"These are the kinds of things that drive economic growth, that drive the kinds of added investment and population growth that tend to benefit everyone who lives here,” said Matt Morrow, president and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, in an interview with Ozarks Public Radio about the proposed new event center.
That’s despite widely reported drops, and rebounds, in business travel and meetings since the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials say Springfield is leaving money on the table when it comes to meetings, tourism and local community events.
Visit Springfield president and CEO Mark Hecquet told local reporters on Tuesday that "from Visit Springfield’s position, there is an untapped market that we are missing right now, that we are losing business.”
And, officials say, it’s not a matter of Springfield trying to compete with Branson for a limited chunk of travel spending. When asked if the Ozarks is big enough to sustain meeting business in both Branson and Springfield, Hecquet said “Absolutely. 100-percent.”
'This project is not a convention center'
Hecquet presented the findings of an $88,000 convention center study to Springfield City Council on Tuesday afternoon. Dubbed the Hunden Report, the proposal was prepared by Hunden Strategic Partners, a consultant company based in Chicago.
“Springfield has an unprecedented opportunity to lead,” Hecquet told Council as he pitched a big new convention center predicted to drive $1.3 billion in new visitor spending over 30 years — or $125,114 per day.
“This is what we're losing if you take that $1.3 billion and backtrack it over every day for the next 30 years,” Hecquet told Council.
Over three decades, the convention center desired by Hecquet and other local leaders like Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag would create $411 million in earnings, according to convention center study authors.
Over the same 30-year timeframe, the Hunden Report predicts the proposed project would support the equivalent of 216 jobs. It would drive $68.7 million in local revenues from sales tax, hotel room tax and property tax.
Hecquet added, “Further than that, this project is not a convention center. This is an opportunity to create a multi-use venue, a venue for visitors, a venue for our residents, the public, a community icon, a multi-use venue that will be designed in a way that at one day it can be a convention, the next day it could be a banquet or a graduation party, you name it, it will be something that will instill pride in our community, and something that will be very recognizable for the city of Springfield.”
Schrag said he thinks that if all goes well, a new downtown Springfield event center could be operating sometime in 2028.
By the fourth year of operations, the Hunden Report predicts a new downtown center could host 164 events per year, with some 179,000 attendees and 80,000 hotel room-nights.
The 205-page study Hecquet shared with Council was accompanied by a 25-page summary made available to local reporters on Tuesday. It has several key findings:
- An ideal event center site would be located downtown, big enough to accommodate a 125,000-square-foot convention center and a 400-room hotel, with 900 to 1,200 parking spaces nearby. The nearby hotel would likely cost some $209 million.
- Nearby, the downtown area needs at least 600 additional hotel rooms in walking distance, defined as 0.3 miles from the convention center, and the area needs “an activated downtown district with dining and entertainment.”
- If built, the proposed event center "is expected to operate at a deficit," according to the report, but would "generate an average $26 million in net new spending annually."
In Jefferson City this year, local lawmakers championed the idea of a "regional convention center complex." House Bill 7 allocated $30 million in seed money, provided local authorities could come up with a 50-50 match. The bill passed the legislature by commanding majorities: 141-4 in the House and 25-8 in the Senate.
But on June 30, Gov. Mike Kehoe announced he was placing the line item among 32 spending restrictions in the state’s $50.8 billion budget. That doesn’t mean the taxpayer money has been vetoed, but it does mean that it would take the governor’s greenlight for it to flow into city coffers.
“I still have good reason to believe that the governor will release those funds,” Morrow, the chamber president, told Ozarks Public Radio Tuesday following the Council meeting. “I think if he wanted them gone, he would have vetoed them.”
Reached for comment late Tuesday by Ozarks Public Radio, a spokesperson for Gov. Kehoe shared a written statement that read in part: "Restricting budget expenditures was not an action the governor took lightly, but state government cannot spend beyond its means and Gov. Kehoe has a constitutional obligation to balance the budget. The restrictions, including the Springfield regional convention center, are not an indication of project worthiness. Gov. Kehoe understands their value, and that’s why he chose not to veto them."
City, chamber and tourism officials say they’re advocating with the governor’s office for the funding restriction to be lifted.
“No, that doesn't mean this project is dead,” Mayor Schrag told reporters on Tuesday. “We look at the overwhelming evidence that says the community is missing out on a great deal of revenue. I think it would be beholden upon us to continue with eyes wide open and all the good sense we can have to look forward to this project, even if, for some reason, the state money in whole or in part, does not come through.”
Schrag said he thinks the next step for the proposed center is for City Council, city staff and the public to digest the information contained in the Hunden Report.
For Schrag, “the most likely scenario is that the center itself is publicly funded and everything else is privately funded,” in terms of hotels and other nearby businesses or amenities.
Efforts to build event center go back to 1997
Tuesday’s presentation marked the fourth Hunden Report since 2011 on the topic of Springfield event centers.
Springfield has pursued a convention center dream for decades — and struggled to get something like the type of vibrant economic hub desired by city leaders and the business community.
“When I first came here,” Hecquet told Council, “I was told I was hired, and my board said to me, ‘we have tried to do this project for 20 years... ‘We don't know why we have not got beyond it, because everything has pointed favorably for the city doing this.’ And they said, ‘Mark, we want you to fix this.’”
According to the Springfield News-Leader and other sources archived by the Springfield-Greene County Library, back in 1997, developer John Q. Hammons and city officials negotiated over an expo center.
Springfield’s $16 million Expo Center, built in the early 2000s, attracted then-Gov. Bob Holden, who came to town for the groundbreaking in 2002.
In the fall of 2003, the city-owned Expo Center opened, touting “usable space” of more than 100,000 square feet.
Officials announced four events were already booked, including the 2004 Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield Home Show and 2005’s Wally Byam Caravan Club International Rally.
But problems soon emerged. For one, the existing Expo Center wasn’t deemed big enough.
On Tuesday, Visit Springfield’s Hecquet characterized the “usable space” of the Expo Center at roughly half the total square footage announced by officials when the existing center came online 22 years ago. “The current Expo Center is 45,000 square feet, with just under 5,000 of meeting room space,” he told City Council.
The latest Hunden Report also takes issue with the Expo Center facility itself, saying it “is not a true convention center,” “is not operated effectively” and “does not include the necessary hotel and walkable amenities that are critical for sustained success.”
"The number of visitors to the Expo Center is in a very downward trajectory," Hecquet told Council. The Hunden Report notes a negative growth rate in visitors, down 5.8 percent from 2018 to 2024.
The portion of the current Expo Center comprised by a renovated 20th-century Sears building was deemed “unusable” by the latest report authors, Hecquet said. “The Sears building, Hunden didn’t even look at,” Hecquet told Council.
The Hunden Report characterizes the empty lot next door to the existing Expo Center as a “potential development area,” but officials said no specific downtown site has been chosen at this time, even though they're optimistic. (A previous Hunden Report, prepared for the city in 2019, suggested a site near Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World and Wonders of Wildlife.)
“There’s an opportunity here in front of us that’s going to require a multi-tiered capital stack,” said Morrow, with the chamber. “All of those tiers are available to us, if we have the collective will to do it.”
A “capital stack” refers to funding for a project from multiple sources.
Editor's note: This report was updated 9:15 a.m. Wednesday, July 9, 2025 to include a copy of the full 205-page Hunden Report dated June 12, 2025. Readers may need to use a PDF viewing app to adjust the page orientation of the report.
