After 13 years, 300-acre Chesterfield village nears completion

When his grandson, Larry Lipscomb, and other members of the Cox family created Dearborn Development to develop the property, they probably didn’t think it would take more than a decade to complete.

But now an end may be in sight for the development of Chesterfield Village, as Springfield City Council July 10 approved an amendment to the planned development for the final seven acres. The plan allows for a building up to six stories tall, to be used as either an office or possibly a hotel.

While the company looking to develop the land has since pulled out of the deal, saying the parcel was too small for its needs, Bob Murray of R.B. Murray Co., which has marketed the land in Chesterfield Village for most of its commercial history, said the property is still prime for development.

Prime real estate is a far cry from the land two decades ago, when city council denied multiple requests to even rezone it for commercial use.

Then came the extension of James River Freeway, and the idea to create a master-planned community.

The idea for Chesterfield Village has slowly evolved in the last 13 years, according to Lipscomb, who got his design ideas from an unusual source.

“I actually went to train stores, got some little model buildings, and that’s how some of the early architecture designs came about,” Lipscomb said. “The concept was to have an old streetscape.”

From there, he worked with architect Alan Bates to come up with a design that was a fusion of the train ideas and the concepts of the original Commercial Street.

A changing concept

It turns out, the original idea for the development was about 10 years ahead of its time.

“The initial thought was to build in condos,” Lipscomb said. “The first phase is built with firewalls in between, where someone can own their own place and actually live up above – the original loft concept. But people didn’t want lofts at that time, so we ended up leasing them up and down as office and retail.”

Now that lofts are the rage, especially in the center city area, Lipscomb thinks the loft idea will return to his development as well, for people who “want the loft lifestyle but want to be someplace else.”

The time frame has changed for the village as well. Lipscomb said the original plan had been to take about 10 years to complete the development, but other parts of town took priority.

“James River and Glenstone took off and everybody was out there, with the big box stores, so that delayed us probably four or five years,” he said. “But now Chesterfield is in the heart of a growth area.”

Much of the expansion has come south of James River Freeway; recent additions include Kansas Plaza at Kansas Expressway and Republic Road, the new headquarters for Marisol International on West Kingsley Street, and Bill Jester’s Quail Creek Plaza shopping center on Republic Road.

The environment

Teresa Schwab of Wilhoit Properties, who has been marketing Chesterfield’s retail and office space for about seven years, said the allure of the property is its unique feeling.

“The people that are out there really like it because of the atmosphere – the used bricks, the landscaping, the music piped in through outdoor speakers,” she said. “It just is a nice oasis in the hustle and bustle of the city.”

Schwab said there are eight retail and office spaces available in the development, though tenancy rates fluctuate.

What does the future hold for the development?

Lipscomb thinks the evolution will continue and retail will make a comeback, led by eateries like Prima’s Mexican Restaurant, which moved in to the former McGuffey’s space in June.

In the end, though, it will be a lot like the Cox family envisioned – a one-stop shop for everything.

“The idea was to have a place to live, work and shop all in one place,” Lipscomb said. “Walk to work, walk to pick up your laundry, walk to eat. I think that’s where it’s going to prove to be more successful.”

The last piece of the puzzle

Though it did get approval for rezoning from Springfield City Council, the last 7.26-acre parcel of land in Chesterfield Village is still available for sale, according to Bob Murray of R.B. Murray Co.

“That tract, for the right user, will be ideal,” Murray said. “It has great exposure, quality development all around it, and the detention is already in.”

Murray is listing the property for $7.95 per square foot, or roughly $2.5 million.

Family tradition

The land that is now Chesterfield Village started out as the family farm of Lester E. Cox. One of Cox’s companies was Modern Tractor & Supply, a Ford tractor dealership. Cox established the Kickapoo Prairie Farm on the southwest Springfield land as a hands-on training facility for tractor dealers and salesmen in the 1960s.

After the training facility closed, Cox’s children and grandchildren met to decide what to do with the property; at that meeting, they came up with the idea for a city within a city, and Chesterfield Village was born.

Cox’s grandson, Larry Lipscomb, said family members own about 60 percent of the commercial space in Chesterfield Village.

“This is something I wanted our kids and grandkids to have,” he said. “It’s not something where we sell it and then we’re gone. They’d have the money, and that’s great, but they wouldn’t have the history behind it.”