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Bella Vista Banking on Bike Trails

3 min read

Tourism Development/Creative Culture
Winner • 20,000 or Greater

Bella Vista is known for its unique geographic characteristics like large wooded lots among thick forests, steep hills, deep valleys and ravines.

It isn’t a topography that lends itself to flat, buildable land. At 45 square miles with 550 miles of roads, Bella Vista is a planned community not readily seen by travelers on U.S. Highway 71.

But Bella Vista, once a retirement community, has found yet another way to get on the map.

It is the only city in the state that can claim 100 miles of mountain bike-specific, hand-built trails inside city limits.

Meandering through valleys, along ridges, beneath bluffs and through creek crossings, the trail system is helping to transform Bella Vista from a golfing paradise to a bicycle paradise.

When Mayor Pete Christie began his first term in 2015, he knew the land couldn’t be used to build businesses or residences, but would be perfect for trails. With a goal of doing something positive with the otherwise unusable land, it made sense to extend the trail network to tap into the mountain biking boom underway in the region, increasing property values and driving residential growth and tourism.

Lack of flat land may mean a lack of hotels, but trailside and lakeside vacation rentals are booked more than a year out.

Thanks to a $4 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation and partnerships with multiple organizations, the Back 40 trail system was begun in 2016. The grant went to the NWA Trailblazers, who oversaw construction and then turned the 40 miles of trails over to the city.

Another Walton Family Foundation grant of $3.9 million helped fund the construction of the 50-mile Little Sugar trail system, which combines with the existing Blowing Springs Trails to round out the network to 100 miles.

BELLA VISTA
Population: 28,661
Mayor: Pete Christie
County: Benton
Region: Northwest

The city worked closely with the Bella Vista Property Owners Association (POA), which owned most of the land used for the trail construction, to fulfill requirements stipulated in the grants that the trails be available for public use, allowing both visitors and residents to benefit.

Along with the city’s partnership with the POA to license the land, the two entities split the annual cost of trail maintenance overseen by the POA. With both involved, trail users benefit from events, fallen tree cleanup and creative trail reroutes.

The trails provide miles of access to nature, allowing residents and their families to lead healthy, active lifestyles and enjoy breathtaking sights.

Most of the trails’ seasonal maintenance is overseen by Friends of Arkansas Singletrack (FAST) and completed by volunteers, mountain bikers, trail runners, hikers, families and kids who spend their time weed eating, trimming, raking and more. For every large ultra running or mountain biking event, which draw hundreds from different states and countries, masses of volunteers show up to make the trails ready.


DID YOU KNOW? Bella Vista has bucked the trend that has seen a 10% drop in residential permits at northwest Arkansas’ four major cities and is three months ahead of 2019’s permit numbers.

See more of Trendsetter City

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