No. 1: City pursues $175 million convention, event center

News happened quickly when it came to the top local business story of 2025: a proposed downtown convention and event center, introduced to Springfield City Council on July 7.

A lot has transpired since Mark Hecquet, president and CEO of Visit Springfield, Missouri, unveiled to council the results of a feasibility study by Chicago-based consultant Hunden Strategic Partners Inc.

The consultant recommended an event center that was suitable for both conventions and community uses. The estimated cost of the center was set at $175 million, not including a connected 400-room hotel – deemed essential – for an additional $209 million, anticipated to be funded through a public-private partnership.

The report estimated the center would bring in 164 events with 251 event days and nearly 180,000 attendees, according to Springfield Business Journal reporting at the time.

Mayor Jeff Schrag said he envisioned the event center being in place by 2028. The report estimated the project would generate an average of $26 million in net new spending annually and $1.3 billion in spending over 30 years – and it figured the city was losing $125,114 daily by inactivity.

Prior to the report’s release, the Missouri legislature earmarked $30 million in its fiscal 2026 budget for a new Springfield convention center, with the expectation that the city would provide a one-to-one match for the funds. However, Gov. Mike Kehoe designated the funds as restricted – not vetoed, but not released to the city.

By late August, council came up with the required match by approving a $30 million expenditure from the Spring Forward SGF capital improvement sales tax – all of the estimated proceeds from the tax. Voters approved the three-quarter-cent tax in November 2024 with the idea that a half-cent of it would go toward projects recommended in the city’s comprehensive plan.

But to prove the city’s readiness to support a center, council proposed an additional 3% lodging tax to help fund the center’s construction while also funding efforts to attract travel and tourism to the city.

The 3% increase in the lodging tax would have brought the city’s total lodging tax to 16.1% and raise an additional $4.4 million annually.

The tax measure failed, with some 52% of voters shading in the oval marked “no.”

Kehoe, interviewed by SBJ in December, called himself a fan of the convention center idea, and he added that if city leaders can convince residents to back a convention center, he may be able to release the $30 million in state funding, which has a June 2026 deadline for action.

“I think everybody needs to feel like they have a path to get there before we look at what the opportunities are to release the funding that’s in the budget,” Kehoe said at the time.

As the year comes to an end, the future of a center remains a question mark. City Manager David Cameron told SBJ in mid-December – only five months after the idea was first recommended – that the city continues to work toward the project.