YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
The clock is ticking on the city’s use of its remaining $1.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, and at last night’s Springfield City Council meeting, members held a hearing on a bill that would allocate the funds to the Cooper Park/Lake Country Soccer and Killian Softball complexes as well as Historic City Hall.
By law, the federal funds must be allocated before the end of this year and spent before 2027, according to Deputy City Manager Collin Quigley.
The council bill, which is up for a vote March 25, would assign $900,000 to Cooper/Killian improvements and $500,000 to renovate Historic City Hall. Cooper/Killian has already received $7.3 million in ARPA funds, and Historic City Hall was previously allocated $4 million from ARPA.
Four members of the tenants’ rights organization Springfield Tenants Unite spoke against the allocation during the public hearing, making their case for why the remaining ARPA money should be spent on housing and homelessness.
Alice Barber, who described herself as a leader of the organization, said she was concerned about council priorities for the final ARPA funds.
“In a city where one in three households live in or near poverty, we are proposing to put nearly $1 million into sports facilities and tourism that have received millions already instead of using those precious funds to help our own residents, and that’s not right,” she said.
Barber said she is glad the city wants to invest in the park, since she wants it to be there for decades to come.
“But this ARPA proposal isn’t just about putting a little bit of money into keeping our local park in good shape for local families,” she said. “This bill is about putting money into the sports complex at the park to attract people from out of town because tourists bring in business and generate tax revenue.”
She noted that much of that tax revenue doesn’t go back to the tenants her organization represents; instead, through taxes, money spent on lodging goes right back into tourism promotion, sporting events and arts promotion, she said.
“City residents are consistent tax revenue sources, too – until we aren’t, when we become homeless,” she said. “We must prioritize the people that live in Springfield because this helps our community remain safe, helps workers keep showing up for work, helps students keep going to school without interruption and keeps us spending and providing tax revenue in Springfield all year round.”
Barber suggested the city would be better off spending the remaining ARPA funds on the Springfield Community Land Trust to abate blighted properties and put the homes back into use, or to the Ozarks Alliance to End Homelessness for its rapid rehousing and eviction diversion program, or to the Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation, which could use the funds for rental assistance and stabilization.
Barber asked council to table the bill until after its April 2 retreat, when members intend to discuss housing and homelessness.
“Springfield cannot throw away almost $1 million on attracting tourists to an already well-funded attraction when there are people right here, right now in this city whose lives could be immeasurably changed by those funds,” she said.
The truncated council – members Craig Hosmer, Derek Lee and Matthew Simpson were absent from the meeting – did not offer a questions or a response to STUN contingent, but before the public comment period, member Brandon Jenson asked for a rundown of how much ARPA funding has already been allocated to housing and homelessness.
Quigley said the city had received some $40.3 million in ARPA funds. He outlined city ARPA housing and homelessness allocations totaled more than $9.5 million, as follows:
An additional ARPA allocation through a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Home community development block grant program included $3.8 million with an extra CDBG Home-ARP reserve of $1.5 million for a sum of $5.3 million.
The grand total of federal ARPA funds allocated to homelessness and housing projects is $14.9 million, Quigley said.
The Cooper/Killian project, estimated at $30 million overall, is being paid for through several sources, Quigley said, including ARPA, state funding, level property tax bonding, level property tax pay-as-you-go, carryover funding, parks fund balance and Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau and private support. Work planned includes turf and light improvements, seating and concession upgrades that Quigley said would make the facilities competitive to attract national, regional and state tournaments.
The Historic City Hall project, estimated at $16 million overall, includes previously allocated ARPA funds, carryover funds – including $4.5 million approved earlier in the meeting – and level property tax funds.
A construction manager at-risk has been at work on the Historic City Hall project, and Quigley said that has resulted in a lot of up-to-date information about the project.
“Based on where we’re at right now with our construction manager at-risk and the design development phase where we’re at now, we feel strongly that this will complete the project,” he said.
He added that the first phase of Cooper/Killian resulted in cost efficiencies, and the second phase is currently out for bid. He said the hope is that the $900,000 allocation would cover everything.
“That again won’t be known until we bid each phase out,” he said.
He added that bids are currently out on the second phase of the Cooper/Killian project, but some good bids were received for the first phase.
Plaza Shopping Center gained an arcade with the March 1 opening of The Flying Lap LLC; the repurposing of space operated by Burrell Behavioral Health resulted in the March 18 opening of the company’s second autism center; and a group of downtown business owners teamed up to reopen J.O.B. Public House.