LITTLE ROCK — First Pentecostal Church along Interstate 40 in North Little Rock has obtained 93 acres on the other side of the interstate that was formerly planned to be a Bass Pro Shops and shopping center, a church spokesman said Monday.
The congregation wants to use the site to move its Calvary Academy school with grades kindergarten through high school, complete with a sports complex, said Nathan Holmes, associate pastor of the church at 1401 Calvary Road.
“We’re still in the process of developing the master plan for the use of the property,” Holmes said. “What we plan to do, hopefully, is to build a campus for our Christian school one day. Hopefully, with a sports complex as well.”
According to deeds filed in November and late December, the transaction came in four pieces totaling $3.178 million: Two parcels were purchased for $420,000 each, another for $638,000, and, in late December, the largest piece for $1.7 million.
The property, off North Hills Boulevard south of I-40, had long been planned for a Bass Pro Shops outdoors store, but conservation groups blocked development with lawsuits challenging the U.S. Corps of Engineers environmental study and building permit because of wetlands on the site.
Bass Pro was to have anchored The Shoppes at North Hills, a $150 million project announced in April 2003. Last June, Bass Pro announced it would build in southwest Little Rock and could open late this year.
A federal judge in 2006 dismissed the original lawsuit filed against the North Little Rock project, but a second lawsuit was filed. In late 2008, a federal judge enjoined developers from clearing the land and ordered a new environmental impact study, a decision former North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays later said “blew a hole” in the plans.
Holmes said the church’s project will follow whatever wetlands regulations are required.
“Obviously, it’s going to have to be dealt with,” Holmes said. “We will go through the process just like anyone else. We bought 93 acres, so there’s potential beyond just the small area that is the wetlands.”
Last March, the church lost a bid to expand adjacent to its present site when the North Little Rock City Council voted 8-0 to disallow a major cut into the hillside below a section of the historic Park Hill neighborhood.
Metropolitan Realty and Development of Sherwood, owner of 19.6 acres the church wanted to purchase at that time, filed a lawsuit the next month challenging the city’s decision. The case is still pending before Circuit Judge Mary Spencer McGowan.
Holmes said the denial of the hillside cut was a factor in the purchase of property across the interstate but not the major one.
“Obviously, when that didn’t go favorably for us, we started looking at other possibilities for expansion, but this is something we’ve been working on for a long time,” Holmes said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/29/2013