Arvest Bank buys land on Pauline Whitaker Parkway for new Rogers office

by Paul Gatling ([email protected]) 1,202 views 

This rendering depicts a new Arvest Bank branch at the southeast corner of Pauline Whitaker Parkway and J.B. Hunt Drive in Rogers.

Arvest Bank, which has more bank branches in Benton County than any other lender, is planning to build a new office in the 54-acre The District at Pinnacle Hills mixed-use development near Interstate 49 in Rogers.

The Fayetteville-chartered bank has purchased a 2.3-acre lot at the southeast corner of Pauline Whitaker Parkway and J.B. Hunt Drive. Springdale-chartered Legacy Bank operates a branch on the northwest corner of the intersection.

The bank paid $2.3 million ($22.96 per square foot) to The District Shops II LLC, an affiliate of Whisinvest Realty LLC of Little Rock.

Arvest Benton County President Craig Rivaldo said when the new building is complete, the bank will vacate its nearby Rogers branch at Village on the Creeks (5201 W. Village Parkway). He said design plans have not been finalized, but the two-story building will be approximately 24,000 square feet.

“We anticipate construction starting sometime around the third quarter of 2017,” Rivaldo said. “We will continue to operate [Village on the Creeks] as a full-service retail banking location until the Whitaker Parkway location is open and fully operational.”

Rivaldo said Arvest Bank’s growth has taken a toll on the VOC site, and the surrounding traffic congestion “creates its own challenges in accessing our facilities.”

“Frankly, the full-service bank with consumer, mortgage and commercial lending, retail banking and wealth management department creates a lot of customer traffic that doesn’t quite fit the site anymore,” he said. “The [new] location is not too far away from our current branch and in an area where we can spread out a little bit with room to grow.”

Arvest Benton County is the largest of the bank’s 16 locally managed markets. It has 24 branch locations in the county, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., equaling the number of offices for the next four banks combined.

The VOC branch is one of Arvest’s seven Rogers offices. It held $194.2 million in deposits as of June 30, according to the FDIC.