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recreation, sports and leisure

Outdoor experiences consistently top any list of the area’s top amenities. Residents and visitors love easy access to natural areas as well as sports and recreation centers. But quality recreation areas are expensive to build and maintain, and despite community buy-in, stable funding remains a challenge.

key metrics

$25.5 million

In economic impact from sports events hosted in our community

Half of that impact came from basketball and rugby events.

Estimated economic impact of sports events, by sport (millions).

36,800

People attended park events

Harvest Fest alone drew 22,732.

Attendance at [park] events, by event.

2026 report

From Willard's Better Together Playground to Ozark's Garrison Springs Community Forest, communities across the Springfield Ozarks are building places to play through creative partnerships. New trail segments are closing gaps, like the Chadwick Flyer heading toward Ozark, and sports tourism keeps drawing tournaments and visitors to the region. What holds the region back: no stable long-term funding for parks, parkland that hasn't kept pace with population growth, and too little indoor space to host large tournaments.

Read the Chapter

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Community Collaboration

Trails and connections

Sports Tourism

Greenspace preservation

Stable long-term funding source

Indoor Sports Event Capacity

Community Collaboration

Community Collaboration

New projects are often funded through a creative mix of public/private partnerships, grants, donations, tax revenue and bonds.

The City of Springfield’s Spring Forward Sales Tax revenue, approved by voters in 2024 and generating $30 million a year for Forward SGF initiatives, is moving the needle on several Springfield-Greene County Park Board projects:

Master Planning for five parks, Fassnight, Grant Beach, Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial, Sequiota and Silver Springs, begins in Fall 2026. The process is driven by public engagement and stakeholder input, providing a roadmap to success and opening the door to future funding opportunities.
McDaniel Park redevelopment. Spring Forward revenue, paired with an Abilities First grant, fund an accessible playground. Construction begins Fall 2026 on the playground as well as a new 783-foot pump track loop, pavilion with restrooms, parking lot and entrance drive. The project also includes donations from TrailSpring and the Hatch Foundation and additional City of Springfield funds.
Meador Park Pickleball upgrades, including expanded court space and a new pavilion with restrooms. Ozarks Pickleball Club is co-funding this project, expected to break ground in 2027.
Dickerson Park Zoo Bald Eagle exhibit, new accessible playground and master plan, with completion expected in 2027.
Lafayette Park Master Plan implementation, in partnership with Springfield Public Schools’ redevelopment of the adjacent sports field for Reed Middle School, underway in 2026.

Collaboration is evident in Willard, where the Better Together Playground opened in June 2024, culminating a two-year partnership between Willard Parks and a nonprofit group formed to create an inclusive playground. The nearly $1 million project is recognized as a National Demonstration Site.

Springfield South Kiwanis Club partnered with the Hatch Foundation, Abilities First and City Utilities to build the Hatch Playground at Miller Park, adjacent to Fellow Lake, opening in May 2025.

Praise Assembly continues development on Northeast Community Park, open to the public at the church’s campus on north Glenstone. The park opened in 2024, offering walking paths, sports courts and gathering spaces in an area previously called a “play desert.” The park’s new $250,000 accessible playground opened in July 2026, was funded, like the rest of the project, through donations, grants and community partners.

Longtime Park Board partnerships with Ozark Greenways, Friends of the Garden, Friends of the Zoo, Springfield Sister Cities Association, continue to support park development and infrastructure as well as provide a pipeline for volunteers.

Trails and connections

Trails
and connections

A top initiative in Springfield’s Forward SGF plan is to “UnGap the Map,” expanding and connecting the city’s trails.

