FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The City of Springfield and the West Central Neighborhood Alliance will ceremoniously break ground for the Route 66 Plaza Streetscape at College Street and Broadway Avenue at 9 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 10. The groundbreaking is the prelude to a full weekend of celebrating Springfield’s claim to fame as the Birthplace of Route 66, with 2016 festival Aug. 12-14. This project, expected to begin October 2016, will stretch along College Street from the intersection of Broadway Avenue west to the Birthplace of Route 66 Roadside Park. Planned improvements include a new pedestrian plaza at the northwest corner of the intersection, crosswalks, ADA-compliant sidewalks, landscaping and street trees, decorative street lighting, utility improvements and on-street parking. It is funded through a federal Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) grant and the voter-approved 1/4-cent Capital Improvements Sales Tax During the 2015 festival, the City of Springfield’s Public Works and Planning departments, along with West Central Neighborhood Alliance residents, created a physical mock-up of what a streetscape and plaza might look like, including a clock tower, at College Street and Broadway Avenue east of the Birthplace of Route 66 Roadside Park. During the annual Give Ozarks campaign in May, the West Central Neighborhood Alliance donated $3,000 toward the clock tower project, which has an estimated cost of $55,000. The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival began in 2010 as a West Central Neighborhood car show to fund-raise for improvements to the College Avenue portion of Springfield’s stretch of Route 66. In 2015, the festival had grown into a two-day car show and drew 23,000 people to downtown Springfield. “Springfield has really come together to try to make our downtown great again. Embracing our Route 66 history is an important part of spotlighting authentic places and experiences in Springfield,” says Rusty Worley, former president of WCNA and executive director of the Downtown Springfield Association. ### For more information, please call Director of Public Information & Civic Engagement Cora Scott at 417-864-1009 or 417-380-3352.