Q&A Rusty Worley, Director, Urban Districts Alliance

Worley: We've got an exciting year on tap for Urban Districts Alliance and the center-city area. We're the umbrella organization for center city, and that means downtown, Walnut Street and Commercial Street. We're excited to have College Station, the construction for it starting, and looking forward to this time next year when we have 14 new movie screens, new restaurants and retail here, taking the momentum that we've built to a whole other level.

In addition to that, of course, we have the construction at Heer's, which will (have) retail, offices and lofts. … And with the lofts on the condominium side, that's introducing a whole new element to our downtown. We have the Bay-Wilhoit project, which will have a combination of lofts, retail, restaurants, and also 400 Place, which is already off and running with some wonderful renovated lofts. We have Ella Weiss, which is a new bridal store, a wonderful, upscale retail store. Then we have a fun, family-oriented retail site with 1984. It was a huge hit for First Night, and we have folks coming in there all the time, people of my generation figuring out that their favorite games are there (such as) Pacman and Frogger. We continue to have expansion of the lofts, with renovations of the Ozark Camera Building on Walnut Street. We'll have the Finkbiner building on Olive, and several lofts continue to be constructed.

From an event management standpoint, we're very excited about the ArtsFest weekend, the first weekend in May. We have the Springfield Cardinals playing at home that weekend, we have ArtsFiesta, ArtsFest, the Springfield Symphony playing that Saturday night in Jordan Valley Park. We have a cinema competition throughout the whole weekend.

There's also the Gillioz Theatre, which will open in the fall, and is exciting to have downtown.

SBJ: What are some ongoing challenges that UDA continues to address?

Worley: Foremost is the continuation of the Community Improvement District, which expires Dec. 31. We continue to work this year to go through the process of getting a new petition and getting that vote to (renew the CID) this calendar year. That really is the key element to the clean, safe and friendly initiatives that we have downtown. (The CID) provides us supplemental resources that we need to clean the sidewalks, to remove snow, to provide Wi-Fi downtown, which makes it a unique area. It helps with the image enhancement … banners, dining and entertainment guides. The CID is the enabler for all of those activities, and we need that to be continued.

Parking is always a concern for downtown. The Davis Parking Garage has spent $200,000 to renovate those 360 spaces on McDaniel Street and has brought that parking back into our inventory. They spent that (money) on lighting, on security cameras, on painting and really freshened that up. Then College Station will introduce over 400 spaces to downtown, and the Heer's parking deck, when it's constructed, will have another 400 spaces. So there will be over 1,000 spaces added in the near future.

(Plans for) Commercial Street are something that have generated a lot of interest, and there's significant momentum happening there, with developers looking to get in on center-city development after the pattern that they've seen in downtown.

SBJ: What will be the result of rejuvenation efforts for Commercial Street?

Worley: This year, we want to hire a full-time coordinator for the Commercial Street plan, to have someone on the street, interacting with the business owners and the residents in that area … to put together clean, safe and friendly initiatives for Commercial Street. As Commercial Street begins to develop, you'll see more connections happening between Commercial Street and downtown. The Boonville corridor will really be a redevelopment area. It's already very much a redevelopment area, with the Jordan Valley Innovation Center and the great things that are happening there. (You'll see) that whole corridor develop in a way that it will be a great fit with Jordan Valley Park.

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