Born and raised in Springfield, Dan Scott describes himself to other 417-landers as a York-Pipkin-Central kid. That is, he’s a westside boy who went to York Elementary School, Pipkin Middle School and Central High School. For college, Scott headed to Kansas University where he got a degree in architecture. He came back to Springfield to practice, and it was from the window of his office at Michael Sapp and Company PC, which was on Walnut Street where The Order is today, that he first realized what downtown could be. “I saw the potential and saw the possibilities with historic tax credits and decided to use that as a business model,” he says. He used the state historic tax credits to help fund the purchase of a couple of smaller buildings downtown, but when he set his eyes on 400 Place on Walnut Street, a project significantly larger in scale than his others, he knew he would need to be resourceful.

Scott had learned of a financial incentive called Chapter 99 tax abatement that developers in other Missouri cities were taking advantage of and decided to research it. The abatement is a statewide initiative that allows approved projects in blighted areas to be taxed at the predevelopment rate for 10 years. However, even though Chapter 99 is a statewide initiative, it’s administered at the city level, and no one in Springfield had applied for it when Scott started exploring the program.

“It was challenging to get into the program,” Scott says. When Scott was first applying for the abatement, there was a discrepancy between the way the city was potentially wanting to administer the abatement and the way the state statute was written. The city was exploring the idea of granting less than 100 percent tax abatement for 10 years. “I’m a researcher,” Scott says. “That’s part of what you do as an architect. I actually went through the process with the city where I kindly said, ‘That is not the way the state law is written. It’s actually 100 percent for 10 years.’” Scott ultimately received 100 percent abatement for 10 years, which made all the difference for his development plans. “I know I could not have done this project without those tax credits and could not have done it without pairing the historic tax credits and the Chapter 99 tax abatement,” he says. Today Scott’s office and the loft he shares with his wife are located in 400 Place, along with 14 lofts, Aviary Café, Ella Weiss Wedding Design and A Cricket in the House.

Since 2003, 28 other downtown redevelopment projects have received tax abatements, and you could argue that many, if not all, of these projects wouldn’t have happened had Dan Scott not made the Chapter 99 program workable for Springfield developers. Included in those projects are several businesses that have become staples of downtown, businesses such as Golden Girl Rum Club, Randy Bacon Photography, The Veridian, 5 Pound Apparel and more. Many of the projects were partially financed by historic tax credits and tax abatements. One firm that has been particularly successful in utilizing these incentives to redevelop several properties downtown is The Vecino Group.