Tourism is up, but downtown is hurting

From his view on East Adams Street, Prairie Archives owner Robb Paul has witnessed firsthand how downtown Springfield has evolved. His secondhand bookstore at 522 E. Adams St. has been in the same spot since 1992, straight across from the Old State Capitol and just a couple doors down from Abraham Lincoln’s old law office. 

He’s seen his share of restaurants opening and closing, businesses coming and going, and more than enough shuttered windows. But he said it wasn’t always like that. 

“During the summer, 15 years ago, you would have 50 or 60 people having lunch on the square,” he said. “Nowadays, you have two or three.”

Still, this year may be different. Data from Visit Springfield, the city’s official destination marketing organization, shows that visitor numbers are high as anticipated events such as the Route 66 Centennial and the opening of the Scheels Sports Park this year are expected to boost foot traffic. According to Visit Springfield director Scott Dahl, the city expects a record year in travel expenditures, forecasted to exceed $650 million. 

Business owners in downtown Springfield, however, say they aren’t seeing or feeling those numbers, citing their struggles to bounce back from the pandemic and a recent fire on Adams Street that left several buildings vacant, compounding a trend of tourists flocking to other parts of the city following the closure of downtown’s largest hotel.

Residents say the shutdown of the Wyndham Springfield City Centre last year, also on East Adams Street, has played a major role in the drop in downtown visitors. The building suffered extensive flooding damage, which the building’s insurer has accused its owner of intentionally perpetrating. 

The now boarded-up hotel is the city’s tallest building and boasts over 300 rooms. Even the Starbucks connected to the hotel is now boarded up, too, with no signs of imminent reopening as legal disputes over the property are tied up in court.

Dahl said that, overall, Springfield has 3,500 hotel rooms available, which is more than other cities of the same size. But he added that the Wyndham’s closure was a private matter that could only be resolved by its owner and insurance company. 

“With the Wyndham closure, some of the visitors have moved to the perimeter of Springfield, because that’s where the hotel rooms are,” he said. “The city of Springfield is at their mercy at this time. And you know, we want to see (the Wyndham) open sooner than later.”

When asked about the number of vacant state-owned buildings in downtown Springfield, Gov. JB Pritzker pointed to his “Surplus to Success” initiative, which aims to convert unused and underutilized state buildings for other uses, including housing.

“We’re looking at all the properties across the state that the state owns where we can convert them into something useful and not just an empty thing that we’re paying for,” he told Capitol News Illinois. 

“Our capital ought to be one of the great cities in the state of Illinois. I think it is, but there’s so much more we can do,” Pritzker said.

Springfield Mayor Misty Buscher, Sangamon County Board Chair Andy Van Meter and state leaders held a March 31 press conference to pledge bipartisan support for a bill that would help facilitate an expansion of a downtown convention center and construction of a new hotel. 

“The goal is to provide economic tools that will finance and fund the development of a new full-service hotel and the expansion of the Bank of Springfield Center,” bill sponsor state Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, said, according to Illinois Times. “Without a doubt, this is true economic development that will bring jobs and tourism dollars to downtown without Springfield residents having to pay any new taxes.”

The measure would allow for a Sales Tax and Retail bond structure in the newly created Capital Area Tourism Authority to help fund the development and own the hotel. 

However, several members of the Springfield City Council have publicly expressed opposition to the structure of the potential new government authority, which would give the city only one appointed member on the board – the same number as the Springfield Metropolitan Exposition and Auditorium Authority – while the Sangamon County Board gets three appointees. 

Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory, whose ward includes a portion of downtown, told Illinois Times he had been in touch with Turner about his opposition to the bill and argued it would be an overreach. Gregory also filed a formal witness slip as an opponent to the bill.

“These are expansive governmental powers, including fiscal and land-related authorities. Critically, the list of powers do not contain any requirement that the city of Springfield must approve of these actions,” he said. “It’s something that we as a community are going to have to look into from not only an aldermanic standpoint, but even a class action (perspective).”

Downtown fire damage lingers 

Along with the Wyndham’s closure, retailers pointed to the fire on Adams Street in 2024 as another hit to foot traffic in the area. 

The blaze ripped through a historic building housing several businesses, including a tattoo parlor and a cat cafe, prompting city officials to close the street for demolition work. 

That section of East Adams Street was closed for a little under a year, which devastated neighboring businesses. The Kidzeum of Health & Science children’s museum, for example, located just across from the burned-down building, reported losing about $30,000 in revenue.

Not long after, other restaurants along the block once collectively promoted as the Adams Family shuttered, leaving the street mostly empty. Cafe Moxo, a downtown restaurant staple, moved to a strip mall a few miles west of downtown. Buzz Bomb Brewing Co., a popular bar that regularly hosted karaoke and other events, closed permanently. The Wakery, a late-night coffeehouse and nonalcoholic bar, also closed its doors as foot traffic fell following the fire. 

“Downtown businesses were struggling before,” Elizabeth Wake, the owner of The Wakery, told Springfield Business Journal. “Unfortunately, the fire created further setbacks, and our business has not been able to bounce back.”

Tricia Schlosser, one of the owners of the clothing store Itty Bitty Fashion Trunk on East Adams Street, said she specifically chose that location to set up shop because of its proximity to the restaurants, hoping it would bring in more customers. 

