Osage Beach Mayor Says New Projects In Town Are Exciting For The Community

The Mayor of Osage Beach says with several projects on the horizon that will increase housing, bring more tourists and generate jobs, city officials are looking to attract a new supermarket to the city’s West Side.

Mayor Michael Harmison says there’s already been a need since a Woods location closed a few years ago…“For a grocery stores to come into town…they need what they call so many rooftops….so many people there, and we’re close but were not there just yet. With this new housing development, with the Oasis coming in….I’ve instructed my economic development specialist last week, I said Hey…rather than waiting for these to all be developed…let’s stay ahead of the game and see if we can’t do all of these concurrently. So I actually had a meeting on Monday with an organization that’s reached out to some grocery stores to see if we can’t have them. For that one, I said hey we’re going to have 500 or so workers at the Oasis project and many of them aren’t going to want to have to travel across the bridge just to get to another grocery store.”

Harmison was referencing the recently approved Preserve at Sycamore Creek housing project as well as the Oasis at Lakeport resort and theme park.

He also told Morning Magazine on NewsTalk KRMS the Oasis project remains in its very early approval process stage but could be under construction in the near future…“There’s a lot of things that need to happen on the city side, and we will be applying for some different funding aids that available from the state. One of them that they’re talking about is called a Super TIF, which is what they did down on the Branson Landing. And when they do a Super TIF it actually ties into State funding, not just local. So every dollar they get in a Super TIF mostly comes from State Funding, which means less on Local funding in the end.”

Under a best case scenario Harmison says the parties involved believe the first phase of Oasis could be operational by the Summer of 2024.