Springfield has a new plan for the arts that will guide it over the next 10 years. Leslie Forrester, executive director of the Springfield Regional Arts Council unveiled "This Place We Make," the Springfield Regional Cultural Plan Wednesday along with other community organizations.
She said, after a lot of research and public input, the team who formulated the plan came up with three primary goals. The first is to broaden and deepen Springfield’s engagement in arts and culture.
"Expected outcomes will include elevating marketing with a regional marketing plan, collaborative promotion and a cultural asset inventory," she said. "We are going to expand access by removing barriers and funding neighborhood and community groups, growing community programming, including a stronger First Friday Art Walk."
Goal two is to cultivate and elevate the region’s creative sector, which Forrester said will focus more internally "on the creative sector ourselves, including artists, creatives, nonprofits, community groups and networks." Expected outcomes include increasing sustainable funding for arts organizations, artists and community groups.
Goal three is to develop sustainable infrastructure for the region’s arts and culture network. Forrester said that will include improving policies, physical spaces and regulatory systems. Two expected outcomes are ensuring that arts needs are part of the regional planning process and developing walkable cultural districts connecting downtown, Commercial Street and the Moon City district.
Forrester said the planning process ran from early 2025 through spring of 2026 and included "significant community planning processes." Those included reviews of existing community plans; interviews with city staff, community leaders and arts organization leadership; and engagement with the broader community. There were also several focus group meetings, and Forrester said they were "very deliberate in bringing together a diverse cross-section of voices — the Black community leaders, Hispanic networking group, Commercial Street artists" and more.
Executive Director of the Downtown Springfield Association Crystal Quade said a thriving, vibrant downtown must include the arts. She pointed out that the economic impact of the arts in Springfield is estimated to be around $89 million a year.
"When we talk about the future of our community and what we want to see, we need investment in stormwater. We need social service programs. We need all of those things to make our city what we want it to be," she said. "But arts and entertainment bring (those) dollars right back to us."
Matt Morrow, president and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said arts and culture are vital to the region’s economic development. That's because they add to quality of life, which is important when people are deciding where to live.
"A vibrant arts and culture scene tells people that this place is a place with imagination, with energy, with texture, with meaning, with creativity," he said. "It's a place where people don't just work, it's a place where people live and thrive."
Maurice Jones, deputy city manager for Springfield, pledged to work to help make the plan reality.
"We're going to put everything we can behind this plan because we want this plan to come to fruition," he said. He added that they want to be a place where people want to live, work and play. "We do that by creating a culture of welcoming, to have a sense of belonging for them," he said.
Forrester said they have their work cut out for them to realize the goals and outcomes laid out in the plan. But she said they have 10 years, and they'll make sure that they implement the plan sustainably "so we don't backtrack. We don't want to put something in place that we can't sustain over the long term."
