BENTONVILLE -- Commercial developers who want to include public art can get help from the Public Arts Advisory Committee with everything from selecting an artist to required permits.
City code requires commercial developments to include at least two amenities enhancing public spaces. Public art is listed as one of nearly a dozen amenities, which also include a patio, pedestrian plaza with benches, window shopping walkway and water feature.
Developer Art Kit
The Public Arts Advisory Committee created a Developer Art Kit as a tool to encourage private developers to add public art as an amenity to their projects.
The 10-page kit includes:
• A brief history of the Public Art Advisory Committee
• The committee’s mission, goals, priorities and core principals
• How the committee can assist developers who want to include art
• The benefits of public art
• Some examples of local public art
• Contact information
It will be soon be available on the city’s website.
Source: Staff report
Shelli Kerr, planning services manager, gave planning commissioners a brief presentation Tuesday on the committee's effort to integrate public art into public and private developments.
The committee has been instrumental in getting art on city property, such as along the North Bentonville Trail and in several of the pedestrian tunnels along the Razorback Greenway.
Kerr, along with committee members Tom Hoehn and Becky McCoy, showed the "Developer Art Kit" the committee created to promote public art as an option to developers and encourage them to use the committee as a resource.
The committee can help with idea development, determining the best location, what permits and permissions are required, where financing and money may be available, how to select an artist, how to engage the community and the installation of the piece, according to the kit.
"Essentially, we just want to make it as easy as possible for any private developer to add art to their properties," Hoehn said during the meeting.
Troy Galloway, community and economic development director, used Bentonville Glass at 507 S. Main St. as an example of a business using art to enhance its exterior.
The business approached the city when it renovated and asked if it could add art to the outside, Galloway said. That resulted in a small sculpture out front and a mural on the south side of the building.
"It really adds significant aesthetic value to what used to be a very nondescript, industrial-type building on South Main Street," he said.
Clay Sears, Bentonville Glass owner, said he put the sculpture and mural up about a year ago to be a part of the growing art scene downtown.
A lot of people have commented on the train mural, wondering about its significance, Sears said. He explained it depicts the city's apple era with apple carts and cider barrels. The building Bentonville Glass is in used to be where apple crates were made, according to Sears.
People also notice the sculpture and ask if it was made by Bentonville Glass, which it was.
"Where the town is going as far as artwork and museums," Sears said, "as a businessman, you have to embrace that part of the culture that we're in."
The committee would like to develop relationships with private developers and help coordinate art on different projects, McCoy said.
"If they know that we exist and they could come to us, then we can have a shared vision about what's going to come next or what's going to be next to them," she said.
The committee wants to hold a workshop sometime this spring for developers so they can all talk about how to achieve this initiative, Kerr said.
"They're going to make an effort to reach out to developers," Kerr said, adding that planning staff can help educate developers about the public art option as well. Kerr is the city's contact with the committee.
The committee was created in 2007 and consists of five members, appointed by the mayor, who serve three-year terms.
NW News on 01/19/2017