P&Z votes down rezoning at Sunshine and National 

A tie vote meant failure to recommend a proposed rezoning by developer BK&M LLC for contested property at the northwest corner of Sunshine Street and National Avenue. 

The city’s Planning & Zoning Commission voted 4-4 last night on a measure to rezone the property at the city’s second-busiest intersection to an office designation with a conditional overlay district from its current single-family residential classification. 

The matter is now scheduled to go to Springfield City Council – which is not required to follow P&Z guidance – for a first reading and public hearing on Oct. 5, with a vote set to follow two weeks after. 

Since BK&M first proposed rezoning at a neighborhood meeting more than three years ago, on Aug. 18, 2022, multiple neighbors have turned out at P&Z, council and neighborhood meetings, with most stating opposition. That was the case during the public hearing of last night’s meeting as well, with 10 speakers lined up against the rezoning and only the developer’s representative, civil engineer Chris Wynn of CJW Transportation Consultants LLC, speaking in favor of it. 

The meeting marks the fourth time P&Z has rejected a rezoning of the property. It previously nixed a conditional overlay district for a mixed-use residential and commercial building to be used as a boutique grocery store in April 2023, a general retail designation for a food hall with pickleball courts in December 2023, and a general retail designation for an unspecified use in August 2024. 

Last night’s 4-4 vote represented progress for the BK&M team, which lost the P&Z vote 6-2 in last year’s appearance. Supporting the measure last night were Helen Gunther, Layne Hunton, Bill Knuckles and Dan Scott. Opposed were Chair Randall Doennig, Bruce Colony, Eric Pauly and Betty Ridge. Commissioner Christopher Lebeck, who has recused himself in the past as a resident of the neighborhood, was absent. 

In August 2024, only Knuckles and Scott supported the zoning change. 

Office 2 
This time around, BK&M was seeking an Office 2 designation, first proposed at an Aug. 21 neighborhood meeting. A notification for the meeting proposed a general retail designation for the property, but the developer switched to Office 2 the day before. No specific plans were presented at the neighborhood meeting or to P&Z. 

Office 2 allows 10 uses under city code: 

• A continued use or replacement of residential dwellings
• Community gardens
• Educational, religious, cultural, public and nonprofit institutions
• General offices
• Medical offices
• Nursing and retirement homes
• Public and private parks and playgrounds
• Residential uses above the first floor or behind nonresidential uses to create a continuous nonresidential facade
• Retail sales within 10% of an office building
• Short-term rentals limited to 30 days

The proposed COD placed further limitations on the property, voluntarily disallowing certain retail and entertainment uses otherwise permitted in Office 2 developments. The city staff report on the rezoning proposal notes, “The applicant has prohibited entertainment-oriented use group and personal service use group which can be high-volume traffic generators.” 

The report adds that the COD would also restrict other uses that are potentially objectionable, such as retail sales of adult novelties, pawn shops, vape shops, convenience stores with gas pumps. Operation would be limited to business hours of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. all days of the week. 

The proposed COD also modifies the maximum building height to a limit of 50 feet, meaning a structure would not exceed three or four stories. Office 2 does not include height restrictions, and that is its only difference from Office 1. Additionally, Office 2 does not have a bulk plane requirement, according to the staff report, but the COD sets a 30-degree bulk plane, meaning for every foot of structure height, the building must be set back from the district boundary line by 1.73 feet. 

Commissioners weigh in 
In voting against a rezoning recommendation, Pauly cited the lack of specificity of the plan. 

“The thing that I have not heard in any of these meetings is anything solid that we could grab a hold of and make sense out of. It’s been a whole lot of ‘we could,’ ifs and maybes,” he said. 

At the neighborhood meeting, BK&M partner and spokesperson Ralph Duda said that his intention was to sell the property instead of developing it and added, “I’ve exhausted all efforts for us to develop it ourselves.” 

That proved to be a sticking point for Pauly. 

“Looking at the possibility of rezoning this at this point with the stated idea that the property would be sold, we’re going into even a darker hole at that point of not knowing where this is going to end up,” Pauly said. “When we look at the second-busiest intersection in the city of Springfield, Missouri, I think we need to be very aware of what this is going to be – how this is going to look in the future.” 

Pauly also reminded his colleagues that P&Z originally recommended the Sunshine Street Corridor Study, which kicked off June 3 at a cost of $702,000 to the city. The study is intended to provide recommendations on 3.1 miles of the roadway. 

“I think it is very important that now that we do have this in motion that we allow it to play out so we know what Sunshine Street might look like, could look like, in the future, without the idea of basically just writing a blank check and saying, ‘Here you go.’” 

Approving the rezoning without seeing the recommendations of the corridor study is putting the cart before the horse, he said. 

Scott said a commissioner’s primary job is to judge whether a rezoning proposal complies with the city’s Forward SGF comprehensive plan, which guides development in the city.  

“I believe this project does that,” he said. 

He added that within three to five months, the city’s land development code will be revised, and zoning designations of Office 1 and Office 2 will entirely disappear into C-MX1, a new mixed-use district that is a transitional designation from single-family residential to other uses. That’s how he comes to terms with the 50-foot height, he said, calling that voluntary limitation an adequate response to the neighborhood. 

“I feel like I have to set aside my personal preferences of I can see this possibly as a great townhouse building,” he said. “My personal preference has nothing to do, in my opinion, with whether this qualifies, A, to be submitted for rezoning, or B, whether it qualifies for the rezoning that is proposed.” 

Ridge said she was concerned with whether the rezoning should be done. 

“Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should,” she said. “I see that in this case because I’m concerned about what my community looks like.” 

She called University Heights an attractive and cohesive district with longtime homeowners who take pride in their property. 

“I do respect that, and I give that value,” she said. “There are office buildings on every corner, practically, and I don’t know that we need another rone of them, and as I pointed out, many of those buildings are vacant.” 

She added that she is concerned with preserving a quality neighborhood. 

Colony said he remains unconvinced that a rezoning to Office 2 is complementary to the neighborhood. 

“This is way too important of a corner, not just to the people that live in University Heights, but to the city of Springfield as a whole,” he said. “There’s a lot going on here.” 

Rezoning to Office 2 would not fix anything, Colony said. 

“I don’t think they’ve checked all the boxes, and I don’t think it fits,” he said. 

The city’s right to rezone the property is the subject of a court case brought by a group of neighborhood residents against BK&M. The original plaintiffs were attempting to get the court to uphold covenants from the property’s original platting that disallow commercial development. That case, lost by residents in Greene County Circuit Court, is now being appealed.