The City of Springfield is expanding a program to improve Springfield neighborhoods. Neighborhood Works+ will kick off December 11. It’s an expansion of the longstanding program, Neighborhood Works.
The expansion is funded by a $5 million allocation from Spring Forward SGF sales tax revenue.
City officials said Neighborhood Works+ will deliver improvements to neighborhoods through collaboration with registered neighborhood associations and City of Springfield departments.
"We're very excited to be expanding this program," said a spokesperson for the City Kristen Milam. "It's been a really great program for a long time, but it's really focused on small improvements in neighborhoods with less budget. Typically, the projects have been under $100,000. That was the limit. But with expanded scope and expanded focus, we're wanting to do some transformational things in neighborhoods."
The city is hosting a workshop to share details on Thursday, December 11, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Greene County Archives and Elections Center, 1126 N. Boonville.
City staff will outline the program process, timeline and how residents can submit project ideas for consideration.
Milam said they'll launch a project idea form after the meeting. If anyone has an issue in their neighborhood that they'd like the city to fix, they can share that through the idea form.
"We're going to gather these ideas from all over the community and then we're going to use various tools to map those," she said, "and then we'll be bringing those back to the registered neighborhood associations and some workshops in the spring."
Planning is underway now, according to the city, and the first round of neighborhood projects is expected to begin by fall 2026.