Mission:     
The Center for the Arts is established to provide arts-related organizations with an environment to maximize their programming potential to stimulate the community's cultural growth. It provides the community with a venue to foster an understanding of and appreciation for the arts, enhance artistic expression and communication, and to enrich community interaction.

The Springfield Center for the Arts is itself a product of the human drive to create. The organization grew from the collective desires of arts organizations and arts patrons to build a new facility that would meet the physical needs of the organizations and serve as a cultural hub for the City of Springfield. What began as a dream is becoming a reality as musical, theatrical and dance performance groups, visual artists, writers, and photographers all have a place to call home.

History
In the early 1980s, Kay Feurer, then Executive Director of the Springfield Area Arts Council, imagined a cultural center at the Springfield Masonic Temple. But, at the time, this vision was seemingly unattainable. In 1999 Mayor Karen Hasara formed a group to envision the direction of the city in the next 20 years. With direct input from many citizens, the Springfield 2020 committee placed a home for the arts in downtown Springfield at the top of the list, further strengthening the concepts already in place.

Then in 2001, through the generous gift of Carolyn Oxtoby and Stephen Bartholf, the Masonic Temple was purchased, and the not-for-profit organization Springfield Arts Center, Inc. began the quest to transfigure the facility into the Center for the Arts. Additional funding was secured from the Illinois Arts Council for architectural planning and consultation. Recognizing the immense public benefit this project held for the people of Springfield, the State of Illinois awarded a grant of $5.5 million to begin the renovation. Disbursement of state monies came in 2003, and renovation work began almost immediately.