UA to sell Lewis Park soccer complex, wooded area on Old Wire Road

Lewis Soccer Complex

A longtime local park near Asbell Elementary School and a wooded area on Old Wire Road owned by the University of Arkansas will soon go up for sale.

University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture lans to sell the two properties – 27.5 acres that have served as the Lewis Soccer Fields, and 103 acres off Old Wire Road – in order to raise funds for building and laboratory updates needed for the school on campus, officials told the Arkansas Traveler student newspaper last month.

The soccer fields had been leased to the city of Fayetteville for use in their youth soccer programs since 1993 in return for the UA’s use of about 10 city-owned acres on Razorback Road, and for fire suppression services to the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

That 25-year lease was set to expire on June 30, 2018, but city officials recently agreed to terminate it at the end of this year.

The city’s Parks & Recreation department has long planned to utilize the new fields at Kessler Mountain Regional Park for continuation of their youth soccer programs once their lease was up with the UA. The first phase of the park has already been completed, with additional fields planned in future phases of construction.

UA System Division of Agriculture spokesperson Mary Hightower told the Traveler the Lewis Complex land has appraised for $4.1 million, and the UA expects to sell the property for that price or more. The 103-acre parcel on Old Wire Road, located in north east Fayetteville between Old Wire and Oakland Zion Road, will likely be listed for around the appraised value of $2 million.

Vice President for Agriculture at the UA, Mark Cochran, told the NWA Democrat Gazette in mid-October that the UA plans to handle the sale of the properties in-house, and will likely wait “at least three months” to offer them for sale.