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IN THE SPIRIT: Officially started Sept. 6, the $80 million New Branson 76 project is anticipated to revitalize development along Branson’s main corridor.
IN THE SPIRIT: Officially started Sept. 6, the $80 million New Branson 76 project is anticipated to revitalize development along Branson’s main corridor.

Hwy. 76 progress stirs investors

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Change is coming to Branson.

Visionaries and capital from across the country are descending upon the tourist town and a kind of rebranding is underway: Hundreds of millions of dollars in developments are predominately targeting vacationing young families.

Project boards at the Taney County Partnership, an economic development liaison, identify investments pushing $350 million with talks on a few projects topping the $100 million price tag apiece. At City Hall, 309 building permits were filed in the first six months, representing $25 million in commercial projects within city limits.

“We have four that have the potential of being more than $100 million apiece. Now, that could all go away tomorrow or we could get one of the four,” said Jonas Arjes, executive director of Taney County Partnership.

Branson Communications Manager Jennifer Langford credits much of the uptick to the city’s $80 million project recently renamed the New Branson 76. It’s designed to improve Branson’s 5-mile entertainment district corridor and could prove to be the Ozarks’ very own kind of Coney Island.

The conceptual plan for revitalizing Highway 76 was adopted by the Branson Board of Aldermen in August 2014, and includes the widening of pedestrian walkways, adding courtyards and landscaping, and allowing for bicycle and wheelchair accessibility. It also intends to improve the transportation and traffic control system, and create mass transit options.

The city began the anticipated eight-year project on Sept. 6, when Boyce Excavating broke ground in front of Startlite Theatre.

Jim Martin, the city’s project manager, said the timeline now is dependent on the actual construction and project management schedule that engineers currently are defining.

The hurdles: budget requirements, Missouri Department of Transportation’s transfer of State Highway 76 ownership to the city and other considerations, such as the city’s water line improvement plan.

“We are currently working alongside the real work going on to fine-tune the entire project timeline, which is dependent on factors such as severity of winter weather and what can be done during the peak months of the summer tourism season,” Martin said. “Most importantly, we don’t want to move faster than the speed of accuracy.”

The work begins with Phase 1-A: installing underground utilities and continuous sidewalks to be completed by the next tourism season.

Arjes said the steps are vital to inviting investment.  

“Once this gets rolling and people see the end product on the pedestrian ways and some of the infrastructure – especially with the underground utilities – we expect to see a significant amount of business sector or private sector investment along that corridor,” he said.

Investments already are occurring.

Fritz’s Adventure is replacing the old Silver Glass Inn at 1425 W. Highway 76, by Dixie Stampede. The 80,000-square-foot attraction, which includes climbing, tunneling, sliding and zip-lining features, is expected to open this fall.

With an access point from Highway 76, the $20 million Ballparks of America youth baseball stay-and-play tournament complex behind White Water amusement park opened in July. Langford said the ballparks are projected to increase tourism by about 180,000 people during the 13-week youth baseball season.

More development is around the corner as CenterCore Branson Development LLC, including investors from across the nation, wants Branson to have it’s own kind of Beale Street on 10 acres between Highway 76 and Green Mountain Drive. They’re calling it The Alley at the Grand Village.

“This is just kind of a narrow street that connects them and we’re going to connect them with walkways,” said Stephen Critchfield, a partner at Commercial 1 Brokers LLC and an investor in The Alley. “We’ve been in talks with the people who own the Grand Palace, and I think they are moving through their planning and research. They are about to make an announcement one of these days soon.”

Other investors are some who ponied up for the original Grand Village development. The developers do not have a projected cost at this time, but lots are listed for sale from $665,000 to $1.4 million.

Chuck O’Day, local project manager for Grand Palace owner Kuvera Partners, only would say the owners are actively researching the best use of the property.

Investors in The Alley envision entertainment, a hotel, restaurants, retail and perhaps a recording studio open to the public – like Sun Records on Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn. They’re also pitching for a microbrewery as the cornerstone piece.

“The concept is that it’s the Branson Brewery,” Critchfield said. “It would have a rooftop patio, great music with a really good stage – kind of a place that gives the flavor of the Blue Bar in Nashville.”

Much hinges on Highway 76. Arjes said the widening is key to growing tourism.

“The term theme park has been thrown around and that’s kind of the idea we want to have,” he said. “I know a trolley system has been included in that – in the conceptual part.”

But he prefers a proposed urban gondola system over the trolley.

“That has some potential. I look at that project more as a public transit mode,” he said. “Visitors will enjoy it, but I think for moving workforce and employees from Branson Landing and potentially all around Silver Dollar City, that could be big – to have that as an affordable means of moving workforce could be a big part of it.”

Either way, changes are coming quickly.

“You’ve got to kind of get out in front of it,” Critchfield said. “You can either wait for it, or you can lead it and have a product that will appeal to more of that market we believe will be coming to Branson.”

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