Springfield mayor mum on real estate dealings for potential convention center site 

Jeff Schrag: When Springfield convention center proposal is explained to residents, “they think it’s a good idea.” 

As Springfield voters prepare to decide the fate of a 3% lodging tax on Nov. 4 to help fund the development of a regional convention and event center, the state’s governor told Springfield Business Journal in an exclusive interview Oct. 30 that the city is amid real estate dealings for the potential facility.   

Gov. Mike Kehoe alluded to real estate negotiations the city is involved in as part of plans for the center. While not providing specifics, he said, “There are some real estate acquisition parts we’re still working out.” 

“My last conversation with the mayor [Jeff Schrag], there’s some pieces they’re still working out that they’re not ready to talk about publicly,” Kehoe said. “Not that they’re trying to hide something; they’ll be fully out in the open. But when you’re dealing with a real estate deal or you’re negotiating for a piece of property, sometimes those things are something that has to happen before the rest of the work.” 

Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag said in a phone interview this morning that he could neither confirm nor deny that the city is in real estate negotiations. He added he believes the center will be a good use of community resources.  

“We can’t find anything else that’s this broad-based,” he said. “It will be new, and it will be reasonable and measured.” 

City Council unanimously passed an ordinance on July 28 to put the lodging tax question to voters, according to past reporting. The city’s desire is to have visitors to Springfield, rather than local taxpayers, help fund the $175 million center planned for an unannounced downtown location. 

Along with a $209 million hotel complex that could be built near the proposed convention center, the proposed project could drive $1.3 billion in new visitor spending – and $68.7 million in net fiscal impact – over the 30 years following construction. That’s according to a consultant’s report commissioned by Visit Springfield, Missouri and presented to council in July.  

Missouri lawmakers allocated $30 million to the project in their current fiscal 2026 budget. However, on June 30 Kehoe designated the funds as restricted, placing the convention center line item alongside 31 other state funding restrictions and 208 budget vetoes, according to a news release issued by the governor’s office this summer. 

Kehoe said in yesterday’s interview he currently expects the city will receive the state funding but didn’t provide a timeline for when that may take place. He said the funding, if released, must happen by June 2026. City Council has allocated $30 million from the Spring Forward SGF tax to provide a match for the state funds. 

“Mayor Schrag and I have been in constant communication on that specific piece,” Kehoe said. “That’s what we call a withheld, so it didn’t get vetoed out of the budget, but it is something that was very important to your Springfield-area legislators, both Democrat and Republican, and specifically Sen. [Lincoln] Hough, who was the appropriations chair for that particular piece.” 

While Kehoe didn’t indicate if the Nov. 4 lodging tax proposal must pass as a requirement of the state funding to be released, he said city leaders have indicated they feel “pretty good” about the issue’s chances. 

“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,” he said. 

Schrag said the Nov. 4 election results will be a good gauge of community support, and he expressed confidence in the outcome. 

“What we’ve seen is that once you explain it to someone, they think it’s a good idea,” he said. “Thirty percent of people are always going to be against it, because 30% are always against everything.” 

No architectural drawings have yet been prepared for the proposed convention and event center. Because of this, SBJ asked Schrag how confident he is about the $175 million price estimate. 

“At some point, we’re going to know how much money we have, and we’re going to build it to that,” he said.  

He added that funding will determine the final product: “I’m very committed to not being a pie-in-the-sky guy, saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to build this Taj Mahal, this monument to Springfield, this Queen City Center – cost be damned,’” he said. 

Added Schrag, “You figure out what you can spend and do the best you can with that, knowing you’re going to have things like cost overruns and having contingency funds.” 

He said the city’s Citizens' Tax Oversight Committee does a great job of making sure taxes raised in the city are used exactly as intended. 

“They look at those regularly, and that’s a wise thing,” Schrag said.