Voters reject tax to fund convention center

As results were rolling in on election night and the defeat of a tax to fund a convention center seemed likely, Springfield City Manager David Cameron signaled the end of the city’s pursuit of the long-sought downtown development.

While Springfield City Council is the body with the final say, Cameron said he would not recommend that the city attempt to pass the 3% tax on stays at hotels, motels and short-term rentals in the city again. The proposed tax was to serve as the critical funding piece for the estimated $175 million project.

This is the second time in five months that the tax measure, largely unchanged, was voted down by Springfield residents.

“There is no funding mechanism other than this opportunity, so it would not be coming back up,” Cameron said.

The ballot measure proposed an additional 3% tax on stays at hotels, motels and short-term rentals in the city. The key difference between the November 2025 ballot measure and this one was the addition of a 35-year sunset. Additionally, city officials released initial architectural renderings of the proposed center and revealed a location for its construction.

Cameron has acknowledged the city’s initial attempts to pass the tax in November were hasty and lacked details for voters, which led to community visioning sessions, public engagements and the release of design and site plans ahead of the April 7 vote. The fact that $30 million in state funding, approved in May 2025, was on the table as an additional funding source for the project was a key factor in the quick turn on the initial failed election followed by the quick return to the ballot, he said.

Asked to describe his feelings on the election outcome shortly after unofficial results showed the tax had been defeated, Cameron was reflective.

“You want what you believe is best for your community, but I believe that’s listening to what the voters have to say about it,” he said, citing 99 community engagements by the city in the lead-up to the election. “This is how I feel I’m called to lead and manage the city based upon what I’m given to manage, and if the voters have said no in that capacity to the project, that’s saying to me to go to work even more so on the five priorities that the council’s identified.”

After the election, Elliott Lodging Ltd. CEO Gordon Elliott, who serves as treasurer for two political action committees that advocated for the tax – Friends of SGF and Committee for the Future PAC – said it would have been foolhardy not to make an attempt to secure $30 million in state budget funds by pursuing the tax within the current year, though he understood why it was unsuccessful.

Unlike Cameron, Elliott said a future attempt at a convention center is possible, though it won’t happen soon.

“I don’t think it’s out of the question,” he said, adding that a convention center has been talked about in the city for at least 40 years.

Elliott added that he had seen the rendering of the proposed design and wasn’t sure that the scope was necessary.

“It may be the convention center that we get might be a little simpler,” he said. “We need a convention center that we’ve never had. Everyone else is putting one in, and that’s the key to it. We don’t want to be left behind.”

Ex-tourism chief reacts
For three and a half decades, Tracy Kimberlin promoted the city to prospective visitors as director of the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, now called Visit Springfield, Missouri. He said he saw multiple groups either leave or not book because of lack of suitable facilities.

The failure of the 3% additional tourism tax means there will be no convention center, Kimberlin said – just a deteriorating and underused exposition center.

“The Expo Center is never going to function as a convention center – it never has, and it wasn’t intended to, and it’s sure as hell not going to in the future,” he said.

Kimberlin predicts further decline for the building and for the University Plaza hotel and conference facility across the street.

“We already are appealing to visitors; we’re just not appealing to large convention and event planners, because we don’t have the facilities,” he said. “Unless they’re constructed, they’ve got all kinds of other options across the country that can handle events, and we’re missing a huge opportunity.”

Asked if he sees any opportunities to attract tourism without the benefit of a convention center, Kimberlin brought up an idea proposed by Phoenix-based Huddle Up Group LLC, a sports consulting firm hired by the Greater Springfield Area Sports Commission Inc. That idea is to convert the Expo Center into an indoor sports facility.

Kimberlin said a 2.5% existing hotel tax will become available in 2028 when a bond is retired, and that could be used to revamp the Expo Center without requiring a vote of the people.

“It wouldn’t cost nearly as much as a convention and events center like the one that was proposed,” Kimberlin said. “You don’t have to have ballrooms and all that sort of stuff in an indoor sports facility. It’s a pretty basic, wide-open space.”

But Kimberlin said there just aren’t a lot of traffic generators available to the city.

“Private enterprise could do something – Johnny Morris could do whatever he wants, and he may do that,” he said, referring to the founder of Bass Pro Shops.

Kimberlin said a convention center is typically a loss leader, and private enterprise isn’t in a position to recover its investment through tax proceeds. The city is, he said.

“That opportunity has passed us by, and it’s unfortunate,” he said.

Financial plan
City officials had projected that the 3% lodging tax would generate just under $4.9 million in its first year, 2027, with 4% annual growth predicted. Total proceeds would have hit $407 million over its lifetime.

The convention center project cost had a hard cap of $175 million, according to Cameron, or $205 million if the state were to kick in a $30 million allocation that was withheld from the state budget by Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe. SBJ reached out to the governor’s office to ask what would happen to the state funds now that the local funding effort has failed, but an answer was not received by press time.