While her store was spared from the flames, she said the aftereffects of the fire heavily affected her business. 

“Before that fire, this block was booming. And now we’re the only people on this block other than the Kidzeum,” she said. “On an average day, especially this time of year, you could go days, Monday through Friday, with nobody coming in.”

Post-pandemic challenges remain 

Dahl said a large percentage of tourists visit Springfield to see the sites related to Abraham Lincoln. Historic Lincoln markers, statues and tour sites are sprinkled throughout the downtown area, and the Illinois State Capitol Building looms majestically in the city center, with a statue of the former president in front. 

So, the decline in downtown foot traffic, then, might be best represented by the drastic drop in visitors to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, located a few blocks from the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln gave his famous “house divided” speech.

Data from the museum shows that visitor numbers have decreased 66% since its opening in 2005. While numbers from 2025 are slightly higher than 2024, the museum hasn’t been able to return to pre-pandemic attendance levels. 

Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Cherry Valley, who sits on the Senate Special Committee on Tourism, said the post-pandemic work-from-home culture has affected Springfield more than other cities in Illinois. 

“Certainly over the years, Springfield tourism has relied a lot on government-related tourism,” Syverson said. He added that the shift of state business toward Chicago, coupled with the convenience of conducting meetings over Zoom, created “less of a need for people to come to Springfield for meetings.” 

It was a pattern he said started under Democratic Governors Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn. Blagojevich was criticized for the day-trip flights he would take to Springfield from Chicago, and Quinn faced backlash for cutting state workers. The number of state workers in Sangamon and Menard counties dropped from 23,000 in 1990 to 17,000 in 2009 under Quinn. Republican Bruce Rauner’s adversarial relationship with state workers and the two-year budget impasse he presided over also didn’t help matters. 

Since 2019 when Pritzker took office, the number of state workers in Sangamon County alone has grown from 8,887 to 12,031, according to state data. Even so, many of those workers have offices miles from the heart of downtown. 

The state spent $80 million to repurpose a 186,000-square-foot former Sears department store in a shopping mall west of the city’s center and relocated the headquarters for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency there at the end of 2024. That same year, the state spent $6 million to purchase a 176,000-square-foot former Wells Fargo office building at the far western edge of the city. It has become the new headquarters for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services. 

Syverson also said he doesn’t expect much state activity to shift back to in-person in Springfield anytime soon. 

“It’s the new way of communication,” he said. “We just have to be creative in the different opportunities and the type of events that go on.” 

But business owners like Paul of Prairie Archives said that tourism marketing can only go so far. 

“I firmly believe in people working in offices. You can offer promotions and new themes to bring people downtown, but ultimately, we need the people,” he said. “And I’ve never met anyone that said their goal is to put the office workers back in offices.”

Momentum for 2026

This year holds promise for Springfield businesses and tourism, Dahl said, noting the centennial celebration of Route 66 will have 20 co-branded events, and that the nation’s 250th birthday is expected to bring more visitors than ever. 

Centennial events kick off on April 30 along Route 66, which starts in downtown Chicago, heads south through Springfield and then west through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, ending in Santa Monica, California, and covering more than 2,000 miles.

For America’s 250th birthday, organizations around Illinois and in Springfield are planning events to mark the moment, celebrate history and draw tourists to the state and its capital city.

In addition, for the first time, the city of Springfield will also attract sports tourists with the grand opening of the $75 million Scheels Sports Park at the intersection of I-55 and I-72, a sports megaplex with eight fields for baseball, soccer and more, an indoor sports dome, multiple courts and 2,500 parking spaces. 

“We’re talking about 100-team tournaments that will be coming to Springfield this summer,” Dahl said. “We have never seen anything like that.” 

Jay Shanle calls it a transition period for Springfield. Shanle was recently named executive director of Downtown Springfield Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the downtown area, following Carlos Ortega’s departure.

In May, the City Council approved the Springfield Downtown & Mid-Illinois District Master Plan — a 278-page document outlining development of the city as a hub for health care, tourism and urban living over the next few decades. 

Shanle said he admits that “tourism comes and goes,” so Lincoln and Route 66 are “not enough to overcome that gap that we lost with state employment.” But he hopes DSI can help build an identity for downtown centered around the city’s arts and culture staples coming off the master plan. 

“We always look at downtown through the lens of what it was: state workers, central shopping district,” Shanle said. “But when you take these things away and you do asset mapping… you realize it has all the components to be an arts, culture and entertainment district.” 

Some Springfield residents have even begun taking matters into their own hands. 

Leah Wilson, executive director of the Kidzeum, along with other local business owners, came up with the idea for a campaign called “My Heart’s Downtown.” They launched the grassroots movement last month to revitalize downtown Springfield and get residents and tourists excited about the area.

The campaign provided businesses with a marketing package, such as a logo to display in  windows or feature on social media, and a calendar to stay up to date on special events.

Wilson said beyond obvious fixes like improving infrastructure and making public parking more accessible, the city and its residents needed to think about the big picture. 

“I thought it could be a powerful reminder for people that the heart of Springfield is in its downtown,” she said. “If you look at the number of cultural and historical assets that we have, those are in downtown. The stories that we love to tell about Springfield are downtown. Not in the strip malls on the west side of town.”

Erika Tulfo and Jacques Abou-Rizk are graduate students in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, and are fellows in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. 

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article appears in April 23-29, 2026.