Feb. 28—Springfield city commissioners will hear from members of a newly formed program that aims to better serve businesses from historically underserved communities as well as later discus the building of a new fire station.
Local elected leaders will be holding a work session before their public meeting Tuesday evening to get an update related to the Springfield Business Development Center's Community Navigator Program. During the public meeting that will follow, they will be asked to conduct a first reading regarding the design of a new fire station that is slated to be built on South Limestone Street.
The public meeting will take place at 7 p.m. and will be held at the City Commission Forum at City Hall. The work session concerning the Community Navigator Program will start at 6:40 p.m. Both will be streamed live on the city's Facebook and YouTube pages.
The update before the meeting will look at what work will be done by the SBDC's new pilot program, which is seeing the center partnering with nine grass roots organizations that already work with various historically underserved communities in the city and county.
The launch of the pilot program, which has a timeline of two years, followed news in the fall that the Springfield SBDC had been awarded $1 million to better support business owners and entrepreneurs from underserved communities.
That funding is in the form of a grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration and as a result nine Community Navigator positions have been created. Their goal is to help build trust and connect more businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs to services such as financial and business coaching as well as access to capital.
Three navigators have been tasked with serving the Black community and business on the southside of Springfield. Other communities that are being targeted by the program, include immigrant businesses, rural businesses as well as those stared by those returning from incarceration.
Following that work session, Springfield city commissioners will be asked to conduct a first reading of an ordinance that will authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with App Architecture LLC for the design of a new fire station to be located on South Limestone Street for an amount not to exceed $350,000.
This is part of a larger plan to build three new fire stations in the city, while replacing more dated ones. The new stations would be located at South Limestone Street, Burt Street and at an undetermined location that will most likely be in the eastside of the city.