Hurts Donut to relocate downtown shop to retail center

Hurts Donut Co. is relocating its original downtown store to a retail center near Mercy Hospital Springfield.

Founder and CEO Tim Clegg said a spring opening is targeted at 1231 E. Sunshine St., a retail and office center launched by Sagamore Hill Development Co. LLC in 2018. R.B. Murray Co. CEO Ryan Murray brokered the lease, Clegg said, declining to disclose the financial terms.

Hurts Donut will fill the roughly 3,800-square-foot free-standing building that's closest to National Avenue. It's been empty since the Sagamore Hill project was completed.

"We were really interested in it early on, pre-COVID. That halted conversations," Clegg said. "We've kept in touch with Ryan over the past two years. We finally just felt like it was the right time to make the transition away from downtown."

Clegg said parking issues downtown – a lot adjacent to the store went private in recent years – and crime issues led to plans to relocate the store. Originally at 301 Park Central West when it opened in 2013, Hurts Donut moved the downtown store less than a block down the street to 320 Park Central West in 2015, according to past reporting.

Another appeal of the Sagamore Hill retail center was a drive-thru at the newly leased building, Clegg said. It will be the first drive-thru in Springfield for Hurts Donut, which also operates a south-side store near Republic Road and National Avenue.

"It's a model that we've been developing on paper in response to COVID over the past little while," he said.

Clegg said Hurts Donut's investment in renovating the Sagamore Hill property has not yet been finalized. Build-Co is serving as general contractor, with Godwin & Associates is on board as project architect, he said.