14 · SBJ.NET JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2024 Springfield Business Journal Executive Editor Christine Temple discusses economic development with Jonas Arjes, executive vice president and chief economic development officer for the Taney County Partnership; Kristen Haseltine, president and CEO of Show Me Christian County; and Matt Morrow, president of Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. An excerpt from the start of the podcast follows. Christine Temple: I wanted to talk first on the volume of projects that you guys are tracking right now in your communities and also, if you could, highlight some of the developments that are going on in your areas. Matt Morrow: We’re working 26 active projects right now. That’s about normal for us. We won’t win all of them, but we all hope to win more than our region’s fair share as we try to hustle out there. Good projects. I think we’ll probably have a couple of announcements coming in the next month or two. There are needs for sites that are development ready, but we are seeing pretty good activity in Partnership Industrial Center West, which still has a few sites left, but there are a couple of letters of intent that we are actually working on right now. Temple: Rough volume of the projects that you’re tracking right now? Morrow: Total (capital expenditure) is $700 million or something like that. Job counts vary because they don’t all give them to us on the front end, but, typically speaking, I think the range is anywhere from 10 to 15 jobs up to a little over 200. Temple: And what’s the mix of those? Morrow: It’s mostly manufacturing, industrial and logistics. But we also work back-office operations and corporate headquarters, and IT – some of those as well. Typically, I’d say about three-quarters of the projects that we have going at any given time are industrial or manufacturing, advanced manufacturing. Temple: I’ll stop grilling Matt for now. [Laughs] Jonas Arjes: We are currently tracking 22 active projects. CapEx at $900 million, and two of those two projects make up basically two-thirds of that. So, the Imagine Resort in Hollister, that’s roughly $450 million. And then all the activity that’s currently going on out at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena. Everything encompassed with infrastructure improvements, that’s roughly $150 million investment down there. Ours is mostly lodging, tourism and attraction related. So, 14 out of the 22 are tourism related, six are housing projects and then one manufacturing wholesale and one infrastructure project. The job counts range anywhere from four to 450-plus. Pretty good activity. We’ve noticed that just over the last probably 12 to 18 months that project inquiries have slowed a little bit. Hopefully that’s not a trend that continues or gets worse. Kristen Haseltine: In Christian County right now, we are tracking 17 projects, and four of them are actually site developments. So, that’s multiple businesses that would locate there. In addition, we have 13 businesses that we’re talking with that want to locate in Christian County, so we’re working on trying to get those sites developed so we can land them in Christian County. Those sites are anywhere from retail, hospitality to light manufacturing, hopefully business park, could be an industrial site, too. Lots of variety going on. Our smallest project I think is $1 million, and I think that’s only two jobs, but, again, we go all the way up to that industrial ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Sponsored By Each month, we gather around the table with a different group of Springfield business leaders to discuss industry trends, workforce and company operations. Join us as we get a behindthe-scenes look into our business community from the C-suite. From left: Matt Morrow, Jonas Arjes and Kristen Haseltine Matt Morrow REBECCA GREEN SBJ.net/CEORoundtable or wherever you find podcasts LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS: • Funding incentives driving development. • Efforts to identify the region’s brand and the implications for growth. • Attracting and retaining quality talent and needed worker amenities, like housing. • The implications of child care tax credits on the region and state. • Legislative proposals that threaten and support new projects. • Bold development goals. Somebody said the other day: My career will not be complete until I get a Trader Joe’s.” —Jonas Arjes, Taney County Partnership FOCUS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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