The City of Springfield is pushing for a new redevelopment plan on the north side’s Kearney Street corridor.
Back in 2016, the city spent $100,000 hiring a St. Louis-based firm to perform a market analysis on Kearney Street. Two years later, City Council approved a redevelopment ordinance, along with a plan crafted with the help of the public. It ran some 75 pages, city records show.
A 3.5-mile span of Kearney Street — running just west of Kansas Expressway to just east of Glenstone Avenue — was covered under that plan. But the city didn’t fully enact it. It expired last year, under sunset provisions in city ordinance. They require such plans to be renewed every 5 years by City Council.
Since then, state law on blight designations has changed, and Springfield is now working from an updated comprehensive plan, Forward SGF. That means officials would need to make a new Kearney Street revitalization plan by gathering a second round of public input from neighborhood residents and business owners. Officials also plan to align Kearney’s redevelopment strategy with the city’s current policies.
Members of City Council were supportive of the prospect at a meeting on Tuesday, as city staff identified some $95 million in unmet retail needs for the area. Seven major projects have already been built at the corridor’s east and west ends, including Whataburger and Chick-fil-A stores, and a BigShots Golf located at the site of a derelict K-Mart.
Councilman Derek Lee urged Council to support public improvements for Kearney so the corridor looks less rough and more attractive for business. But, Lee cautioned that Springfield's approach shouldn’t rely on too much regulation and shouldn’t resemble previous redevelopments like historic Commercial Street or the Grant Avenue Parkway.
Lee warned that Council should not approve "elaborate, 13 requirements, where every building has to look exactly the same and parking has to be in a very specific place. Please don’t do that to this corridor. This corridor needs development.”
