The NorthWest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a new master plan for the campus in Bentonville.

The first building on campus opened in 1995. Today, its buildings cover about 500,000 square feet. Planning consultants told trustees the 130-acre campus could eventually support up to five times that space.

Liz Anderson, executive director of advancement, said the master plan was developed over nine months with input from students, staff and community members. It was created with financial support from the Walton Family Foundation’s Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program.

The master plan presents an overall vision for the campus, with guidelines for how projects should be developed in the coming decades.

The plan is “both visionary and practical,” according to Andrew Herdeg, a consultant who led the project team. 

“We are very confident that this will not sit on a shelf, but will guide you all into a really vibrant campus,” he said. 

New Amenities

If the vision outlined in the master plan is realized, the campus will one day offer many of the amenities typically found at four-year universities.

However, NWACC President Dennis C. Rittle said that the school — which offers associate degrees, certificates and non-credit classes — will remain a community college.

“Our intent is not to grow into a four-year university,” he told The Bentonville Bulletin. “Our intent is to ensure that we are providing for the campus experience as students are expecting.”

A few of the amenities included in the master plan:

• Housing: Planners envision adding roughly 3,000 housing units on the north side of campus, easing the burden for students in a market where rents continue to rise.

• Athletic Facilities: Campus leaders hope to one day have dedicated facilities for the college’s burgeoning athletic programs. Currently, some sports use off-campus facilities. 

• New Entrance: The current main entrance on busy 14th Street lacks a traffic light for the thousands of students and staff visiting daily. A new entrance is envisioned on the less congested Watertower Road on the east side of campus.

• Parking Shifts: Much of the campus is currently occupied by surface parking. In the future, leaders want to build parking garages on the outskirts of the campus. “We want the campus core to be car-free,” said Justin Garrison, director of urban design & planning at Lake|Flato Architects.

• Strong Nature Focus: The plan envisions a campus that “blurs the line between outside and inside,” with a large park open to the community, trails built by students, and upgraded tree-lined pedestrian paths.