BENTONVILLE -- Thaden School students on Tuesday night received city approval to put artwork in a downtown intersection.
The City Council endorsed the temporary installation of "Benton County Agricultural Grid (Bird's-Eye View)" on the asphalt at the South Main and Southwest Eighth streets intersection.
Artwork, permanent or temporary, on public property needs City Council approval, said Shelli Kerr, city comprehensive planning manager.
The students already had received provisional approval from the city Traffic Safety and Signage Committee, and the Public Arts Advisory Committee approved the artwork design.
Ideally, students will install the artwork sometime in April, said Sam Slaton, a Thaden School teacher.
Slaton and several students from the class attended the City Council meeting. A few council members commended the students on their work. The students received applause from the audience after the item passed.
Senior Anna Shields said it was easy to find a project the whole class could get behind.
"It has been really amazing to see something that we are all passionate about grow and become this beautiful collaborative project with this community," she said. "It's been a really great experience for me because we have all learned so much that we normally wouldn't have gotten to."
Junior Noelle Wilkinson said the project shows the need for some sort of tactical urbanism policy downtown or in the city.
Tactical urbanism projects share a goal of using low-cost material to experiment with and gather input on potential street design changes, according to TacticalUrbanismGuide.com.
"Projects like this are great," she said. "They are low cost, they're temporary and they can create change in the community."
Students painted the crosswalks and stop bars at the intersection March 5 but couldn't put in the artwork until council approval, Slaton said.
A stop bar is a wide, white line pavement marking that extends across all lanes in one direction to indicate where to stop. A pedestrian flag is attached to a stop sign, and pedestrians carry it across the intersection to another stop sign.
The Eighth and Main streets intersection marks the northwest corner of the Thaden campus and separates the school from Heroes Coffee and Crepes Paulette, two popular after-school destinations, Slaton said. The intersection with a four-way stop lacks pedestrian infrastructure and signs, creating a dangerous environment, Slaton said. The students' plan came from an urban studies class Slaton teaches.
Sophomore Laura Bailey said the project was collaborative and went well. The Traffic Safety and Signage Committee gave the class good feedback, she said.
"The end goal was we wanted safety at the intersection, and I am really happy we achieved that," she said.
In recognition of Benton County's agricultural history, the recent emphasis on aviation in the area and the school's namesake -- Louise Thaden, a pioneering aviatrix -- "Benton County Agricultural Grid (Bird's-Eye View)" will depict a simplified view of agricultural fields from the vantage point of someone in an airplane, Slaton said.
White clouds overlay the design, which is bisected by an unnamed waterway running from the northeast toward the southwest, the direction of the general slope and flow of water at the proposed installation site, Slaton said.
Slaton called the design intentionally simple and systematized to allow for community involvement in the installation process and to ensure the artwork adds an appropriate amount of visual noise that will encourage drivers to proceed with caution without being distracted.
Runway Group and the Northwest Arkansas Urban Land Institute will pay the project cost, which has not been determined, Slaton said. The class was set to start work on a budget Wednesday, he said.
The work will be temporary because the $27.8 million Eighth Street project will come through the intersection. Work will be done in seven phases from the intersection of Southwest I Street to its intersection with Southeast J Street -- a span of about 1.4 miles, said Dennis Birge, city transportation director.
Southeast J Street is one of the boundaries of the new Walmart home office campus, which is under construction. Walmart will build the section on Eighth Street that will run through its headquarters, Birge said.
Work is now being done on Eighth Street from Walton Boulevard to Southwest A Street.
"Though this project is intentionally temporary given the Eighth Street project, we hope it will serve as a precedent in Bentonville for the use of artwork in intersections to improve safety metrics for all road users and to create a unique and vibrant sense of place that inspires stewardship and catalyzes cultural and economic development," Slaton said.
The city was great to work with throughout the process, he said.
In addition to being an excellent opportunity to learn about urban planning concepts, the experience has been an enriching crash course in civic engagement, he said.
Senior Hadley Ward said it was great to see an idea become reality.
"That is sort of what this whole process has been about," she said.