Terminella Sitting on Gold Mine (OPINION)

Is West Van Asche Drive in Fayetteville a gold mine? Plenty of people, including real estate broker Tom Terminella, sure hope so.

Completion of the 1-mile extension has opened up about 264 acres to development, and Terminella says the road could trigger nearly $1 billion in construction and land value.

Terminella should know. Not only does he control all the property along the new Van Asche, but he also had a hand in developing the region’s premier stretch of commercial and residential real estate — the Golden Mile at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers — back in the boom days.

At Pinnacle, at least according to Terminella’s guesstimate, development and value climbed to about $1.4 billion. As the southern anchor of Fayetteville’s burgeoning uptown shopping district, Van Asche’s performance should be comparable.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Terminella is at ground zero of one of the more important development opportunities in Fayetteville’s recent history. The guy went straight into real estate after high school, and while he was still in his early 20s, formed his own company. At the height of his success, he looked out over his empire from the cockpit of a helicopter.

It appeared as if he’d met his Waterloo at Grand Valley Ridge, the Springdale subdivision that went bust. The resultant court case with Metropolitan National Bank nearly broke him, but it didn’t.

Still, he went away for a while. Deep-sea fishing, he said. His version of “The Old Man and the Sea.” When he finally sailed back to shore, he realized he’d outlasted all the others, his friends and competitors from the boom.

Things have changed, including him. But Terminella still understands Northwest Arkansas real estate.

And if you ask him if Van Asche is a gold mine, he’ll look you in the eye and smile. He doesn’t have to say a word.