Some $300 million in new investments have been reported to be flowing into the Branson area.
Jonas Arjes, executive director of the Taney County Partnership, this morning said that number is now pushing $350 million and rising.
Adding to such developments as the $80 million Spirit of 76 streetscape project, $10 million Fritz’s Adventure and $5 million Branson Mountain Adventure Park, Arjes said the Taney County advocacy group currently is working 26 additional projects.
“We have four that have the potential of being more than $100 million apiece. Now, that could all go away tomorrow or we could get one of the four,” he told a crowd of around 90 at Hilton Garden Inn for Springfield Business Journal’s monthly 12 People You Need to Know live interview series. “You can’t ask for anything better than to have projects to work.”
The former Grand Palace is one example. Branson Entertainment Center LLC - run by the Los Angeles-based operators of Branson’s Hollywood Wax Museum - in
October 2014 bought the 13-acre parcel and its nearly 100,000-square-foot building for $2.7 million.
Arjes predicts within a few months the TCP and the community would learn more about their plans for the project.
“There’s a good chance that’s going to be pretty significant,” he said, noting nondisclosure agreements exist for most development projects in the works. “Each of those have a tourism component. When we can tell, we’ll tell.”
Beyond the quantifiable project list is Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris’ Taney County plans.
Adding to his Big Cedar Lodge, Morris currently is working on additional golf courses, including Coore-Crenshaw, cave connections and other projects.
Morris’ work could easily double the $350 million count, Arjes estimated.
“I’d rather be lucky than good any day, and we’re very fortunate as a community to have his passion,” he said.
Taney attractiveness
Arjes said 80 percent of his time as TCP executive director now is spent on workforce development, up from 10 percent during his first couple years with the organization.
While the TCP has five areas of focus, workforce development has dominated as employers seek to add workers or fill skills gaps. To meet the need of its business investors, TCP works to promote the Branson area’s attractiveness to companies or people considering Taney County.
“In traditional economic development you’ve got to have shovel-ready sites, available buildings with the right height specs and space,” Arjes said. “In Taney County we don’t necessarily have some of those products, so we decided to flip it and sell our strengths: quality of place, quality of life, medical, health care, school districts.
“All the things that would make somebody want to live somewhere, we have all those assets.”
Arjes, who’s fresh from a
Community Leadership Visit with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce to Greenville, S.C., said that area shares in common with Springfield and Branson an interest in public-private partnerships.
Hollister and Branson have seen the benefit of that type of arrangement lately, he said.
“The public sector needs to be the spark, and the private sector needs to be the engine,” Arjes said.
