YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
It took a few years longer than originally planned, but the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s annual Community Leadership Visit made a return journey earlier this month to the Sooner State.
Over 80 Springfield area businesspeople traveled to Tulsa for the Oct. 10-12 trip, which marked the first time the organization had visited the state’s second-most populous city since 1995. Much like last year’s CLV to northwest Arkansas, regionalism was a key topic of conversation in Tulsa, said Matt Morrow, Springfield chamber president and CEO.
“Their approach to regionalism is probably, in some ways, more similar to ours in the sense that there’s a larger population center and a very vibrant surrounding region,” he said of Tulsa, whose population nears 412,000, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data. “That’s as opposed to northwest Arkansas, where there’s not a single center to the population. It’s a little more dispersed.”
Tulsa was on the chamber’s schedule in 2020, Morrow said, adding the coronavirus pandemic scuttled plans for a CLV that year – the first time the trip wasn’t taken since the program started in 1994.
“We didn’t go right back to Tulsa because the priorities in the community always dictate where we’re headed,” he said, noting the CLV in 2021 involved staying in the Springfield area. “After going to northwest Arkansas last year and significant focus on their approach to regionalism and regional collaboration, along with some of the partnerships they have had with the Tulsa area, it kind of made sense for us to go back.”
In Tulsa, the CLV agenda included panel discussions on topics such as a regional approach to economic development, creating a culture to attract talent, workforce development initiatives and tourism attractions.
For the win
Danny Collins, founder and co-owner of outdoor tour guide company 37 North Expeditions LLC, said Tulsa marked the fourth CLV for him. His company helped plan some of the community immersion activities the group participated in during the trip, including kayaking and mountain biking.
“They had a few key wins that they really went hard to get right,” Collins said, citing the Bank of Oklahoma Center, Tulsa’s nearly 20,000-seat multipurpose arena, and the Gathering Place, its roughly 70-acre park along the Arkansas River, which opened in 2018 and includes playgrounds, a boathouse, sports courts and a skate park.
Much like northwest Arkansas, Collins said, Tulsa appears to have a large philanthropy base, and those organizations partner up with private and public sectors to make large-scale projects a reality.
The George Kaiser Family Foundation, which purchased the property in 2009 that would become the $465 million Gathering Place, provided land and funding for the park, along with donations from corporations and private donors, while the city spent $65 million on infrastructure, according to reporting by the Tulsa World.
The three-year construction of the BOK Center, which opened in 2008, was funded with $178 million in public funds and $18 million in private donations, according to media reports.
“Those [projects] went above and beyond what they could have done alone,” Collins said, referring to the collaborative funding efforts. “They made it exactly what they wanted it to be in both of those examples. They didn’t settle for less than that. They needed them to be community-altering type projects. The entire community was incredibly prideful about them.”
Collins said Springfield needs more of a whole community buy-in to develop larger projects like those in Tulsa.
“Let’s have these groups of philanthropy that we have in Springfield and find ways to marry up with them and hit these really large projects,” he said. “Let’s kind of go at that together versus just saying, ‘You do you and we do us.’”
Come together
Sara Fields, executive director of Ozarks Transportation Organization, attended her second CLV, noting her first was in 2019 in Lexington, Kentucky. She took notice of Tulsa officials speaking with one voice for its legislative agenda, which she said involved the region’s various chambers of commerce, cities and economic development agencies coming together to identify roughly 15 items they agreed would be among their top advocacy priorities in the next legislative session.
“There’s a lot of movement we can make with regionalism in terms of working together and being on the same page,” she said.
Fields said while Tulsa officials don’t seem interested in seeking a defining brand for their city, Springfield still needs one.
“I kind of walked away thinking Springfield is not a brand. We need some sort of brand to communicate what it is we have going on here that other people would want to come and be a part of,” she said. “There is probably one Tulsa. But we’re going to have to figure a way to be that one Springfield, or southwest Missouri or Ozarks, whatever that is for us. We just haven’t had a strong branding effort to define our identity.”
Regarding regionalism, Morrow said the CLV group wanted to learn what’s working best for Tulsa and what challenges they are facing in economic development and job creation, as well as the work the city is doing to advance a more inclusive culture. He noted the city is still dealing with wounds brought on by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst acts of racial violence in U.S. history, in which as many as 300 people were killed and over 1,000 homes were estimated to have been destroyed, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.
“When they are at their best, there’s good alignment between business, philanthropy and government,” Morrow said of Tulsa, adding officials acknowledged they aren’t always at their best. “They’re working together to try and get good outcomes. One of the speakers said, ‘We don’t plan a community for the people; we plan a community with the people.’”
The Gathering Place was an example of good alignment, but Morrow doesn’t see anything that’s an exact mirror to that project in Springfield.
“But I do think the work that is taking place around Lake Springfield right now presents some really special opportunities for the Springfield area to develop something that could be unique, a really transformative kind of project,” he said.
Ecological improvements to Lake Springfield and development of recreational, cultural and natural amenities surrounding it are part of a potential $1 billion master plan, which was unveiled Oct. 12 to the public. Steve Prange, vice president of Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc., the engineering and consulting firm hired to write the plan, describes the planning effort as “whetting the appetite” of the private development community. (Read more on page 1.)
While the chamber has a running list of communities to consider for the next CLV, Morrow said, “We’re in the embryonic stage of that right now.”
The chamber handles logistics for the annual trip, such as booking venues and hotels, but each person attending pays their own way. Morrow said this year’s trip cost roughly $2,300 per person.
Moseley’s Discount Office Products was purchased; Side Chick opened in Branson; and the Springfield franchise store of NoBaked Cookie Dough changed ownership.
