Jordan Creek is still set to become a public gathering space loaded with potential for downtown Springfield, it just won’t happen as quickly as planned. The city of Springfield has only about a third of the $25.4 million it will take to turn Jordan Creek into a tourist attraction.
The Springfield City Council received a briefing on the plan to unearth part of the underground stream on Sept. 6, as part of a larger discussion of public projects and funding. “Daylighting” is a term for opening up underground streams and/or restoring the stream to a more natural condition.
Chris Dunaway, the principal stormwater engineer in the Springfield Department of Public Works, included the Jordan Creek project in a presentation on several key stormwater projects in the works across Springfield. Dunaway said the Jordan Creek plan started out as a way to move water, but then it became an economic idea with a stream included as the centerpiece.
“The original concept of this project was a much simpler — kind of more vanilla — project that really focused on flood control and water quality,” Dunaway said.
The Springfield City Council then adopted a quality of place initiative that has been a guiding force behind the Forward SGF comprehensive plan scheduled for formal adoption in October 2022.
“Quality of place is a really high priority for council, and it's about our future community and our bread and butter,” City Manager Jason Gage said.
The development of Grant Avenue Parkway, the repurposing of Lake Springfield, the development of the Springfield Art Museum grounds and the development of outdoor recreation areas surrounding Jordan Creek in downtown Springfield are some of the key quality-of-place projects at the top of the agenda in 2022.
How the Jordan Creek plan grew
The primary development site is between West College Street and West Wall Street, generally northwest of the Park Central Square.
The primary Jordan Creek site would have open lawn space, historical markers, public art, furnishings and gateways to nearby trails and greenways. It would be able to host events, concerts, outdoor classes, pop-up retail shopping and food trucks and opportunities for access to the creek.
Dunaway noted that many visitors and residents of Springfield alike point to Bass Pro Shops, and now the Wonders of Wildlife aquarium as Springfield’s top attractions.
“This, hopefully, will be another destination that will help bring people to the area,” Dunaway said.
Dunaway compared what Jordan Creek could be to outdoor attractions with recreation elements, like the grounds surrounding Crystal Bridges art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the post-industrial Bricktown district in Oklahoma City.
“By creating this downtown amenity that is unlike anything else in the southwest Missouri region, we feel like this is sort of our Crystal Bridges or Bricktown, creating that place where people want to come and spend time,” Dunaway said. “We also believe it will help spur redevelopment of some of the surrounding properties — which some of them are publicly owned — right now, whether that be city of Springfield, City Utilities, Missouri State, as well as some of the privately owned properties.”
Funding mechanisms
As the project grew, engineers and designers broke the Jordan Creek daylighting project into phases. They also added the replacement of a bridge on Main Avenue and the construction of box culverts upstream at Boonville Avenue and West Phelps Street.
Initially, the plan is to fund the Jordan Creek project using revenue from a level property tax, a ¼-cent capital improvement sales tax and as many grants as the city can secure. The total price tag is more than $25 million, and the Springfield City Council only has $8.4 million budgeted for Jordan Creek this year.
Design is underway and expected to be finished by March 2023. Springfield will then need an agreement with BNSF Railway and permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to proceed after the Corps reviews the design. If all goes well, Dunaway said Springfield could put the project out for bids sometime in the fall of 2023.
Lost money for the project
Federal money that was once earmarked for the project was recently lost. In June, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vetoed plans to spend $7.5 million toward the Renew Jordan Creek project in downtown Springfield.
In his veto message, Parson made an indirect reference to State Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, who voted against a $69.2 million plan to develop a recreational trail along the Rock Island Railroad route from Franklin County to Henry County.
Hough, the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, worked to get the two Springfield projects into an ARPA appropriations bill the Missouri General Assembly passed in May 2022, but Parson appeared to take veto action in light of Hough’s opposition to the Rock Island trail development.
“This funding was not part of my budget recommendations,” Parson wrote in his veto message. “However, this project could seek funding through other state programs. This project includes funding for a trail-linked public park space along a local waterway. The General Assembly has demonstrated its resistance to funding public trail spaces along waterways that have a statewide or regional impact, demonstrated economic return to local communities and the state, and significant citizen interest and advocacy.”
Dunaway said Springfield has since applied for $5 million in funding from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources through the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
The city also seeks grants through the Department of Economic Development, the Missouri Department of Transportation and the U.S. Land and Water Conservation Fund, among others.
“We’ve seen some pretty rapidly escalating construction costs and material costs over the last year or two,” Dunaway said. “Combine that with the governor’s veto this past year of the $7.5 million allocation in the state budget for this project, and it’s kind of put us in a little bit of a hard spot where we only have about a third of the budget for construction.”
Dunaway said the city may also be willing to explore public-private partnerships, including the possibility of selling naming rights to the park, or features of the park, that will be established through the unearthing of Jordan Creek.