The City of Springfield is designating new Spring Forward Sales Tax revenue to:

UnGap the Map, $1 million for design, engineering and easement acquisition, for closing priority gaps in the greenway system. Priority projects include the extending the planned Chadwick Flyer north of Sunshine Street and connecting the Jordan Creek Greenway to Grant Avenue Parkway, and spanning Ward Branch Greenway across Campbell.
Grant Avenue Parkway North $1 million for corridor planning for a greenway along Grant Avenue, between College Street and Hillcrest High School.
Frisco Highline Connector, $500,000 for corridor planning, connecting the Frisco Highline Trail to the Grant Avenue Parkway.
Chadwick Flyer Trial, $1.8 million to build 1.8 additional miles of the Chadwick Flyer Trail, connecting Kissick Avenue to the Trail of Honor. When completed, this section will also connect to the segment south of Kissick. Plans call for eventually connecting to nearly 4 miles of trail in Christian County, including a bridge over US 65, which opened in spring 2026. North of the Trail of Honor, another 4.3-mile segment has been designed, but construction is not yet funded.

In addition to Spring Forward projects, Ozark Greenways is adding east and west connections on Springfield.

Construction in 2027 extends South Creek Greenway eastward from National to Glenstone, and westward to Wilson’s Creek Greenway, spanning beneath West Bypass.

Federal funding has not yet been released for the $25 million federal RAISE Grant, announced in 2024 to fund additional UnGap the Map projects.

Despite popular support and heavy use of trails, Ozark Greenways works with limited capacity for operations and capital funding, compared to other trail groups in the region.

Sports Tourism

Springfield Sports Commission released the Huddle Up Group 2025 Sports Tourism Strategic Plan.

The plan notes growing momentum in sports tourism bookings. Despite limits on indoor tournament space, the Springfield Sports Commission continues to book a wide variety of national and regional tournaments, including the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships, in Springfield for the past 18 years.

The event brought a record 414 teams (10,000 visitors) to the city in 2026, with $5.87 million in economic impact.

The Sports Commission’s top 15 tournaments booked for 2025 and 2026 brought nearly $20 million in economic impact.

More than three years of renovations at Cooper Sports Park and Killian Sports Complex improvements are now complete, including 19 newly turfed sports fields, opening 2025 (soccer) and 2026 (baseball and softball.)

The $27.5 million project was collaboratively funded with ARPA funds from the City of Springfield and the State of Missouri. The new fields are heavily booked with league play, and tournaments are up more than 30 percent.

The City of Republic issued $9.9 million in Parks and Rec bonds in 2023, funding development of The Rush aquatics park as well as new tennis and pickleball courts at Miller Park and a large pavilion and plaza at JR Martin Park. Republic’s planned Regional Sports Complex development is currently on hold due to funding limitations and the need for further study of financial viability.

After 22 years, the soon-to-be-former Springfield Cardinals announced a name change coming in October 2026. The name change follows a rebrand of the minor league baseball team’s home field earlier in 2026 as Route 66 Stadium, in partnership with O’Reilly, Mercy, Missouri State and stadium owner, the City of Springfield.

Wilson Logistics Arena, continues to bring a mix of sports, events, livestock shows, concerts, banquets and expos to the Ozarks Empire Fairgrounds, including the Ozarks Lunkers arena football, playing its third season in 2026.

Greenspace preservation

Greenspace preservation

A Red Flag since the 2005, and a community priority since the City of Springfield’s Vision 20/20 plan in the early 2000s, remains increasing parks inventory and greenspace.

Despite the abundance of scenic waterways and natural areas around the city, the number of acres designated as public parkland have not kept up with population growth.

The National Parks and Recreation Agency’s community standard is 10 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. The 2021 Springfield-Greene County Parks and Recreation Master Plan counted 10.3 acres per 10,000 residents.

Drilling down into types of parkland, Springfield-Greene County falls far behind the target of 2.5 acres per 1,000 residents for Mini Parks, Neighborhood Parks and small-to-medium Community Parks.

Springfield’s Lake Springfield Plan, adopted in 2024, calls for transformation of 1,000 acres along Lake Springfield and the James River, adjacent to the decommissioned James River Power Station, owned by City Utilities of Springfield.

Further south, the City of Nixa is developing the 52-acre Eoff Family Century Farm Park, a Missouri Century Farm donated to serve as a city park, with natural areas and hiking trails.

