Coody Eyes 800-acre Tract

Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody wants the city to buy 800 acres of land straddling the city limits west of Cato Springs Road.

He hopes Fayetteville will develop a park on the flattest ground there — between 150 and 250 acres in size — and consolidate the ballparks that are scattered throughout the city in that one location. The rest of the land would be sold in blocks to developers with the idea of making a uniform community of sorts around the park.

If it’s done properly, Coody said, the city will make money on the project by spending about $6 million for the entire parcel and selling smaller chunks of it to four or five different developers for a profit.

Coody said the city has $14 million in its general fund now, and $4 million is the minimum that must be kept in that account.

“We have the money right now,” he said.

The land is currently owned by two sons of Maupin Cummings, a Washington County Circuit judge who died in 2000 at the age of 90.

Coody and the city’s land agent, Ed Connell, have been talking to the heirs about buying the land, but first Coody wants to make sure developers are on board with the plans.

“If people don’t step up to the plate, we’re not going to do this,” Coody said.

Buddy Coleman, a partner in Rausch Coleman Development Group Inc. of Fort Smith, is one of several developers interested in the project. Coleman has a 400-lot subdivision in the works in the Centerton/Bentonville area and a 391-lot development in Fayetteville and Farmington. Coleman usually builds homes that sell in the $130,000 to $200,000 range.

Since there’s no development at the proposed site, Coleman said, “It’s like handing you a blank easel and a set of colors so you can make something nice and pretty … It gives you such an opportunity to control it in a sense of how it all fits together.”

Coleman said he wouldn’t be able to do the “basic three houses per acre” on part of the land because it’s too hilly.

The idea for a central ballpark for baseball, softball, soccer and other sports was proposed in 2001 in the city’s Master Parks Plan.

“The entire 800 acres would have a master plan over the whole thing,” Coody said. Within that plan, developers would have a little elbow room when it comes to designing streets and homes for the site.

“The mayor’s got a great vision for it,” Coleman said of the proposal. “That vision and that energy is what drives it … The thing that makes sense to a developer is you have a broad range of what you can do.”

Coody is already hearing from potential developers. But he has more wooing to do. Coody also has to convince the City Council. Coody said some city aldermen have said it appears the city would be serving as a developer. But that’s not the case, Coody said: The city would actually be serving as a real estate broker.

Fayetteville would need to annex more than 400 acres of the land that is outside the city limits, Coody said. But, he said, that shouldn’t be a problem. That land is now in the Greenland School District but could someday be home to a new Fayetteville elementary school.

Coody said he hopes the project is approved and construction can begin before the end of the year.