Stormwater improvements to Fassnight Creek near the Springfield Art Museum will begin this summer. And the public got the chance to comment on plans during a virtual meeting Tuesday night.
The project, between National and Kings Avenues along Brookside Drive, will involve restoring the creek to a naturalized channel. It’s expected to help with flood mitigation, improve water quality and create an urban wildlife habitat.
Approximately 1000 linear feet of the existing channel will be removed. The new stream bed will have naturalized pools and more than 200 native Missouri plantings. Two bridges connecting the museum grounds to Brookside Dr. will be replaced with pedestrian bridges, and vehicle access to the museum parking lot will be redirected to Bennett St.
The third bridge at Kings Ave. will be removed, and Kings Ave. will be closed to traffic at Bennett St. Public Works project manager, Kirkland Preston, says that bridge acts as a stormwater bottleneck—backing the flow of water up into the art museum grounds.
You can view the plans at springfieldmo.gov/samstormwater.