The City of Ozark opened the 10-acre Garrison Springs Community Forest in August 2024, preserving three natural springs and geologic features in a lush forest valley. The park, funded through state and federal grants, includes a walking trail leading to a scenic overlook, historic buildings and picnic areas.

Ozark also conducted a community survey in 2025, with results slated to contribute to a Master Parks Plan for the City of Ozark.

While not adding new acres of parkland, the Park Board’s Conservation Management program works to improve natural areas of existing parks. By partnering with Springfield Environmental Services, Missouri Dept. of Conservation, Springfield Art Museum and neighborhood associations, the program incorporates conservation management plans and practices, removing invasive species, reestablishing native plants, controlling erosion and naturalizing urban spaces.

Ongoing conservation projects are taking place at Lake Springfield, Lost Hill, Sequiota, McDaniel and Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial parks, Bill & Payne Stewart Golf Course and on the grounds of the Art Museum along Fassnight Creek.

Stable long-term funding source

Identifying a stable long-term funding source for parks, trails and sports infrastructure has been a red flag since the 2009 Community Focus Report — before the expiration of the 2001 and 2006 Countywide Parks Sales Taxes, which provided capital funding for parks until the final tax sunset in 2012.

While grants, donations, ARPA and now Spring Forward tax revenues enable development of new projects, funding lags behind for maintenance and upkeep of older and historic facilities.

Park development projects continued to be guided by grants and donations.

The 2026-2027 Parks budget included a total of $2.51 million in donations for projects like McDaniel Park, Meador Pickleball facility improvements and the Bald Eagle exhibit and new playground at Dickerson Park Zoo.

The Park Board’s 2026 Outdoor Pool Assessment shows five of six outdoor pools are near or beyond 50 years old.

These same five pools have an estimated lifespan of five years or less, unless significant repairs and reinvestments are undertaken. Outdoor pools are not the only area of Parks inventory that needs significant, as there is now more than $100 million in deferred maintenance in Parks assets.

In 2026, the Park Board set a goal of dedicating 20 percent of the department’s $35.8 million annual budget to capital investment – up from 8 percent.

With no new revenue source, achieving this goal will require reallocation of funds from other areas of the Parks budget.

One pinch point for the budget is staffing costs continue to rise faster than revenue growth. This is a multi-year trend linked, in part, to rising minimum wage, at $15/hour in 2026, more than double Missouri’s $7.70/hour minimum wage rate in 2017. Minimum wage impacts the 500+ seasonal and part time workers Parks hires each year, as well as compressing pay scales for 235 full-time workers.

Indoor Sports Event Capacity

The Springfield Sports Commission released the Huddle Up Group 2025 Sports Tourism Strategic Plan, updating the group’s 2019 plan.

The plan notes growing momentum in sports tourism bookings.

As in 2019, the Huddle Up plan once again emphasizes that expansion of indoor sports capacity is critical to sustaining that growth, and that Springfield is falling behind in hosting events for basketball, volleyball, wrestling and other indoor sports.

Springfield’s 18-year relationship with the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships is a notable achievement, as tournament directors typically consider eight gymnasiums in a single location as minimum. The Park Board’s Fieldhouse SportsCenter offers four indoor basketball courts.

Plans are in place to expand the Fieldhouse, but funding has not been identified for the project. The privately-operated Strafford Sports Center, the area’s only other four-court facility available for tournaments, closed in 2026.

Springfield voters have twice rejected a hotel/motel tax that was the cornerstone for funding a $175 million expansion renovation of the city-owned Springfield Convention Center. The proposed project would have added space to host indoor sports tournaments, among other events.

After 52.56 percent of voters turned down the ballot proposal in November 2025, the “no” votes grew to 57.87 percent for a similar proposal in April 2026.

COMMUNITY FOCUS

recreation, sports and leisure

key metrics

$25.5 million

36,800

2026 report

Read the Chapter

Community Collaboration

Trails and connections

Sports Tourism

Greenspace preservation

Stable long-term funding source

Indoor Sports Event Capacity

Community Collaboration

Trails
and connections

Sports Tourism

Greenspace preservation

Stable long-term funding source

Indoor Sports Event Capacity

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