MSHOF sells longtime home, plans relocation

Jim Hagale plans to house various business ventures in MSHOF building.

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame has sold its longtime home, and the nonprofit has plans for a relocation within Springfield to be preceded by a temporary office space.

Rob Marsh, executive director and CEO of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, said the nonprofit sold the 3861 E. Stan Musial Drive building to businessman Jim Hagale. The deal for the building, located off U.S. Highway 65 adjacent to Highland Springs, closed Oct. 14 for undisclosed terms, Marsh said.

“We are going to use the funds to at some point reinvest into a more modern facility,” he said. “This building has served very well. I want to ensure to continue to honor everybody that has been inducted with a new face and make sure that their families and extended families have a place to come visit and relive those memories and all the accomplishments.”

The MSHOF has resided in the 34,000-square-foot building since 1994, Marsh said. That’s the same year the nonprofit – which honors sports accomplishments via event programming and runs the Price Cutter Charity Championship charity golf tournament – was founded. 

The MSHOF intends to relocate to a temporary office space within 30 days, Marsh said.

The nonprofit signed a lease for undisclosed terms to occupy 431 and 433 W. Walnut St., which has been home in years past to The Geek Foundation and the Bates & Associates architecture firm. Marsh said the MSHOF worked with Jared Enterprises Inc. to find the temporary space. The roughly 21,000-square-foot building is owned by Due North Investments LLC, according to Greene County assessor records.

Marsh expects MSHOF to spend a minimum of a year in the Walnut Street space as it searches for a new home. He said the organization is currently viewing a few sites, but a new headquarters has not yet been nailed down.

“We want the Hall of Fame to be more centrally located in Springfield for visibility,” he said. “We have some ideas that we’re going to be releasing sometime soon of the vision.”

Marsh said the MSHOF intends to find an existing building for its new home and anticipates needing around the same amount of square footage as the building on Stan Musial Drive.

“I’d rather find the right empty building around Springfield and ... look forward to getting out there and seeing what is available and if something can be worked out,” he said.

Marsh said some of the historical items in the Hall of Fame would be on display at the temporary office space. Additionally, he said Hagale has agreed to keep the busts of sports figures on the exterior of the MSHOF until the nonprofit finds its new home.

“He couldn’t have been a better partner throughout this,” Marsh said of Hagale, calling him an “absolutely upstanding individual.”

Hagale plans
The MSHOF’s headquarters in the Highland Springs area has been closed to visitors for around four years, said Marsh. He said the nonprofit has not had the available funds to pay for needed structural and mechanical renovations.

Hagale, who is retired from Bass Pro Shops after a 20-year career that included a stint as its president, said “there’s a significant amount of retrofitting we intend to do” at the newly purchased building. Declining to estimate expected renovation costs, he noted, “They will be significant.”

Hagale said his various business ventures, including the Hagale Family Arabians LLC operation that breeds horses, would consolidate their offices into the MSHOF building.

“There’s a lot of space beyond what we need for our offices,” he said. “This is an opportunity for us to do community kind of events. This is an ideal location and environment to do some of that.”

In the rough
At the MSHOF, the sale of the building and the planned relocation come about a month after the nonprofit announced the cancellation of the annual Price Cutter Charity Championship golf tournament and charity fundraiser in 2026.

Springfield Business Journal previously reported that a scheduling conflict with the PGA Tour led to the decision. The PGA-sanctioned event through the Korn Ferry Tour has been held every year at Highland Springs Country Club from 1990 to 2025.

The fundraising total from the 2025 tournament has not yet been announced. Roughly 30 nonprofits and organizations participated in the July tournament this year, according to past reporting, and Florida golfer Chandler Blanchet won the 36th annual event with a total purse of $1 million.

Marsh said the MSHOF is on track to hold its Celebration of Sharing event in November. That’s when participating charities are presented with funds raised at the golf tournament.

Marsh, who was hired for the top role at the MSHOF in January after previously serving as chief operating officer of Pyramid Foods, joined the organization during a tumultuous time in its history.

Former MSHOF and PCC leader Jerald Andrews said at a December 2024 news conference that the organization owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities and vendors, and Marsh was introduced as the new CEO amid a turnaround effort, according to past reporting. By July, the MSHOF said it had nearly completed paying charities what they were owed from the 2024 tournament.