Bentonville, Arkansas, has been a company town for Walmart for decades — so why is The We Company doing something there it has never done before?
In April, the coworking giant announced that it will develop a 200K SF, ground-up WeWork in the heart of Downtown Bentonville, also known as Bentonville Square, as part of a partnership with local developer Josh Kyles and his company, City Center LLC.
Though groundbreaking is not expected to happen until next year, the building looks set to be the second ground-up project that WeWork has a hand in developing. Unlike with the first, Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, WeWork will be taking the entirety of the office portion. It will also be involved in picking tenants for the ground-floor retail space, newly hired Vice President of Architecture James Slade said in an email.
The building will also be an outlier in WeWork's portfolio in another way: At a population of roughly 50,000, Bentonville is easily the smallest municipality to contain either a completed or announced WeWork. The company declined to confirm if it was the smallest metropolitan area in its plans.
The seat of Benton County in the northwest corner of Arkansas, Bentonville has a smaller residential population than neighboring Rogers or nearby Springdale, the latter of which is home to Tyson Foods, the biggest exporter of beef in the U.S. Trucking giant JB Hunt is headquartered in nearby Lowell.
Including Fayetteville in neighboring Washington County, it all comprises the 525,000-person Northwest Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area, named one of the 25 fastest-growing metros in the U.S. as of 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The growth story is one WeWork is eager to tell as an explanation for its decision. "As we explored the market, it quickly became obvious Northwest Arkansas was a market primed for continuous growth with untapped demand," Slade said. "With growth set to double by 2035, Northwest Arkansas is primed to be a regional powerhouse, and its highly educated workforce is at the heart of this potential."
The We Company began sniffing around the site, a one-and-a-half acre plot at 224 North Main St., a year and a half ago as one of three potential Northwest Arkansas sites, Slade said, its search aided by Rogers-based Cushman & Wakefield|Sage Partners.
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