Convention center visioning seeks to gauge local pulse

Architectural firm Populous Inc. gave a second public presentation last night, this one at the Springfield Expo Center, an existing city-owned building to be incorporated into a new downtown convention and events center, if the project moves forward.

Promoted as a community visioning workshop, the format was a presentation by Populous architect Colleen Cassidy, who shared the outcome of earlier visioning sessions, with audience members breaking out into an exercise aimed at expressing the city’s character. Those present were invited to place stickers or Post-its on standup displays. As examples, one exhibit asked participants to identify experiences that are uniquely Springfield, and another asked them to relate moments, traditions or habits that best reflect city culture. Some of the displays showed engaging color photos from around the city, and participants were invited to place a sticker on photos to identify local places that matter to them, such as the places where people of all ages spend time together.

Representatives of Kansas City-based Populous and its local partner, Sapp Design Associates Architects Inc., as well as city officials, were present to answer questions.

During the presentation, Cassidy offered a glimpse at insights gleaned from smaller teams that met earlier this week. These were composed of city staff and Visit Springfield, Missouri, representatives, according to Tim Rosenbury, the city’s director of quality of place initiatives. Some other community members also told Springfield Business Journal they were present for the small-group workshops.

An example of the insights could be seen in a slider chart showing a range of viewpoints on the type of facility desired. Group opinions were measured on a scale to gauge participants’ preferred descriptions of a new facility. Among the preferences were the terms forward-looking over rooted; emerging over comfortable; memorable over familiar; and local instead of world-facing.

Key words used by those stakeholders were destination, unique, inviting, welcoming, energizing, accessible, thoughtful and proud.

Visioning process
In an interview during the event, Rosenbury, who is also an architect and the city’s lead on the project, offered what he considered some key takeaways from the small-group visioning.

“People are looking for something that is a true fit for Springfield,” he said. “They don’t want something that’s cookie-cutter, and they’re willing to take risks to do something that’s out of the ordinary to help make this more marketable. If we give them a formulaic solution, they’re going to be disappointed.”

Rosenbury said an important word for stakeholders was “rooted.”

“One of the outcomes of having out-of-town architects is, if they say, ‘Well, what do you want?’ one of the first things a local group is going to say is, ‘Well, we don’t want your standard dog-and-pony show,’” he said.

Councilmember Heather Hardinger, who was a participant in a stakeholder workshop earlier in the day and also attended the nighttime session, said a fruitful discussion was held on what the building should be called.

“We didn’t decide on anything, but we were just kind of talking through what’s representative of our community,” she said.

Hardinger said the stakeholder input seemed to provide a view into the local mindset – how someone who lives in Springfield might regard a center.

“I have been enjoying the visioning process,” she said. “I also enjoy hearing what other people think, because some people have different ideas than I have.”

Geoff Steele, executive director of the Gillioz Center for Arts and Entertainment, said he participated in small-group visioning and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Gillioz said there is a natural corridor surrounding the proposed convention center site, which includes and is adjoining the current Expo Center on St. Louis Street. That includes arts locations like the Gillioz, the Shrine Mosque, the Fox Theatre and the Landers Theatre, as well as theaters for first-run and independent films and galleries.

“What a lot of Springfieldians know, and for some of them, may have forgotten, is if you travel much, this is a great place to live – and I’ve extensively, nationally and internationally, and I live here by choice, and I love it,” he said.

He said he sees this in national touring acts that appear at the Gillioz; many call him after their appearance to say they are looking to purchase property locally. Bringing people into the heart of the city in a convention and events center will likely elicit more interest in the city, he said.

“I think we’re just undiscovered country,” he said. “We’ve got something pretty special here. If we can get this done, then I think maybe we become a national destination on a lot of new levels.”

Cassidy said the visioning process in the time leading up to a citywide vote on a tax to fund the center is about broad themes and messaging, rather than specific architectural features. Those kinds of in-depth visioning meetings will come after funding is assured, she said.

“What we don’t want to do is lead people down that path before this is even real yet,” she said.

She added that the information being collected now will help with the visualizations Populous is preparing for the city to release in the lead up to the April 7 vote.

Architect candidates
The city received 10 statements of qualifications from design teams seeking the potential convention center contract, and four of those were chosen to submit a proposal including schedule of fees.

Springfield Business Journal obtained the list of firms vying for selection through a Sunshine Law records request from the city. For each team, Springfield-based companies submitted as either principal architects or local partners, usually with a larger partner, but in one instance with another local firm. In one instance, a local architect submitted alone.

In addition to Populous Inc. with local partner Sapp Design Associates Architects Inc., the other finalist firms were San Francisco-based M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates Inc. with local partner Buxton Kubik Dodd Design Collective; LMN Architects LLP with local partner nForm Architecture LLC; and the three-party team of Marlon Blackwell Architects, based in Fayetteville, with Omaha, Nebraska-based DLR Group and local partner Sapp Design Associates Architects Inc. (also the local partner in the winning proposal).

The six teams that did not advance to the finalist stage were Arcturis with Snow Kreilich Architects Inc.; BRP Architects with BNIM LLC; Buf Studio LLC with Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates Inc., Architects; Dake Wells Architecture Inc. with Hood-Rich Inc.; H Design Group LLC with Convergence Design LLC; and Kinetic Design and Development LLC.