My answer is straightforward: we help area businesses, and the greater Springfield community, succeed. That sounds simple, but the work behind it is worthwhile, but not easy.
When I took over, both our city and business community were in serious decline. In my first five years, Springfield’s population fell from 65,000 to 58,000. That kind of loss is sobering when your job is to help a community thrive. We didn’t just need programs - we needed a vision, and we needed it fast.
A quote from former GE CEO Jack Welch became a guiding principle: “Good leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” At the Greater Springfield Partnership, we have spent years building an “A Team” that does exactly that. Our shared vision is simple but powerful: Build a Vibrant Community. And we know that a vibrant community and a thriving business environment go hand in hand.
Over the past two decades, that vision has translated into bold, tangible projects.
In 2007, we launched what many thought was impossible - a $9 million industrial development project that opened in 2015. The park has since attracted Love’s Travel Center and Gabe’s distribution center, bringing more than $80 million in investment and around five hundred jobs, with more to come. We paid off the development debt and still control over sixty acres with rail access for future growth.
We helped spark downtown’s resurgence with National Road Commons, a $3 million “backbone connector” park that opened in 2011 and included relocating the Madonna of the Trail statue. It is now a central green space anchoring our downtown comeback.
In 2015, we launched SpringForward, a charitable downtown catalytic fund supported by five major funders. Its mission: fuel market-rate residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment projects that attract and retain the talent we need for NextGen jobs. Today, multiple residential developments, along with successes like COhatch, The State Theater, and new restaurants and venues, are reshaping downtown Springfield’s quality of life.
Since 2010, we’ve formed and managed the Clark County Convention Facilities Authority, funded by a 4% hotel tax that has generated more than $8.5 million for the benefit of many local attractions. Those dollars have supported key community assets like the Fairgrounds and Equine Center, the Westcott House, the Springfield Museum of Art, Wittenberg University, the Gammon House, and more. What experts once said we would never get approved has become a powerful local tool.
That same CFA board has been working on the Champion City Sports & Community Wellness Center, a proposed $22 million venue with eight basketball courts convertible into sixteen volleyball and twenty-four pickleball courts. With land at the former Crowell Collier Complex now secured, this sports tourism and community asset is closer than ever to reality.
Looking ahead, we are leveraging our momentum to pursue NextGen opportunities: Advanced Air Mobility, life sciences and biotech, drone, and AI-related manufacturing, and more. With our growing Fuel & Bio Sciences STEM School, along with Clark State College and Wittenberg University, we’re well positioned to supply the uniquely trained workforce this fast-growing sector demands.
We also have a critical window to complete the Sports & Community Wellness Center and finalize a lease with the State of Ohio for a floatable water park and kayak rentals at Buck Creek State Park - family-friendly attractions that will draw visitors and residents alike.
Our future depends on partnership. By aligning quality of life, NextGen jobs, and a balanced demographic where people of all backgrounds can move here, build careers, and stay, we will achieve what we’ve been working toward all along:
A truly vibrant Greater Springfield.
Mike McDorman is the president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Partnership.
