Annette Beard
Celebrating the culmination of more than a year of collaboration and cooperative effort, city and school officials are hosting an open house of the new City Hall/School Administration building at 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30.
The 15,500-square foot building cost $2.5 million -- a cost shared equally by the city and the school district.
"We're excited about our new building," said Rick Neal, school superintendent. "It's a great opportunity for the city and school to work together."
Mayor Jackie Crabtree and Neal both said they know of no other partnership of the kind they've initiated.
"We feel very fortunate that we are able to work with the school and provide this building for the community, not only to meet the needs of our growing community but also meet safety concerns that we weren't able to do at the old building," Crabtree said.
"This has never been done before," Neal added.
School administration staff moved into their offices in mid-August, with city officials moving in shortly thereafter.
City offices are accessed from a door on the south side of the building. School offices are on the north side.
At the center of the square, one-level facility is a meeting room that serves as a courtroom, where district court is held twice a month. The entrance to the courtroom is on the east side of the building.
Utilities are split between the two government entities, much as with a condominium or townhouse, an analogy shared by architect Steve Elliot.
The building is on 16.2 acres purchased by the school district in January 2015 for $200,818, Neal said.
Five city employees worked out of the downtown City Hall space, which has approximately 3,000 square feet. The city's space more than doubled at the new facility.
Pea Ridge was founded Nov. 7, 1935. From a population of 72 in 1940 to 268 in 1950, the population in 2010 had grown to 4,794.
City Hall has been in the downtown building since its purchase in October 1970. The city paid $7,890 for the two buildings which were used as City Hall and the Fire Department, according to city Resolution 4, City Clerk Sandy Button said.
The School District's central office staff consists of five people. They shared less than 2,000 square feet at the high school, Neal said. The district's space more than tripled at the new facility.
The former school administration offices were on the east end of the high school, which was constructed in 2001 on West Pickens Road/Weston Street. Prior to that, it was in a house built in the 1880s by professor John Rains Roberts, founder of Pea Ridge College, according to a 1996 article in The TIMES. That building was on the school campus downtown on East Pickens Road at the end of North Davis Street.
During this planning and construction, City Council members Bob Cottingham, Ray Easley, Lance Sanders and Steve Guthrie and School Board members Sandy Button, Jenny Wood, John Dye, Jeff Neil and Ryan Heckman worked together and had a joint meeting to approve the construction of the building.
State officials have been invited to the open house. The public is invited to the ribbon cutting and open house and a tour of the new facility.
Editorial on 09/28/2016