4 Wild Things Happening in Northwest Arkansas

The last item in this video is a money tip — buy a cheap vacant lot in Bella Vista to get member golf rates. It is roughly true and I described the mechanism backwards, in a way that matters if you actually go do it. That correction is at the bottom and it is the longest.

1. The Bentonville school numbers — where my $120 million came from

I said the district was "debating to either spend $34 million on a kind of improvement to the high school on the west side of Bentonville, or... $120 million," and later floated "$60 or $120 million."

The $120 million is real — and I have gone back and corrected an earlier post in this series that said otherwise. As of October 2025, Bentonville School District was weighing a new high school estimated at $85 million to $120 million, depending on whether it built a smaller career-study school or a full comprehensive campus. So that figure was the top end of a genuine range under discussion, not something I invented.

I flagged at the time that I had not followed the debate closely — "I haven't watched what people debates or all stuff like that" — and that was the right hedge.

The $34 million I cannot find. No source pairs that number with any Bentonville high school option. The closest documented figure is roughly $42 million, the January 2025 estimate for expanding Bentonville West — also a west-side project, so that is likely what I was reaching for. "$60 million" does not appear anywhere either.

And my prediction was wrong in an interesting direction. I said the district would probably go with the $120 million option. It went with neither.

In December 2025, the Alice L. Walton Foundation and Heartland Whole Health Institute partnered with Bentonville Schools to expand Ignite Professional Studies programming at the future Bentonville Health Care Campus, with capacity for 1,500 students a day. Then in June 2026 the board approved a far smaller near-term project — a $10.9 million athletics and fine arts expansion at Bentonville West.

So instead of an $85-to-$120 million campus, the district got a philanthropic partnership for career programs plus a $10.9 million addition. My read that they needed capacity was right. My read on how they would pay for it was not.

2. The Farm at South School — approved, not yet built

The project's full name is The Farm at South School, and my details were good. It is about 22 acres south of where 19th Street dead-ends, roughly a third of a mile east of South School Avenue.

The plan: around 10 overnight guest cabins, a small brewery inside a renovated existing residence, an orchard, event space, the existing ponds preserved plus a new pond with a boardwalk and fishing dock, and soft-surface trails. So the ponds, trails, brewery and cabins I listed are all in there.

I said it was going before the board and there was "probably be no reason why it wouldn't" pass. It passed comfortably — Planning Commission 7-0, and City Council approved the planned zoning district 8-0 on February 18, 2025.

What I cannot tell you is whether it is being built. As of August 2026 I find no confirmed groundbreaking or construction start — only the zoning approval from early 2025. Conceptual approval is not a shovel.

One thing worth separating: this is not Drake Farms, the billion-dollar mixed-use project on the other side of Fayetteville, and not the South School Strip redevelopment around Fossil Cove. Three different south-Fayetteville projects with confusable names.

3. The trails — confirmed, with a bigger total than I gave

Right on the number. Fayetteville's Active Transportation Advisory Committee approved a project list 10-0 targeting nearly 11 miles of new trail in 2025, part of a rolling five-year plan running through 2030.

What I did not say is how much was already there. Fayetteville's system runs more than 55 miles paved and more than 60 miles soft-surface — over 115 miles combined. Eleven miles is a meaningful addition to an already substantial network, which is a better framing than eleven miles in isolation.

The "big loop" I mentioned is a specific project: connecting the Tsa La Gi, Town Branch and Shiloh trails south of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard into a continuous circuit. The governing document is the city's Active Transportation Plan.

4. Tanyard Creek — and the lot-buying advice I got backwards

The facility first. It is the Tanyard Creek Practice Center at 10 Nature Trail Lane. The $5.5 million renovation was approved in October 2023 — matching my "announced since 2023" — and it opened in early April 2025, so it was already open when I recorded this as though it were coming.

What is there: two wider all-weather teaching bays, 8 covered and 27 uncovered stalls, a putting green 30 percent larger, a chipping and sand area with two bunkers, defined driving-range targets, a golf simulator, an enlarged pro shop, and a bar overlooking the range. My "gaming" description was the simulator, and it is one, not several.

It is POA-run, overseen by the POA's director of golf operations. The POA operates seven courses: Country Club, Highlands, Scotsdale, Dogwood and Kingswood at 18 holes each, plus Berksdale and Brittany at nine.

Now the part I need to fix. I said friends "own an empty lot there for like $5,000" and are "not even necessarily members" of the POA, in order to get cheap golf.

That has it backwards. Buying a vacant lot is not a way around POA membership — it is how you become a member. Per the POA's own materials, purchasing any vacant lot qualifies the owner for full membership rights, including access to lakes, golf courses, parks and recreation centers, as long as the monthly assessment stays current. Your friends are not non-members getting a loophole. They are members, and the lot is the membership.

That distinction matters because the obligations come with it.

The price is plausible at the very bottom. Recent POA lot auctions have run roughly $6,200 to $15,700 and up. Five thousand is achievable for the cheapest, least desirable parcels, but it is not a typical price for anything buildable.

The ongoing costs are the part I skipped entirely. You owe the POA assessment for as long as you own it — $17 a month for an unimproved lot as of March 2026, rising to $45 if it ever gets built on. You owe Benton County property taxes, which depend on the assessed value — I am not going to guess at a figure, but do not leave it out of your math. And POA covenants require you to maintain the lot — mowing, no dumping — whether or not anything is on it, with the POA able to assess and lien against you if you do not.

What you get is real: an 18-hole round runs $40 with an Activity Card or $47 on a Member Card, against $70 for a non-member or guest. Nine holes runs $21 or $28 against $45. Run those against each other: the Activity Card saves 43 percent on 18 holes and 53 percent on nine; the Member Card saves 33 and 38 percent. Real money if you play often.

What nobody tells you is the exit. Many of the cheapest lots are small, oddly shaped or effectively unbuildable — "membership lots" bought purely for amenity access. That means your resale pool is other people chasing the same discount, which is a thin market. Auction and judicial-sale lots can also carry title problems or back assessments that an ordinary purchase would not.

So: the tip is real, it is not a membership workaround, and it carries a small permanent obligation plus a narrow resale market. Whether it is worth it is a math problem — assessment and taxes against rounds played — and that is yours to run, not a recommendation from me.