It’s not hard to imagine why many people have moved to Cave Springs. It maintains many attributes of what some might call a quintessential small Arkansas town. Forested hills, open pastures and a sustaining downtown strip.
Testament to these characteristics and its proximity to areas like Bentonville, Fayetteville and Rogers, city officials say Cave Springs has experienced rapid growth– and some residents are concerned about losing its “small town character” amid development in the greater Northwest Arkansas area.
Therefore, the city is planning for what comes next.
Cave Springs Mayor Randall Noblett says he has witnessed this expansion firsthand and finds it difficult to reconcile his personal feelings about the once small town becoming a real city.
“After having been here for 20 years and been involved in the growth. I was planning chairman for four years from 2002 through 2006, when we approved a lot of the subdivisions and we were 1,100 people then. And we were one of the fastest growing cities in Arkansas from 2010 to 2020. We were the fastest per capita at 218 percent. We also were 11th fastest in actual population growth, and we grew from the 145th most populous city to the 63rd. We moved up 82 positions. And as the state sees us now, we're no longer a small town. We're a mid-sized city. We're in the top 12 percent of populations in the state, but at the same time, the growth hasn't kept up. And there's some areas we need to focus more on.”
Roughly three years ago, civic leaders engaged with the Urban Land Institute’s Northwest Arkansas Chapter. The institute, or ULI, is a global network of real estate and land-use experts. Cave Springs became the first town to receive support from the ULI NWA Small Cities Initiative.
“That idea for the program really stemmed from conversations we were having at our advisory board level.”
That’s Megan Brown. She’s the director of operations for the local ULI Council. She says the small cities initiative began as a way to guide burgeoning municipalities toward sustainable growth.
“Making sure that we are moving in the right direction with the conversations we're having at a regional standpoint. And one of the key, resonating conversations that we had at this meeting a few years back was: how are we helping these smaller communities? And we've since defined as 30,000 in population. It's less to kind of give some parameters, but how are we helping these communities that are receiving the bulk of the growth right now that is coming in to Northwest Arkansas. How are we helping them receive that growth?”
Cave Springs’ work with ULI resulted in a new Downtown Master Plan, and earlier this year, it received recognition. In late September, the plan won 2025 Plan of the Year by the Arkansas Chapter of the American Planning Association. The plan lays out how the city wants the downtown area to grow — and what it wants to avoid. It covers building types, street design, public spaces and future city facilities.
The plan also ties closely with the future Highway 112 bypass. The Arkansas Department of Transportation is widening the highway into a four-lane corridor and rerouting it around downtown Cave Springs.
When the bypass opens, the state will hand the existing stretch of 112 to the city, allowing Cave Springs to redesign Main Street. Planning director David Keck says it was a key driver for completing the new master plan.
“It's a major route, you know, north south corridor essentially. And for the city, it's always kind of been an arterial boulevard, like one of the major arterial roads for the city. The state highways are typically seen that way with the work that we've done with them where originally they were wanting to come through town and they were looking at taking down buildings and this and that. And we really didn't want that to happen. We wanted to kind of keep our downtown and keep the core and integrity of what Cave Springs is. So they were real good to work with where they pushed the bypass where they bypassed around downtown. And we saved the downtown. But also when you save a downtown, you don't want a bypass to be a negative thing.”
Keck notes that a bypass can also negatively impact downtown by redirecting potential customers away from businesses.
“So we wanted to kind of have a plan in place knowing the things we know moving forward with the growth to facilitate still having a good downtown core.”
The plan arrives at a moment when Cave Springs has more control over its future boundaries. Earlier this year, the city completed a land swap with Rogers that reshaped its limits. Cave Springs gave up about 255 acres and 15 homes in exchange for 577 acres and more than 300 homes.
The change added roughly 15% to the city’s population in a single day and, for the first time since 1999, united Cave Springs into one contiguous city. Keck says the land swap was a curveball for city planners, forcing them to rework some elements.
“We had the master plan as far as for the downtown core completed at this point, so we've already started implementing some of the land use categories and stuff for downtown in that. This is the land swap was the reason that we had to pivot and do this. But the idea was like, well, if we're going to do this, let's just go ahead and start implementing some of this other stuff while we're at it.
