Big New Road: $30M Kansas Expressway extension opens after 4 decades – what’s next for nearby real estate?

It took some 41 years for the Springfield area to complete just over two miles of road dubbed the Kansas Expressway Extension.

But in the mid-morning of Sept. 26, the second and final phase of Greene County’s new north-south corridor, from Republic Road to Farm Road 190, opened to vehicle traffic.

Video provided by Greene County

The goal of the project, according to county officials, is to better facilitate travel between Greene and Christian counties and pull traffic away from parallel corridors like Campbell Avenue and Cox Road. The project construction cost $28.2 million, with the federal taxpayer bearing some 80% of the expense, while Greene County taxpayers forked over the rest. Planning and preparation by Greene County and other local governments got started back in 1984, according to past reporting by Springfield Business Journal. Right-of-way acquisition by Greene County got started in 1996. And after decades of discussion, including opposition by some homeowners, actual construction of the extension was quick. Phase I of the project, from Republic Road south to Plainview Road, began in early 2022 and wrapped up two years later, according to Greene County news releases. Phase II, from Plainview Road to south Farm Road 190 plus an east-west connector to Cox Road, got started in early 2024 and finished up last month.

Ultimately, Greene County touted the project as “completed on time and under budget.” Kansas Expressway Extension features improved intersections and turn lanes, a 40-mile-per-hour speed limit and even a parkway-style design that accommodates a new 10-foot paved pathway for bicyclists and pedestrians. Its concrete surface flows like a smooth white ribbon over the green grass along the roadside, resembling similar multimodal pathways like Grant Avenue Parkway or Ozark Greenways trails.

Opposition and lawsuits
During the project’s development and construction, some homeowners in subdivisions along the Kansas Expressway Extension had concerns. Traffic congestion, the expense to taxpayer coffers and environmental impacts topped the list.

Dr. Gil Mobley owns a home whose acreage backs up directly against the western side of the new road’s right-of-way.

Mobley did not want the extension, so much so that he filed two lawsuits against it in federal court. In September 2019, he filed a suit seeking $2.4 billion in damages, naming defendants including the three members of the Greene County Commission at the time and myriad others linked to the project. Mobley’s lawsuit argued the extension highway was the product of fraud and conspiracy and would cause ecological harm.

By Christmas of that year, Mobley’s lawsuit was dismissed for lack of standing to sue.

Years later, just before construction was set to begin, Mobley sued again, naming the project’s contractor, Emery Sapp & Sons Inc., and the Greene County Highway Department as defendants. A judge on July 27, 2022, denied Mobley’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have halted construction.

SBJ connected with Mobley early this month for a homeowner’s take on the new extension.

“The new Kansas Expressway Extension doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem on the local residents’ radar,” Mobley said. Traffic moves “efficiently,” in his words, and the extra-wide bike-and-pedestrian path beside the road is an amenity that makes it quicker for him to walk down to the James River.

That wasn’t always his attitude, Mobley said. He and his neighbors “dreaded” the extension for decades, but he endorsed the alignment option for the extension that was ultimately built because it stayed off his property. Mobley says there are two acres of land between his home and the new road, buffered by a berm he set up at his property’s edge over the past several decades.

Mobley said the only downside these days is noise from cars and motorcycles with large loud motors, a complaint made by residents in other city neighborhoods, according to past SBJ reporting.

“Everybody is relieved that the construction phase is over,” Mobley said, “and as far as the value to the homes, I’ve been toying with the idea of selling my home for a few years, and it just doesn’t seem to be an issue.”

Data from the Southern Missouri Regional MLS collected since the extension route began opening in February 2024 sheds light on real estate market conditions in neighborhoods surrounding the extension route: Homes are selling for just under asking prices.

On Oct. 15, SBJ reviewed MLS data for the 65810 ZIP Code, which includes subdivisions like Mobley’s, directly along the extension route, along with other subdivisions south of Republic Road. Homes in that area had an average asking price of $467,628 since the road began opening to traffic. The sale-to-list price ratio for that ZIP Code was 97.47% over that time period, meaning sellers were getting close to their asking price. Meanwhile, homes were on the market for an average of 63 cumulative days.

In Greene County as a whole, homes had 64 cumulative days on the market – just a day longer to sell on average than in the 65810 area. Meanwhile, across the county, sellers were getting a bit less money than they asked for in exchange for houses, compared to sales in the vicinity of the extension route. The county-wide sale-to-list price ratio was 96.91%, and the average asking price was $348,528.

“I really don’t think it’s that big a deal,” said Jeff Frye, a real estate agent who’s lived in Springfield 35 years. Because he represents home properties in the vicinity of the extension, he drives the route frequently. Frye said the term expressway, for many homeowners, “has its own stigma to it.”

Asked about real estate market effects of the new extension route leading through south Springfield and southern Greene County, Frye said, “I think that the expressway itself has definitely affected property values along the expressway. That being said, the activity on the expressway is really not much different than the activity on Weaver or Plainview, what those people have dealt with for 50-60 years, as traffic comes down those roads.”

Frye said the comparison with Weaver and Plainview roads, both of which are key connectors running east-west through neighborhoods in Springfield and Battlefield south of Republic Road, was apt because parts of the Kansas Expressway Extension are two lanes, with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour, similar to conditions on Weaver and Plainview. Frye’s nickname for the extension route is “the Rivercut Parkway,” since the extension’s southern end at Farm Road 190 blends into a road officially named Rivercut Parkway just west of the extension, near Ward Branch Creek.

“If you’re living along there, and they tell you they’re building Kansas Expressway behind your home, and your understanding of Kansas Expressway is what you’re used to – Republic Road to I-44 – sure, you’re nervous,” Frye said.

“What was built was not that,” he added.

Positive impact and smart development
On Oct. 2, just before he delivered his annual State of the County speech at a Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce event, Greene County Presiding Commissioner Bob Dixon, who also works as a real estate agent, shared his own view of what might happen to real estate market conditions now that the road has been finally completed.

“I’ve learned over the years not to speculate too much,” Dixon said to SBJ, “even being a Realtor, because I just don’t know what all of the impacts may be to the real estate market, but I will say that it’s going to have a positive impact on traffic flow, which was the reason that the 30 years of planning was done.”

During his State of the County speech, Dixon said county officials had reviewed the project for planning and public-input compliance before declaring it on time and under budget when the road opened: “We took time, some serious time, to reexamine that all requirements mandated by federal and state partners pursuant to the proposed Kansas Expressway Extension had been fully met,” he said.

The following day, SBJ asked Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Matt Morrow, a former executive with homebuilder associations in Springfield and Birmingham, Alabama, what kind of market conditions might emerge in the neighborhoods surrounding the new road.

“I think what you can probably predict, more than what the direct impact on prices will be, is the opportunity that exists for additional smart development in that area,” Morrow said.

“Land is not a site,” Morrow said, referencing places available for building and development. “So, you turn it into a site by having access and infrastructure. That goes whether you’re talking about commercial building development or residential, for that matter.”

Morrow said that creating more efficient traffic flow between Greene and Christian counties would promote development as commercial and retail projects follow housing rooftops, allowing each of the two counties to grow “together into a larger and more comprehensive metropolitan area.”

“Development does follow infrastructure,” Morrow said. “And it’s not just transportation; it’s water and sewer and utilities.”

Wise investment in infrastructure, guided by thoughtful planning, “helps a community and a region grow in the most healthy way possible,” Morrow said.