'Millennial SWAT teams' from Springfield to descend on cities around the country

Steaming lattes in hand, armed with smartphones and travel brochures, a group of young professionals sat down Friday morning to plan their upcoming expedition to Chattanooga, Tenn.

The group was one of six crews — dubbed "Millennial SWAT teams" — being deployed to cities around the country.

Their objective? To come up with fresh ideas for building the next transformation of Springfield's downtown.

Springfield's Director of Public Information Cora Scott has been in charge of organizing the millennial teams.

"We have incredible momentum in our downtown, and community leaders want to keep that going," Scott said.

The teams are being sent by the Downtown Council of Champions, a group made up of both private and public entities whose task is to envision downtown's future.

The council is made up of 22 of Springfield's largest employers. They each pay $4,000 a year to participate. Only a portion of the organizations in the council are located downtown, a fact that has drawn criticism from at least one downtown business owner. More on that later.

Millennial candidates were nominated to represent different organizations in the council — including the city of Springfield, Greene County, O'Reilly Auto Parts, BKD, Assemblies of God and others.

The target cities for the millennial SWAT teams are Salt Lake City, Lincoln, Chattanooga, Des Moines, Austin and Columbia.

Greg Burris, city manager and former president of the council said research shows millennials are unlike other generations. He said they drive less, they're digital natives and they care about different things.

"I find it fascinating that they are now the largest percentage of our workforce and we're still learning about them and what they value. The community that gets this right has a major competitive advantage," Burris said. "We need to think about how we appeal to millennials for the next couple of decades. Rather than trying to guess what millennials want to see in their downtown, we've decided to organize them into SWAT teams and send them into a variety of downtowns with aspects that we may want to copy in order to establish a new vision for what downtown can become."

At the Friday coffee meeting, the young professionals discussed their upcoming trip. They have scheduled a face-to-face meeting with the mayor of Chattanooga, a visit to a parking garage that has been partially transformed into a futuristic rock-climbing wall and talked about organizing a happy hour for socializing with peers.

The team has a long list of questions for the players in downtown Chattanooga: "What are their strategies to recruit and retain retail stores? What is the role of the arts in their downtown? What are they doing to promote the urban outdoors?"

The millennials are targeting social issues too, like homelessness, brain drain and public transportation.

"I don't want just a sales pitch," said Mailyn Knight, a 26-year-old employee of Greene County on the Chattanooga team, "I want to know what's not working, too."

Kristen Milam, 31, will be representing the city of Springfield on two trips — one to Chattanooga and the other to Lincoln.

Milam told the News-Leader she is especially interested in exploring how a bike-share program can address transportation needs in a community.

Bike-sharing companies allow people to rent bikes for short periods of time. Customers can pick up a bike from one self-serve station and return it to different station.

Milam said she's excited for the opportunity to travel and do creative brainstorming.

"One of the things the project proves is the community is really in tune with what is coming next and they're open to new ideas," Milam said.

Not everyone is completely on board with the plan — downtown business owner Tom Muetzel wants the Downtown Council of Champions to be more inclusive.

"It's kind of a joke that the Downtown Council of Champions do not talk to downtown businesses at all," said Muetzel, who has owned the bar Finnegan's Wake for a decade.

Muetzel said millennial SWAT teams are a "great idea," but he thinks it's a mistake to not let small downtown businesses in on the initiative.

"I really think they ought to make a larger effort working with downtown," Muetzel said. "Why wouldn't you involve the people who are actually doing it in your own backyard?"

Muetzel was also critical of the council's yearly membership fee: "You have to pay to play."

Muetzel said he's not against the council's mission, but believes small businesses deserve representation because their customers' tax dollars go toward funding downtown improvement projects.

"Very rarely are the people who are putting these plans into play, the ones responsible for where the dollars are going to come from," Muetzel said.

John Wanamaker with Springfield-based accounting firm BKD is the president of the Downtown Council of Champions. Wanamaker pointed out that BKD and some other groups on the council are located downtown.

Wanamaker said the council has worked closely on the initiative with the Downtown Springfield Association and the board of the Downtown Community Improvement District.

"It's everybody's downtown," Wanamaker said. "It's important to really get people that have the ability to influence thing and to make things happen."

Wanamaker said the Downtown Council of Champions has budgeted $1,000 per individual for the trips. Any additional costs will be covered by their host organization.

The first millennial SWAT team will be traveling to Salt Lake City Wednesday. The rest of the trips are spread out through the coming months.

The millennial SWAT teams will present their findings to the Downtown Council of Champions on Dec. 7, according to Wanamaker.