Carthage marks a year of change in economic development team

May 3—CARTHAGE, Mo. — 2022 was a year of change for economic development in Carthage, with new people in three key positions to promote the city in business and tourism, and also because of the sale of the last four public parcels of land at Myers Park in the south part of town.

In November 2022, Mayor Dan Rife announced the sale of the last lots on the former city airport located between Fir Road and Airport Drive and Grand Street and Hazel Street at the first-ever state of the city report hosted by the Carthage Chamber of Commerce.

"Those of us who have been here forever remember the airport and the big plans for Myers Park," Rife said. "That property has been sitting out there for 30 or 40 years with very little happening. As of right now, every piece of that property that the city owns is either sold or under contract.

"In the last four months, action out there has been ridiculously busy, and I think a big part of that was that we did some roundabout work, we did some street work to allow better access to that property. Over the next year or two, you're going to see huge changes, and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. It's going to be really neat. G3 Family Entertainment broke ground last week. This is going to be fantastic for Carthage. Worshe Laundromat and retail is going out there. There's a new group of mid- to upscale town homes going in, just lots of other things going on. The most important thing is that property is all sold, all ready to go."

Rife said he's very excited to see the G3 Family Entertainment complex be built on the former airport grounds. At a groundbreaking in October 2022, Tom Garrison, developer of the entertainment complex, called it "bigger than anything in the area."

"You'll have to drive an hour to get to anything that's comparable," Garrison said. "We have a big area around Carthage and the fact that you have to drive to have fun is just not right. We raised three girls in this town. I was born and raised here, and I've watched things come and go. We used to have two miniature golf courses, batting cages here and a movie theater at one time. It's all gone and nothing has replaced it."

G3 Entertainment is slated to include a 36,000-square-foot building housing a 24-lane bowling alley, a 4,000-square-foot kids play area, a 2,800-square-foot "ninja tag" obstacle course, and a restaurant.

That building is under construction near the intersection of Garrison Avenue and Airport Drive and will be surrounded by an 18-hole miniature golf course and other entertainment options.

Rife said the entertainment center will be a great anchor for the other things coming to Myers Park, including a 38-unit townhouse complex and a retail complex that will feature a laundromat and space for a restaurant and retailers.

"I'm just superexcited about that entertainment center," he said. "That's going to bring people for miles around. So yeah, it's been a long time coming but it's a great thing that it's been sold and we can sit back and watch it all happen at this point."

City Administrator Greg Dagnan said this surge of development brings things to Carthage it didn't have before.

"For those that are critical of the project, all three of those things are things we don't have in town," Dagnan said. "We don't have a high-end laundromat, we definitely don't have an entertainment center, we don't have a set of higher-end townhouses. All of those can be huge for us."

Setting the table

Carthage also spent 2022 remaking its economic development team and bringing in people to offices that didn't exist as separate jobs in the past.

—The year started with Julie Reams taking over as president of the Carthage Chamber of Commerce in January 2022.

—In June 2022, the city hired Katie Fields as the first Carthage tourism director. In the past that job had been handed by the Carthage Convention and Visitors Bureau, but that organization has been disbanded.

—In December 2022, the city and the Carthage Economic Development Corporation hired Jeff Meredith as the city's first standalone economic development director. Those duties had been handled by the Carthage chamber president, but the city decided to separate those roles in 2020.

Days after he started the job, Meredith pulled together the city, Carthage Water & Electric Plant and the Steadley Trust to provide matching grant money to the state to apply to purchase more than 300 acres of land south of Mercy Carthage Hospital for an industrial park.

"I've got to hand it to Jeff Meredith, that was really an impossible task that he got done in a very short time," Dagnan told a meeting of the Carthage City Council. "Jeff Meredith started on Jan. 8 and a couple of days later was the first Carthage Economic Development Commission Board Meeting, and Jeff had already been researching this. "He said, 'Hey, there's this DED (Missouri Department of Economic Development) grant for industrial development property. I'm the new economic development guy, but at this point I don't have a building, I don't have property, like I don't really have anything that is city-owned to promote.' He said, "Do you want me to write this grant, even though basically it's a 60-day turnaround and it's going to be very hard?' The CEDC Board is like, you're new, this is good timing, go ahead, go for it."

The city submitted its application before the Feb. 20 deadline and winning propositions are set to be announced this spring.

Dagnan and Rife said Reams has hit the ground running with new programs and ideas in her first year as Chamber president.

Carthage attractions

New tourism director Katie Fields is busy making sure people know the kinds of attractions Carthage has for visitors.

"Katie was telling me that she pushed out some information about the Civil War Museum and, No. 1, she was shocked at how many people responded to that," Dagnan said. "She was also shocked at the responses of how many people who said, 'Now where is that again?' We're doing stuff in the city marketing realm that we've never done before. Katie's doing well. We were featured in the national Food and Travel Magazine, and I would show you but Katie's gone to three different places to buy a hard copy and they've all been sold out. So, we still don't have a hard copy of it."

Dagnan said plans are for the Carthage Economic Development Corporation to become more self-sufficient. Currently, it is supported primarily by money from the city and CW&EP.

"The plan is for that to eventually come up with other funding sources and revenue streams, including private business memberships where interested parties can be a member for a fee," Rife said. "That's the hope and that's the plan. Hopefully within three to five years, they're mostly self-supporting. I don't think the city and CW&EP will ever pull out completely, but hopefully we will no longer be the primary funding source."