Jonesboro City Council Tackles Busy Agenda

The Jonesboro City Council dispensed with a hodge-podge of issues Tuesday night, ranging from building permits and information technology to a plan from Zimmer Development Company to build a $20 million, 240-unit complex near the Arkansas State University campus.

Council members also approved an ordinance dealing with the city’s hotel district along U.S. 63.

Mayor Harold Perrin said the city’s building office had a busy August as $12.6 million in building permits were issued.

The permits were about evenly split, with 52% commercial and 48% residential, Perrin said.

The city has averaged about $12 to $15 million a month in permits for the last year or so. Perrin said the numbers show continued construction growth in the town.

“It is really good,” Perrin said of the numbers.

HOTEL DISTRICT
Council members approved by voice vote the ordinance, which was approved by both the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission and the council’s Public Works Committee, to remove zoning inconsistencies in the district.

“The purpose for this amendment to the zoning code is set on the reasoning that there are currently various hotels within the Hotel Commercial Corridor area (U.S. 63 to the south, Caraway Road to the west, Richardson Drive to the east and Race Street to the north) that were built within the C-2 Commercial District; this ordinance will remove inconsistencies within city ordinances for all future hotel improvements hoping to locate in that area and zone. The current ordinances do not permit hotels in the C-2 District, nor is there a process for special consideration,” city zoning official Otis Spriggs said in a July 15 letter to the Public Works Committee.

Any new hotel built in the district will require a conditional use review and approval by the MAPC before it is built, the ordinance noted. Council member Todd Burton voted no on the ordinance in the voice vote.

ZIMMER PROJECT
The council approved the second reading of the plan of a developer to build an apartment complex in north Jonesboro.

Under the plan, Wilmington, N.C.-based Zimmer Development Company would build the complex on 15.7 acres in the 2500 block of Johnson Avenue. A Dallas based group, Asset Campus Housing, would run the complex. The complex would be able to house nearly 720 people, with apartments being leased by the bed, officials said earlier this year.

The third and final reading is expected at the council’s Oct. 5 meeting.

In a separate ordinance, council members also voted to vacate a portion of Madison Street near Southwest Drive for a CVS pharmacy to be built. The national pharmacy chain has expressed interest in locating in Jonesboro, with the pharmacy being built on the site of a former grocery store. Company officials and residents in the area were able to work out an agreement to vacate part of the road, city officials said earlier this month.

IT REPORT
Council members also heard from Cliff Rushing, an official with Edgewater, about an information technology audit for the city.

Rushing gave council members an overview of the city’s computer systems, giving the city a passing grade on several things and showing several areas that need improvement. He said the city’s small IT staff deals each day with a large number of users on the city’s website and computer system, with very little down time.

However, the audit showed issues with infrastructure and antivirus software among other concerns, Rushing told council members.

Perrin said the city has a “whole lot to do” with the issue and that improving the system is a high priority.