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Brain Trust: Chamber launches eco devo committee

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The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce has pulled together a brain trust of businesspeople to set a new vision for development in the area. And they’ve picked partners at accounting firm BKD LLP and law firm Husch Blackwell LLP to lead the charge.

Co-chairpersons John Wanamaker and Virginia Fry lead a new visioning committee made of 25 professionals. They’re seeking community input and bold ideas for community and economic development.

“This is about dreaming big and pulling people together to make it happen,” Wanamaker said, pointing to the long-held consideration of opening up Jordan Creek downtown.

BKD’s Wanamaker said the chamber’s recent Community Leadership Visit to Greenville, South Carolina, provided the impetus to start. Over 60 business and community leaders learned of Greenville’s strict dependence on the textile industry and how the downtown became boarded up after jobs moved overseas.

“That was their tipping point,” Wanamaker said. “Their community was dying because there weren’t jobs.”

In response, Greenville leaders created bold visions and decided to reinvigorate downtown.

“They converted their downtown to two lanes, widened the sidewalks, made it safe, did public private partnerships and multiuse projects,” he said.
 
Greenville Mayor Knox White told his Springfield guests there was no secret to the success.

“It was planning. It was implementing. It was bringing people together who believed,” White said in a news release. “It was about creating a vision and making it happen.”

Greenville officials decided to tear up a perfectly good highway to expose a waterfall beneath and significantly alter the appearance of downtown. Wanamaker said the notion made the Springfield contingency wide-eyed with inspiration and ideas: “Find your waterfall – what is your hidden gem that if you uncovered it, could just really stimulate and be a catalyst for other things?” he asked.

The first thing on Wanamaker’s mind is Jordan Creek that runs throughout downtown but is covered by concrete.

“It’s underground,” Wanamaker said. “There has been talk in the past about daylighting Jordan Creek and creating a river walk in our very own downtown. I’m not saying that’s where we’re going, but that’s something to think about.”

It’s happened elsewhere. Fry of Husch Blackwell points to a vision that once transformed what was going to be a sewer in Texas into a tourist destination.

An environmentalist-led canoe ride for commissioners saved the San Antonio River from being straightened and turned into a storm sewer in the 1920s. Later that decade, an architect drew up plans for a river walk. A mix of tenacity, investments and decades of work from multiple organizations led to one of the most well known tourist attractions in the South today.

Fry said she found herself thinking, “When are we going to do something?”

For the committee, it’s about creating an actionable plan.

“We are not reinventing the wheel,” Wanamaker said. “The Vision 20/20 report actually resulted in a lot of great things for our community, like the Hammons Field and the ice park.”

He said the committee plans to review the city’s Vision 20/20 report, a community improvement plan created in 2004, to determine the merit of any ideas not yet accomplished. Also, the committee will analyze the competitive analysis and strategic plan for economic development created by the chamber and the Springfield Business Development Corp. in 2010, the Springfield Public Schools’ master plan, the Greene County Financial Advisory Task Force’s recommendations and the Hunden Strategic Partners’ 2016 study of convention capabilities downtown.

Committee members also are looking at initiatives in Kansas City and Oklahoma City. Initiatives to make Kansas City “America’s most entrepreneurial city” and to revitalize urban neighborhoods are among the “big five” issues in the City of Fountains.

Also, K.C. taxpayers voted for a 1-cent tax increase in 1993 for a $350 million, multiyear initiative to upgrade sports arenas, the convention center and other buildings instrumental to the economy without accruing debt for future generations, according to the city’s website. Another tax issue passed in 2001 to address the struggling public school system and again in 2008 to implement improvements downtown.

“It’s the right time for our community to start having that vision and prioritizing that vision and working with stakeholders in our community to help bring that vision into reality,” Wanamaker said.

Wanamaker said one of Springfield’s major tipping points is the need to attract qualified employees for the city’s varied and growing industries.

Committee organizers say the visioning plan will consider the next generation: both encouraging millennials to make Springfield home as well as creating a vibrant community in which they can thrive.

“It needed to be driven by an organization that had a broad base in the community. I think the chamber board stepped back and realized that somebody needed to take the initiative and the lead on this,” Fry said.

Committee meetings are scheduled every other week through March. Most recently, a survey was introduced at the chamber’s monthly Good Morning Springfield breakfast.

Jeremy Elwood, the chamber’s communications specialist, said over 100 people have taken the three-question survey, which is accessible at SpringfieldChamber.com/vision.

“Every time we meet, we kind of figure out a little more,” Fry said.

“There is no grand plan. It is an interactive process. Everybody on that committee is thoughtful and intelligent. I think the group is kind of no holds barred, they say what they think. Hopefully, with everybody being transparent in what they think, we can come to a consensus.”


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