White Christmas, Blue Business

The recent four-week stretch of icy road conditions in Northwest Arkansas has more than a few in the business sector wishing never to witness a white Christmas again.

Matt Bodishbaugh, vice president of Nabholz Construction Corp. in Rogers, said most contractors had it written in their contracts that weather outside the 10-year historical norm allows for an extension of targeted completion dates.

Among Nabholz’s current projects is the Fayetteville Town Center.

“Obviously, the weather has impacted our schedules from a financial perspective,” Bodishbaugh said.

“But the biggest impact it has is our people that are hourly employees that simply didn’t work. That’s the tragedy of our industry, especially at Christmastime. Most people are trying to get bonuses at that time, and we had people just trying to get a paycheck.”

Bodishbaugh said Nabholz was still aiming for a summer completion of the Town Center.

The Golf Club at Valley View opened in August, but Mother Nature hasn’t been kind to the Farmington course. It was forced to close from Dec. 12-Jan. 7 because of the weather.

Mike Brantley, head golf professional at Valley View, said the course had only 160 rounds of golf in December, well below the projected 500. And losing a week in January will most likely put the course well below its projected 750 rounds.

“We’re budgeted monthly, so it has been a tough start,” Brantley said. “We’ll try to make it up in April, May and June.”

Actually, Valley View was the first local public course to open in 2001.

“We’ve had several people come down from Missouri to play because they said it was the first course south of them to open,” Brantley said. “So, we’re loving life right now.”