Centerton Downtown Plan Recap | August 24, 2026

Old Downtown, New Town Center and a Long-Term Plan for Connecting Them

Centerton City Council and the Planning Commission met together on August 24 for a special work session focused entirely on the city's Downtown Master Plan. This wasn't a voting meeting. It was the first big opportunity to walk through the full draft, ask questions and give the public a better picture of what all of the planning work over the last year had actually produced.

This one was especially meaningful for me because I was proud to serve on the steering committee chosen to help guide the Downtown Plan discussions. That meant getting to be part of some of the conversations leading up to this point, asking questions, looking at what makes Centerton different and helping think through what we want these areas of our city to become over time.

And if there's one important thing to understand about this plan, it's that "downtown" doesn't mean one small area around Main Street. The plan looked at both the existing downtown north of Centerton Boulevard and the much larger New Town Center area south of it, then tried to answer how those two pieces could eventually feel connected rather than developing as completely separate parts of the city.

What the plan envisioned for Old Downtown

On the north side of Centerton Boulevard, the focus was on the Centerton that is already here. That meant looking at existing properties, infrastructure, floodplain limitations and ways the area could become more usable and inviting over time.

The city's original planning scope included things like adaptive reuse, placemaking, infrastructure improvements and development that works with the realities of the floodplain. In much simpler terms, the conversation was about how to make better use of what we already have rather than trying to pretend Old Downtown is a blank slate.

A lot of the steering committee discussions came back to exactly that balance: respecting what already exists while also thinking ahead about what could make the area more functional, connected and distinctly Centerton as opportunities arise.

This isn't a plan where the city approves it and suddenly everything changes. Much of this would happen gradually as properties redevelop, infrastructure projects happen and private investment comes into the area.

The New Town Center is a very different project

South of Centerton Boulevard, the city has a much larger opportunity because so much of that land has not developed yet. The New Town Center portion of the plan looked at creating a more walkable, mixed-use area with different types of housing, commercial development, public spaces and transportation connections.

We've already seen some of the groundwork for this through the New Town Center land-use and zoning conversations earlier this year. The Downtown Master Plan took another step back and looked at how the whole area could fit together over the long term.

That distinction matters. The maps we saw weren't construction plans and they weren't a promise that everything shown on them would be built. They were a framework for what Centerton could work toward as that part of town develops.

Connecting the two sides may be the hardest part

One of the pieces I found most interesting throughout the steering committee process was the effort to connect Old Downtown and the New Town Center instead of planning them independently. That included trails, streets, crossings, streetscapes and other ways people could eventually move between the two.

Of course, there is a pretty major obstacle sitting between them: Centerton Boulevard.

Highway 102 is already one of the busiest roads through the city, so creating something that feels connected and walkable while still moving a huge amount of traffic is not a simple problem. Transportation concepts were part of the plan, but again, those drawings represented long-term ideas rather than approved road projects.

The Downtown Plan was also very intentionally not about recreating Bentonville's square or copying another Northwest Arkansas city. One thing I appreciated throughout the process was the focus on Centerton developing its own identity and thinking about what fits this community and the way our city is actually growing.

This meeting was a starting point, not the finish line

The August 24 work session was basically the point where all of the research, maps and ideas became something the public could see and react to as a whole. From there, the plan moved to the Planning Commission for a formal public hearing on September 1 and then to City Council on September 8.

City Council ultimately adopted the Downtown Master Plan on September 8, including its land-use, master street and master trails components. That adoption gave the city an official framework to begin working from, but implementation will happen over years and, in some cases, probably decades.

That's really the biggest takeaway from this one. The Downtown Master Plan wasn't a list of projects Centerton was about to start building. It was the city trying to get ahead of growth and decide what we want this part of Centerton to become before development makes those choices for us.

I'm proud I had the opportunity to be part of the steering committee that helped guide those conversations, and I'm looking forward to watching how the plan continues to evolve from ideas on a map into real decisions about Centerton's future.