Jefferson City was recently named as the site for a new Special Olympics Missouri facility, and that designation is due to the efforts of many supportive local businesses and officials.
Nearly two weeks ago, Special Olympics Missouri officials announced the planned Training for Life campus project had been awarded to Jefferson City over a competing bid from Columbia. The proposal, submitted by the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce, included 15.5 acres near U.S. 54 and Missouri 179 donated by Land Investments, run by Bud Farmer, Mike Farmer and Frank Twehous.
That donation secured the bid for Jefferson City, but it wasn't its only asset.
Gathering community support
In the chamber's final proposal were 13 letters of support from area officials, including local members of the state Legislature, the mayor, the Cole County Commission, Lincoln University, Capital Region Medical Center, St. Mary's Health Center and Jefferson City Medical Group.
It also included a list of more than 90 businesses and organizations that supported the proposal, and more than 20 "key leaders" from the community attended the presentation to the Special Olympics Missouri, or SOMO, board. Plus, the Jefferson City Council agreed to fund the $300,000 sewer extension to the site.
"It was just amazing to me," said Missy Bonnot, economic development director at the chamber. "I think that really wowed the Special Olympics and made a big impression on them."
Bonnot said she believes that level of community support made a huge difference in the overall proposal, and she'd like to use that method again when attracting businesses. That's not always possible, she said, because most businesses do not like to look for new locations publicly, making it difficult to garner community support.
Part of the chamber's proposal also included forming two community groups to help SOMO fundraise and operate a healthy athletes program. The proposal detailed the formation of a healthy athlete steering committee made up of representatives from Capital Region, St. Mary's, JCMG, Lincoln University and the YMCA. The committee will seek to provide volunteers and any needed resources for health screenings at the new facility.
The second organization is a subcommittee of the chamber's civic progress committee that will seek to identify potential donors within the area and connect them to SOMO officials. According to the proposal, this subcommittee is made up of representatives from Hawthorn Bank, Central Bank, Jefferson Bank and Ameren Missouri.
Randy Allen, president and CEO of the chamber, said the fact the SOMO board voted unanimously in support of the Jefferson City proposal was a testament to the community efforts.
"Having a unanimous vote really, I think, told the story," Allen said. "When people needed to come to the forefront to make the effort to keep this thing going, everybody did. ... It was a team game."
Spurring economic development
The proposal also was marketed as a way to spur economic development around the U.S. 54 complex.
"Really, the south side along that corridor hasn't grown," Allen said. "Down to Christy (Drive) it's pretty good, but past Southwest and Ellis, it's not much. It just extends that commercial corridor along Highway 54 even farther."
Land Investments donated the 15.5-acre lot, valued at roughly $3.3 million, with that in mind.
"There's still some infrastructure that needed to happen, and one thing was bringing sewer to the site. We didn't really have a tenant to bring to the site," said Kirk Farmer of Farmer Holding Company. "It was just really an opportunity for us to do something for the community and kick-start that development, which will hopefully lead to some future development there."
While the site's highway access and visibility make future development likely, it won't come for a few years.
SOMO has collected donations totaling more than half of its $12.5 million goal in a fundraising campaign that began in April 2013, and the organization won't begin construction on the new campus until it hits that mark, said Gary Wilbers, capital campaign chair.
SOMO also is in the process of securing Neighborhood Assistance Program tax credits and having state tax credits used as an incentive from Boone County to either Cole County or Jefferson City. So far, no existing donors have removed donations they made expecting the campus to be built in Boone County.
The organization's board of directors hopes to finish fundraising by spring 2016. Construction then would begin in early 2017 and take about a year to complete, Wilbers said.
The decision to locate in Jefferson City could spur new donations.
"We are definitely going to explore the possibilities in this area because this area's going to benefit," Wilbers said.
"One of the things that attracted us is that the Chamber of Commerce's civic progress subcommittee has agreed to assist in that aspect."
The chamber's continued involvement likely will be in the form of helping identify potential donors.
Once SOMO determines its timeline, the developers will start making more concrete plans, starting with removing the Capital Quarries operation and preparing the site for the Training for Life campus.
"We will have to quarry out a little bit more, and we'll take some material and fill in where we're proposing for SOMO to be to provide them a more useable site," Farmer said. "It will look entirely different in a year."
The Land Investments team doesn't plan to start additional development until the SOMO campus is in place.
"Once the Special Olympics is built, the site will be a lot more marketable," Farmer said. "We hope to attract some uses that will be good for the community - and what they are, at this point, it's too early to tell. We hope that they would complement the Special Olympics since that is the anchor of the 55-acre parcel."
The Jefferson City chamber's proposal for the campus included a conceptual map showing seven potential commercial lots alongside SOMO's. Land Investments plans to develop the area similar to how it developed Stoneridge Village, where Kohl's, Menards and Dick's Sporting Goods are located, also a quarry site.
"Being closer to Christy Drive with good highway visibility obviously is going to attract more retail, restaurant, outlot-type lots and potentially a hotel site if the market warrants it," Farmer said. "I would think it would be a good site for a hotel just being that close to the Special Olympics and having good highway access and visibility.
"We'll be excited to see what that looks like and what kind of demand there is for whatever opportunities will come up. But it's going to be a couple years," he added. "It's really up to the Special Olympics and their fundraising efforts."