The City of Springfield is planning a groundbreaking for Renew Jordan Creek on March 14. Meanwhile, a lot of earth has already been moved as Jordan Creek is brought above ground and returned to its natural state.
Since the late 1920s, Jordan Creek has flowed through a concrete box culvert in downtown Springfield – where it was channeled by well-meaning city officials who were trying to control flooding.
But a lot has been learned since then.
Kirkland Preston is the project manager and an engineer with the City of Springfield.
“The new way of thinking about it is to give the water some room, allocate some room for the floodplain and just let nature be nature and allow it to flood and recede as it normally would have," he said. "And so that's what the project is doing, is we're opening it back up to a creek, an open channel where the flood waters can, you know, overtop the banks and spread out, and there's just much more room for the floodplain that way.”
The banks of the approximately 1,000 linear feet of naturalized stream will be planted with native species, benefiting water quality, helping control erosion and flooding and providing habitat and food for native wildlife.
But right now, work is focused on carving out a channel for the creek.
What started out as a stormwater project has become much more. There are a lot of quality of place elements involved, according to Preston. Plans for the area include pedestrian connectivity and plaza spaces and a dog park.
City officials hope the project will help renew the part of downtown Springfield where the creek is being brought out into the open. The thinking is that restoring the creek will encourage private redevelopment in the area.
But stormwater management is still a key issue. Preston explains how it will work.
“We’re creating such a bigger area, cross-sectional area for the water to flow, you know, that's a floodplain improvement," he said. "And this is just a Phase 1 of — a future project has some phases over towards Jefferson that we're calling Phase 2, so that's near 404 (N. Jefferson). So, by tying this to that other open channel area at 404 Jefferson, you kind of restore the natural waterway here and give it that space for flooding. And so it should be a floodplain improvement for these buildings downtown. Based on the modeling, we won't eliminate flooding, it's just, it's so challenging to do that. But we will reduce the base flood elevation to help buildings with floodplain insurance and hopefully not get any flood waters on their finished floor elevation.”
Excavation of the channel continues, and Preston said there’s preparation work underway associated with utilities that will go underground. They’ve bored underneath the railroad. And there’s a lot left to do. He expects the project to be finished by the end of 2026.
“It’s a good thing for Springfield," said Preston. "And, you know, that's what keeps me going when things get tough, it's, you know, I think when we get through it and we're at the end of the day, it's going to be a good project for Springfield and really will be a quality of place benefit that hopefully brings people downtown."
Several road closures are planned as work on Renew Jordan Creek continues. Campbell Avenue between Water and Mill Streets will be closed for about a year starting in early summer. This fall, Boonville between Water and Mill will close temporarily for work in that area.
The groundbreaking for Phase 1 will be held Friday, March 14, at 2 p.m. near the intersection of Boonville and Mill.
