helped, especially when it comes to the ‘City of Festivals,’” touts Steve Kinnison, Communications Media Manager. When it comes to connecting with the community, Florissant maintains a strong and growing social media presence. “We’ve learned that it’s extremely powerful for us,” says Kinnison.“Most updates for our city go through our social media platform because we have so many of our residents following it.” He notes that the city’s digital outreach has grown steadily over the last five or six years. RECREATION MEETS TOURISM While the city doesn’t have a dedicated sports complex, it’s reconfiguring existing parks to support youth sports tourism. As part of this plan, a large park known as Koch Park will become a space for soccer, hopefully attracting regional tournaments. St. Ferdinand Park will be repurposed with baseball tournaments in mind. “We’re trying to think outside of the box on how we can attract that youth tourism,” Mulcahy relays. In addition, Florissant has turned an underutilized rec center space into what Mulcahy describes as “the nicest eSports facility in the St Louis region.” He recounts, “It brings people into Florissant for tournaments and other events. That’s something we built because we saw a need to give our younger residents another activity. But it brings in tourism as well.” With more tourism and proximity to the St. Louis airport comes the need for a new high-quality hotel. The city recently completed a hotel market feasibility which showed there would be support for a new midscale to upper mid-scale hotel in the city limits.A big push for a new hotel will come from the increased tourism expected with the St. Louis Zoo Wildcare Park opening in 2027, just minutes from Florissant. EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT The city of Florissant is split between two highly regarded public school districts, each serving distinct sections of the community. Mulcahy expands, “On the west side is the Hazelwood School District. The 7 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 06, ISSUE 07 FLORISSANT, MO
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