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Blue Springs, MO —
A key component of the proposed Missouri Innovation Park in Blue Springs is getting closer.
“We hope to start construction on the Mizzou Center by this fall,” Mayor Carson Ross said Thursday at a Blue Springs Economic Development Corporation event. The center could open in early 2014, Ross said.
The city has purchased 24 acres on Adams Dairy Parkway (behind Target) for the Innovation Park, which is to be built and filled in over many years, becoming the home for businesses primarily in health science, renewable energy and nanotechnology. The hope is those companies will bring thousands of good-paying jobs. The Mizzou Center is run by the University of Missouri, which has a variety of programs that would fit with those industries. The Mizzou Center currently is in the Heartland Financial Building, and some graduate courses are taught there.
Ross also pointed to other progress in the city.
“I believe that communities that act with a sense of vision will be the ones that prevail in the new economic reality,” he said.
That progress, he said, has included:
• Work now under way on the widening and improvement of Woods Chapel Road that will “act as an economic jump-start for the west side of town,” the mayor said.
• The passage last year of the public safety sales tax.
• The “Downtown Alive!” effort, which has received grant money to work on several initiatives.
“I would encourage you to look at investment opportunities downtown,” Ross said.
• The possibility of a commuter rail system – final plans are expected in a few weeks – that would include a stop in downtown Blue Springs. Looking ahead to such a system, the city has bought the old lumber yard downtown. It will be used by the police as the city’s Public Safety Building is renovated. After that, it could be used for the transit system.
“Transit is a game-changer,” Ross said, “not only for our downtown but for our community and region.”
A key component of the proposed Missouri Innovation Park in Blue Springs is getting closer.
“We hope to start construction on the Mizzou Center by this fall,” Mayor Carson Ross said Thursday at a Blue Springs Economic Development Corporation event. The center could open in early 2014, Ross said.
The city has purchased 24 acres on Adams Dairy Parkway (behind Target) for the Innovation Park, which is to be built and filled in over many years, becoming the home for businesses primarily in health science, renewable energy and nanotechnology. The hope is those companies will bring thousands of good-paying jobs. The Mizzou Center is run by the University of Missouri, which has a variety of programs that would fit with those industries. The Mizzou Center currently is in the Heartland Financial Building, and some graduate courses are taught there.
Ross also pointed to other progress in the city.
“I believe that communities that act with a sense of vision will be the ones that prevail in the new economic reality,” he said.
That progress, he said, has included:
• Work now under way on the widening and improvement of Woods Chapel Road that will “act as an economic jump-start for the west side of town,” the mayor said.
• The passage last year of the public safety sales tax.
• The “Downtown Alive!” effort, which has received grant money to work on several initiatives.
“I would encourage you to look at investment opportunities downtown,” Ross said.
• The possibility of a commuter rail system – final plans are expected in a few weeks – that would include a stop in downtown Blue Springs. Looking ahead to such a system, the city has bought the old lumber yard downtown. It will be used by the police as the city’s Public Safety Building is renovated. After that, it could be used for the transit system.
“Transit is a game-changer,” Ross said, “not only for our downtown but for our community and region.”
