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Local developments still being built despite coronavirus pandemic

The City of Rogers is working to grow the community while also helping residents during this pandemic.

ROGERS, Ark. — The coronavirus pandemic has forced several businesses to close but new developments are still in the works in Northwest Arkansas.

“We have not slowed down construction or anything like that,” said John McCurdy, City of Rogers Director of Community Development.

McCurdy says as of now, developments are continuing as normal in Benton County.

“It’s important because if there’s any aspect of the economy that can keep moving forward if those companies can keep that moving forward that’s important,” said Paul Gatling from NWA Business Journal.

Gatling says in a time of new its important to continue just a small part of the normal.

“A lot of the country’s economy has effectively stopped so if large scale and even small scale construction projects can keep moving forward that’s a good thing,” Gatling said.

McCurdy says construction in a sense is almost moving faster because there’s not as much traffic around the sites and developers are continuing along with new plans for the area.

“Our goal under Mayor Hynes directly is we are business as normal except that we're not,” McCurdy said.

The City of Rogers is working to grow the community while also helping residents during this pandemic.

“We are doing everything we can to promote business to work with businesses on things like temporary signage and allowing businesses to use public parking places and things like that for curbside pickup and really think outside of the box about ways we can be the solution,” McCurdy said.

McCurdy says although we're in hard times he believes there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

“I mean it’s a tough time and there are definitely going to be negative things that come out of this, but at the same time I think we will be better and smarter about certain things and there will be goodness that comes out of all of this,” McCurdy said.

Rogers is still continuing to see significant growth in the area with many businesses planning on coming in.

The City of Rogers Chamber has a meeting over zoom Tuesday (April 7) evening to discuss what’s next for the city.

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