Five stories we're watching in Nothwest Arkansas in 2025

🩺 Walton-founded medical school and nonprofit

The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine plans to open with a class of 48 students this fall on a Bentonville campus near Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

• The four-year medical school will take the "whole health" approach that focuses on physical, emotional and mental health plus emphasizes preventative care and healthy lifestyles.
• Meanwhile, the Heartland Whole Health Institute is also being built nearby with plans to open this year. The nonprofit that focuses on health care advocacy is already established, but its building has been under construction.

🏘 Housing

Housing affordability continues to be one of the region's biggest challenges. Advocates have proposed solutions like easing up zoning laws to allow more types of housing and more housing in general. Nonprofit Excellerate Foundation is building income-capped housing with some homes designated for Bentonville Public Schools employees.

• We're watching how cities and organizations respond to housing needs this year and if NWA becomes an easier or more difficult place to rent or buy a home.

Walmart campus

Walmart's new 350-acre campus in Bentonville is shaping up. Amenities like the fitness and child care centers opened in 2024, and this year we're keeping an eye on the site as the company moves workers into offices. The campus also promises restaurants and a hotel.

• Plus: Blue Crane, the real estate arm of Walmart heirs Tom and Steuart Walton's company Runway Group, purchased the old Walmart headquarters on Walton Boulevard but hasn't announced what they plan to do with the property. Maybe we'll have an update in 2025.

⚖️ National influence on state lawmakers

The Regular Session of Arkansas' 95th General Assembly convenes on Monday, January 13. State lawmakers are already taking cues from the incoming Trump administration:

• SB4 would allow local voters to decide whether to have fluoride in their drinking water, a talking point of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump nominated as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

• HB1032 would ban Arkansas healthcare professionals from engaging in conversion therapy, the practice of seeking to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
• In a New Year's Day video posted to X, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said lawmakers will improve the education system even more, fight to lower the cost of living and "use modern tools to fight the modern threats to public safety."
• "And believe me, the moment President Trump sets foot back in the White House, he will have no better friend or partner than the state of Arkansas," she said.

👮 Prison project
The announced 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County will continue to be controversial as residents call foul on the state's lack of transparency in its site selection.

• Arkansas grapples with the Sanders administration's stance on reducing parole eligibility while inmates at county jails create a backlog due to a lack of beds.
• The Franklin County and River Valley Coalition recently accused officials of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority and a division of the building authority of being deceptive and called for an investigation.