“While the master plan and land swap were going on, we were already working on a new subdivision code for the city, and we were going to transition to zoning after that. So we kind of had to take a step back, put zoning on the back burner, do the maps. We had to do a new zoning map for the city as a whole, because the property we had annexed in didn't have zoning. And then we did the new maps to show the property that was previously in Rogers and that had their future land use and everything on it, and then incorporate that into the city. And then now that we're getting close to having those completed, we're stepping back into the zoning and we're going to actually look at new zoning categories and new zoning reforms for the city as a whole. And again, going to incorporate some of the downtown master plan ideas into that as far as building typologies, building requirements, parking requirements, things like that.”
So how did the community’s desires for a “small-town” feeling manifest in the new Downtown Master plan? Keck says neighbors came together to help create the design. The process included design workshops, public meetings and a technical assistance panel convened by ULI. That panel toured downtown, studied development patterns and offered early recommendations that eventually shaped the final master plan.
Keck says the goal was to show residents what downtown could look like if Main Street becomes a city-controlled street rather than a state highway.
“The downtown master plan. And in that, we also did a facilities plan where we would look at the downtown core as far as what we would want it to look like building typologies, and how that relates to transportation, walkability, safety, parking, then essentially city facilities, what will the city need in the future going forward as far as facilities as we grow? And a big part of it was as we grow also facilities, like if we put in a new city hall, new city buildings, community building, whatever it might be, where would those go and what would that look like? Because we really wanted to keep them in the downtown core area.”
The plan divides downtown into several sub-areas, each with different development expectations. It outlines where mixed-use buildings should go, where residential density makes sense and where the city should prioritize green space and conservation. It also recommends new design standards so future construction fits the scale of existing early-20th-century buildings.
A prevalent theme is “small town character,” a phrase repeated often throughout the planning documents and interviews. In this case, it refers to the traditional storefronts, modest building heights and walkable blocks along Main Street. Mayor Noblett says preserving those “antique” qualities while accommodating growth is central to the plan’s purpose.
“I mean, you can't build old, but the new can be made to look like it fits with that era. If you throw up a brick building next to a glass building next to a metal building, you become one more little town to drive by. And we're at a point that everything is either currently being used from an old appearance to it's not being used but still old and needs renovated or replaced. So before we wound up with just hodgepodge of everything, based on what I'd met and talked to people, that atmosphere is a big part in bringing people into that atmosphere in that downtown area to where you build community rather than city. We are a city. We're going to be a city. We're going to grow as a city. But we still have that community that we saw during the tornado where people got out and when they got their yard cleaned up they were helping their neighbors. You don't see that in big cities so much. And that's the community that we wanted to build.”
The plan recommends treating the Highway 112 bypass as a parkway, not a commercial strip, to prevent sprawl from pulling activity away from downtown. It calls for limited access, added landscaping and steering retail toward the core.
Other proposals include new sidewalks, safer crossings and expanded trails to improve walkability once Main Street is under city control. The plan also suggests a downtown zoning district, better parking management and coordination with major landowners, with IRWP’s Lake Keith envisioned as a future anchor for trails and public space.
City leaders expect the Downtown Master Plan to be folded into the city’s 2040 Vision Plan later this month. After that, Cave Springs will begin revising zoning codes, updating street standards and preparing for the transfer of Main Street when the Highway 112 bypass is complete.
Noblett says implementation will take years, but the goal is consistent: guide growth in a way that strengthens downtown instead of eroding it. The challenge ahead is balancing that small-town atmosphere with the economic realities of being a growing city.
“I like that small town feel and going into an old fashioned hardware store and all of that. And yet at the same time, having been in planning and seen huge growth during the time I was in planning and seeing a little bit of commercial come in at that time with Dollar General and Diamond Pet Foods and a few other businesses. I feel good knowing that we've increased our financial position as a community. We've done the things it took to where, frankly, Nelson's Hardware might not be there today if not for the economy. And that's built with the additions and with the additional growth. And a lot of these businesses that used to be here are gone because there wasn't the community to support them. And now we're building that. So it's nice to be able to hold on to a downtown that people can come together to events and things and have that small town feel while you grow a city into a position that it has an economy that is sustainable to the businesses that are here and that help make up our community.”
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming. (edited)
