The long-awaited Moxy Hotel in downtown Springfield finally opened its doors after years of construction delays and push-backs.
Moxy Springfield Downtown, located at 430 South Ave., opened to guests June 24 and had a soft opening June 25, including a ribbon cutting hosted by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. The new hotel will have a grand opening celebration in September, said Tim O'Reilly, chief executive officer at O'Reilly Hospitality Management, LLC, operator of Moxy.
The eight-story, 98-room hotel had about 40 rooms rented the first night with more guests enjoying the Bar Moxy in the lobby and the Eyrie Rooftop Bar, said Kerrie Van Sickle, regional director of sales and public relations at O'Reilly Hospitality Management.
“The whole concept of Moxy is we want fun-hunters,” Van Sickle said. “We want people that are coming to the city to experience the city, experience downtown night life.”
The hotel has a variety of rooms available, including 42 king bed rooms, 28 queen, seven family units that have a king bed and a twin-sized bunk beds and more. The layout of the rooms are unique, with some queen beds laying head-to-head. The rooms have no closets, instead using a unique hooking system on the walls. Every room features a fold-out desk.
“The room is wonderful and has everything you need, but we don't necessarily want you spending all your time in your room,” Van Sickle said. “We want you to get out and enjoy what the city offers.”
First Moxy in Missouri, string of delays due to rehabilitation of historic building
The Moxy is a partnership between O'Reilly Hospitality Management and Marriott International, Inc. The hotel is owned by SouthStreet Operator, LLC, and operated by O'Reilly Hospitality Management.
The downtown Springfield hotel marks the first Moxy in Missouri and the 40th globally, said Dathan Atchison, senior regional director of operations and development support at O'Reilly Hospitality. Moxy Hotel is the ninth Marriott property that O'Reilly has operated. The Springfield Moxy will have about 35 employees.
With construction starting in 2021, Moxy Hotel has seen a long string of delays before finally opening to the public in June 2024. The Moxy lies in the historic Medical Arts Building, which was completed in 1930 and originally cost $425,000, according to the Springfield-Greene County Library District. The root of the construction delays were caused by problems arising from renovating a historic building, O'Reilly said.
“Anytime you try to breath life back into a building like this there are going to be surprises from before you start construction all the way up to the very day that you end up opening,” O'Reilly said during an interview at Moxy Hotel June 25. “A historic building rehab of this magnitude has a lot of twists and turns. Everyday it was something new.”
O'Reilly declined to disclose a total financial investment for Moxy Downtown Springfield.
O'Reilly family history tied to historic building in downtown Springfield
The building's rich history lured O'Reilly to the property, and the historic tax credits offered in Springfield helped seal the deal.
Many historic features still stand in the hotel, like the original tile floors in the lobby, original brick walls and a multi-floor letter carrier. O'Reilly Hospitality used Central Bank as its lender for its expertise in historic tax credits, O'Reilly said.
“It's pretty cool, it's history of being a medical building and serving the community,” O'Reilly said. “My grandparents actually used to come here to the doctor. So, we go way back here and it's kind of cool to be back in this area where the family was for so many years.”
Springfield Mayor Ken McClure also touched on the important history the building holds for the city in his remarks before the ribbon cutting.
“I'll tell you, though, that there's a little bit of history to this place,” McClure said. “I got a lot of fillings in my teeth[...]in this building. So, a rich heritage, a rich history this Moxy Hotel brings to this community.”
Rooftop bar and restaurant open, jazz club and barbecue joint in basement
The Moxy features a 3,300-square-foot rooftop bar with a restaurant named “The Eyrie,” named after the nest of a bird of prey and open from 4 p.m. to midnight Tuesday-Saturday. The rooftop concept features hand-crafted cocktails and will soon include sharable food options. The Eyrie can also be rented for private events.
In the basement of Moxy Hotel stands the Subterranean, a barbecue joint and jazz club that will only open for special events, O'Reilly said. The jazz club and speakeasy takes its name from the book “The Subterraneans,” Jack Kerouac's 1958 novella, and is themed in the style of the Beatnik movement of the 1950s.
“I knew from The Hepcat and other places in Springfield that we just don't have the demand for six days of jazz,” O'Reilly said. “To cure that, we tried to split (Subterranean) as both an event space and the jazz and barbecue.”
The speakeasy will soon feature well-known jazz acts from Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago and more, O'Reilly said. Tickets for the small shows will be posted on social media platforms for first-come, first-serve sales. The club is small, so limited seats will be available. Subterranean can also be rented for private parties and special events.
“The idea is to be a real-dark, old-style jazz club and have barbecue being served and having a napkin in your shirt and barbecue on your face and hands,” O'Reilly said, adding the inspiration for Subterranean came from the well-known New York jazz club Blue Smoke.
O'Reilly sets eyes on downtown Springfield, looking to invest in businesses
The CEO of O'Reilly Hospitality Management said he is looking to invest in add-on businesses downtown that will provide entertainment for Moxy's guests.
“There's a lot of activities and different types of businesses that we would look at bringing downtown if we could just get the economics right,” O'Reilly said. “There's several little companies and partnerships that I'm looking at that are just activity based. Any time we can supplement a hotel that we have by things to do around, we're better off.”
O'Reilly said opening a hotel in downtown has made the need for more events and concerts in Springfield's oldest neighborhood very apparent.
“We've never had a property downtown,” O'Reilly said. “I'm even more interested in seeing some things happen down here that would really encourage a lot more people and events.”
As far as new Springfield development projects, the field is slim for O'Reilly Hospitality Management right now, O'Reilly said. The executive said there are no projects in Springfield that his company is looking to develop and it doesn't hold any unused real estate in the city.
“It's just a weird time in development,” O'Reilly said. “It's really the cost of doing business right now; it doesn't match up. This business is really debt heavy, so you have to borrow a lot of money for one these to get it off the ground.”
