Gail Simpson envisions a brighter future for east Springfield, complete with
bustling thoroughfares, attractive mixed-income housing, and diverse residents.
“There’s a lot of value in that area — it’s convenient, it’s just off downtown, it can be so much more than it is,” the Ward 2 Alderman says. “You have South Grand as a corridor coming in and Clear Lake as a corridor coming
in.
“We should do so many things with it. I think we would be remiss if we didn’t.”
Even before taking office, Simpson encouraged new and innovative development.
She saw that initial plans for South Grand Avenue called for the construction
of only houses and decided that wasn’t enough.
“Why would we do that? That’s already been done,” Simpson says. “Why don’t we do something that’s going to last long-term — 15, 20 years longer down the road?”
Simpson carried her idea for multipurpose space to the Greater Springfield
Chamber of Commerce and the Quantum Growth Partnership, an initiative created
to work on such issues as diversity development and neighborhood redevelopment.
Soon after, Simpson and a handful of community members traveled to Indianapolis
to visit Fall Creek Place, a 400-home mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood that
has won four national awards for excellence in planning, design and community
development since its 2001 inception.
What Simpson discovered there, an area located two miles north of downtown that
was once called “Dodge City” for its high crime rates, was both impressive and exciting, she says.
“The first time I saw it, I was just in awe of the change from what it had been
to what it is now,” Simpson recalls.
Jim Lestikow, the chairman of the Chamber board, recently accompanied Simpson
and 30 other Chamber and community leaders and staff on a second tour of the
Indianapolis development. He brought back several concepts that could help the
capital city move forward with its own redevelopment plans.
The area was more blighted than anything in east Springfield, Lestikow says, but
had been transformed into a cohesive neighborhood that made it possible for a
single mother with multiple children to live in a $100,000 home next door to
two doctors in a $500,000 home. The houses looked like they fit together, he
says, boasting similar architecture and tri-color palettes.
“These houses were all well-maintained and the grounds were well-maintained,” Lestikow says. “People had bought into this concept of having pride in their neighborhood.
“The thing we learned is that we can’t just do a low-income type development and we have to have architectural
controls within an acceptable range to make it attractive.”
Mike Farmer, the city’s director of planning and economic development, traveled to Indianapolis with
the delegation and was motivated by what has been accomplished with Fall Creek
Place (now in Stage IV, building 110 additional homes). If Springfield decided
to duplicate the development on a smaller scale, he says, it could call on
Indianapolis-based Mansur Real Estate Services Inc., Fall Creek Place’s master developer, for potential assistance.
Springfield can also learn a few other lessons from Indianapolis, Farmer adds.
Indianapolis attacked “Dodge City” with a coalition of many groups and organizations and was supported by a unique
$4 million Home Ownership Zone grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development. For a similar project to work in the capital city, Farmer
says, a coalition between such organizations as the city and county, the
Springfield Housing Authority, and the Chamber would be needed, as well as
other funding avenues.
“There’s a lot of details that have to be structured,” Farmer says. “It’s a monumental task with a huge coalition to make that succeed, but I would hope
that we could do something that comes close to that effort.”
Now that the Chamber has witnessed firsthand how a blighted area can be
resurrected, Sarah Wolin, director of communications and investor relations,
says the next step is to talk with east Springfield neighborhood associations
and to possibly host a community summit in early 2009 to enhance project
partnerships.
“Now’s the time more than ever to focus on what we can do to improve and how can we
stay competitive as a community. Without that, we’re lost,” Wolin says. “You look back, five, 10 years ago, the Chamber wouldn’t have been talking about east-side redevelopment. Three years ago, we wouldn’t have been.”
Simpson and others from the trip admit that any redevelopment project faces a
major funding challenge, but hope that help eventually comes from U.S. Sen.
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and maybe even U.S. president-elect Barack Obama. If
anything, Simpson says, it’s encouraging that people are talking about east Springfield development.
“Because there was a multi-faceted group of people who attended, it’s a make-up that’s going to help drive this idea and this change,” Simpson says. “I think that’s good.
“I was telling an individual in the first group that I can talk until I’m blue in the face to somebody, and they will never get it. But someone who they
have a close affinity to, and maybe travel in the same circles with, can say, ‘Look, you need to get on this wagon, because this is going to be good.’”
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2008.
