Crystal Flats is a high-density mixed-use development in Bentonville, Arkansas. The design team’s dedicated and conscientious effort to provide a harmonious neighborhood that responds to social, environmental and economic impacts will positively influence the character of the community as well as provide a diverse and rewarding space to live, work and play. With a commitment to environmental stewardship, the proposed layout for the Crystal Flats Development responds to the site’s natural topography in order to maintain existing drainage patterns and minimize impacts to the site. A significant amount of unit parking is housed underneath the podium building structures, further preserving green space and establishing a dense urban edge along NE John Deshields Blvd, creating an activated separation that serves the public to the south while allowing open spaces within the interior of the site to act as community gathering and amenity spaces.
Accommodating Bentonville‘s growth beyond the downtown zone poses significant infrastructure challenges. Crystal Flats adds diverse and dense housing in a busy public area within biking and walking distance of the downtown core. The development provides a variety of living spaces, including workforce housing, ranging from 400 sq ft Studios to 1,600 sq ft 4-Bedroom units and townhomes. The project contains approximately 30% workforce housing units, totaling about 177 additional living units for the increasingly displaced workforce the core depends upon.
The site’s proximity to downtown and other established civic amenities affords a walking/cycling radius that reinforces pedestrian connectivity coinciding with Bentonville‘s commitment to the Smart Growth development ideologies, mitigating traffic congestion while helping to alleviate the anticipated population and socioeconomic growth forecasted by the city’s community plan.