Additionally, a separate $30 million allocation was previously approved for the center from the city’s Spring Forward SGF sales tax.

Cameron said that the $30 million from the Spring Forward SGF tax would go back to the Citizens Advisory Board, which advises council on those tax expenditures, to recommend how it will be redistributed.

Separate from the convention center, a report by Chicago-based Hunden Strategic Partners Inc., commissioned by the city, said a connected 400-room hotel would be a necessary component of the convention center and would cost a private developer an estimated $209 million. While area developers noted interest in the project to SBJ, the hotel planning – at least publicly – was dependent upon the election results.

Visit Springfield President and CEO Mark Hecquet had called the proposed convention and events center a “community icon.” Citing the Hunden report in SBJ reporting last summer, he estimated the project would generate an average of $26 million in net new spending annually.

The report also suggested that over 30 years, the project would have generated $1.3 billion in spending. That means the city loses $125,114 per day by inactivity, Hecquet said.

Hecquet did not make himself available for an interview with SBJ in the days following the election.

Campaign, education effort
Three PACs participated in an effort to persuade voters to support the tax measure.

Friends of SGF, the Springfield Central Labor Council Committee on Political Education and the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Committee for the Future jointly spent just shy of $100,000, according to reports filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

SBJ reached out to Friends of SGF – formed specifically to promote the convention center tax – to ask what the PAC’s plans are for $11,546 in leftover funds, the money on hand reported in its most recent MEC filing April 6. Co-chair Marshall Kinne said decisions on what to do with the balance will be made soon.

The chamber’s Committee for the Future PAC is a longstanding organization whose first online filing with the MEC dates from 2003. Its final MEC report shows remaining money on hand of $45,630 that can be used in support of future ballot issues.

Kinne offered a statement on behalf of the organization, noting that the election results were not what the group had hoped for, but expressing gratitude to community and business leaders, labor organizations and public safety professionals who came together to support the effort.

“This campaign was built around an opportunity to create jobs, attract investment and strengthen our local economy,” Kinne said. “Springfield is a strong and growing community, and we remain committed to working together on opportunities that move our city forward.”

An opposition effort to the tax was mounted by Springfield Tenants Unite, which organizes for renters’ rights locally. Members were spotted by SBJ while they canvassed in the University Heights neighborhood the day before the election.

A statement from member Daniel Behlmann, who led the STUN effort, said it is dedicated to improving local housing and fighting for tenants across the city.

“Voters approved the Spring Forward tax for neighborhoods, parks and streets, not a convention center,” the statement said, referencing the $30 million from the sales tax allocated to the project. “We are hopeful that our municipal representatives will prioritize allocating our money to improving the lives of working families.”

A STUN representative said the organization spent less than $400 on its materials.

Greene County Clerk Schoeller said the city of Springfield’s cost for the April countywide election is an estimated $236,812.

For initial phase design work by Kansas City-based architectural firm Populous Inc., working with Sapp Design Associates Architects Inc., the city’s contract for predesign services, including community planning and illustrations, had a not-to-exceed price of $375,000.

The city has not yet received a bill for the company’s services, according to spokesperson Cora Scott.

Adding the cost of the November election of $238,562 and $6,435 in mailers and voter education expenses, the city has spent an estimated $856,809 on the efforts to get the tax measure passed, not including expenditures by Visit Springfield, that are estimated to have topped $20,000.

Community feedback
Although a convention center has been talked about for decades in the city, listening sessions demonstrated that issues of more immediate concern include public safety, animal control, noise, sewers and roads, Cameron said.

“What I hear in the vote is the same thing that I heard in those listening sessions: We want you to focus on the core functions that serve us first,” he said.

The city has announced new community discussions, called the Mayor’s Community Conversation series, to be conducted by Mayor Jeff Schrag in coordination with the 20 registered Springfield neighborhoods.

In a video message shared on the city of Springfield’s Facebook page in the hours after the election, Schrag signaled a renewed focus on council priorities.

“Your voices were heard, and the outcome of the vote is clear, and we respect the will of the voters,” he said. “While this proposal will not move forward, our next steps will be to take what we have heard and really focus on the priorities of City Council as reflected by our residents.”

Cameron said there has been a lot of reward to learning about the community’s needs and values in conversations leading up to the election.

“We’re going to start that process; we’re going to roll out the things that we’re also working on that the citizens told me that they would like for us to be focused on and this council has decided it’s also supported in their five priorities,” Cameron said.

Those council priorities are operational excellence, public safety transformation, economic vitality, housing strategy and development processes.

Turnout in the April 7 election was slightly higher than in the previous bid for funding.

Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller estimated that 11% of the county’s 161,615 registered voters turned out to vote for issues countywide, though only residents of Springfield were eligible to vote on the tax measure.

In a failed first attempt at a 3% lodging tax in November 2025, only 7% of registered voters participated in the election, and 52% of them rejected the measure.