 million to Arkansas Children’s Northwest hospital project

A signed steel beam is lowered into place Wednesday at the Arkansas Children’s Northwest’s topping-out ceremony. The 230,000-square-foot facility will bring clinics and labs, 24 inpatient beds, an emergency department, several operating rooms and other services for Northwest Arkansas’ roughly 200,000 children. The hospital is at the corner of 56th Street and Watkins Avenue in Springdale.
A signed steel beam is lowered into place Wednesday at the Arkansas Children’s Northwest’s topping-out ceremony. The 230,000-square-foot facility will bring clinics and labs, 24 inpatient beds, an emergency department, several operating rooms and other services for Northwest Arkansas’ roughly 200,000 children. The hospital is at the corner of 56th Street and Watkins Avenue in Springdale.

SPRINGDALE — Developer and philanthropist Fadil Bayyari and his children are among the major donors to the Arkansas Children’s Northwest hospital under construction, the hospital’s foundation said Wednesday.

Bayyari and his three children gave $1 million toward the project, which is set to open near Arvest Ballpark by early 2018, according to a release from the foundation. The gift is part of at least $53 million raised in the past year or so that had been previously announced, foundation spokesman Ashley Leopoulos said.

The 230,000-square-foot facility will bring clinics and labs, 24 inpatient beds, an emergency department, several operating rooms and other services for Northwest Arkansas’ roughly 200,000 children, complementing the more intensive care at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, officials have said. Its family respite area will bear the Bayyari name in honor of the gift, according to the release.

“As a devoted member of this community, I know that supporting Arkansas Children’s Northwest is simply the right thing to do for our kids,” Bayyari, CEO of Bayyari Properties and Construction, said in the release. “I’m proud of the ways the Northwest Arkansas community takes care of each other, and I know this hospital is one important way we will give our kids the promise of good health.”

The gift joins several other donations of $1 million or more, including $15 million from Tyson Foods and the Tyson family and tens of millions more from Wal-Mart and its foundation, J.B. Hunt Transportation, the George family of George’s Chicken and others. The broader public can also donate online, by phone or in person with Arkansas Children’s or its foundation.

The northwest hospital is expected to cost around $167 million to build and several hundred million dollars more to run for the first several years.

Upcoming Events