Underground, Chesterfield release development plans

An annexation request for 545 acres of property and 5.66 acres of Greene County right of way was approved at the June 26 Springfield City Council meeting.

The property, according to Underground CEO Louis Griesemer, will be developed in much the same way as the original facility in northeast Springfield.

Springfield Underground also has filed a planned development for the land at Interstate 44 and Chestnut Expressway, also called Highway 266. Council heard a first reading on that development at the meeting.

A few council members, including Councilman Bob Jones, expressed interest in how the planned work would affect the property geologically over the next several hundred years. “We also think in terms of hundreds of years,” Griesemer told the council. “On our east side, we’ve done extensive study on how we mine that, and the technology is a lot better now than it was at that time. We’re going to rely on our consultants to help us with the underground mine planning on this property as well.”

A few neighboring property owners expressed concern about the area, but their issue was not with the Griesemer family’s development. Their concern was with the Missouri Department of Transportation’s plan to add a new access road to Springfield-Branson National Airport’s new Midfield Terminal – a road that would effectively make Highway 266, which is part of what once was Route 66, an outer road.

“We’re proud of the heritage of Route 66, and it’s kind of ironic that what we’re talking about now is completely replacing it,” said Jim Rogers, whose family owns the property at 5318 W. Highway 266. “Property owners have a right to be heard and have input into the construction of what is essentially a four-lane superhighway.”

Council is scheduled to vote on the development at its July 10 meeting.

Chesterfield’s final tract

Another development at the confluence of two major thoroughfares also was in front of council for changes to its plan.

Modern Tractor and Supply Co. is the owner of southwest Springfield’s Chesterfield Village, and the company now has a plan for the last portion of undeveloped land in the area, located at the northwest corner of Kansas Expressway and James River Freeway.

The land was home to a tractor training school for Ford tractor distributors operated by Lester E. Cox until 1963. His heirs – including Lester B. Cox and Larry Lipscomb, the heads of Modern Tractor and Supply – turned the land into Chesterfield Village.

Council heard a proposed amendment to the village’s planned development, first approved in 1992, which would allow office buildings up to six stories and additional retail activity.

Neil Fossnight, vice president of Scott Consulting Engineers PC, told council that the plan has been a long time coming. Scott Consulting has done the civil engineering work on the property since initial development.

“This is the last significant tract in Chesterfield Village,” Fossnight said. “It’s taken a lot longer than most people expected ... but this really returns to the spirit of the development.”

Council is expected to vote on the plan July 10.[[In-content Ad]]