Living in Blue Springs, Missouri

Living in Blue Springs

Blue Springs is a city in eastern Jackson County, Missouri, about 20 miles east of Kansas City. The Census Bureau estimated its population at 61,632 on July 1, 2025, and the 2020 Census counted 58,603.

According to the city, the name comes from a spring of the Little Blue River where pioneers stopped for water. Franklin Smith arrived in 1838 and opened the first post office in 1845. After the Chicago and Alton Railroad announced a station about a mile east in 1878, the town moved to it, and the Jackson County Court granted incorporation on September 7, 1880. The population was 6,779 in 1970.

Tom Staats is a REALTOR® with Keller Williams Realty Partners in Overland Park, licensed in Missouri and Kansas, and he works with buyers and sellers in Blue Springs. See buying a home and selling a home.

Where Blue Springs is and getting around

Interstate 70 crosses Blue Springs, and M-7 runs north and south through it, meeting Main Street downtown.

From City Hall at 903 West Main Street, OpenStreetMap routing puts downtown Kansas City about 20 miles and 26 minutes away without traffic, almost all of it on I-70. The Country Club Plaza is about 21 miles (31 minutes) and Kansas City International Airport about 40 miles (53 minutes). Corporate Woods in Overland Park is about 26 miles (37 minutes), by US 40, Woods Chapel Road and I-470. Independence Square is about 12 miles away and Lee’s Summit City Hall about 12.

Homes and neighborhoods

By the Census Bureau’s 2020-2024 American Community Survey, Blue Springs has 23,559 housing units. About 70% are single-family detached houses, about 12% are attached single-family homes such as townhouses, and about 9% are in buildings with five or more units. The median home was built in 1986. The 1970s account for the largest share of any decade, about 28%, and about 23% were built in 2000 or later.

Jackson County’s plat records show when and where the city’s subdivisions were recorded:

• Melody Acres: just north of City Hall, platted from 1959 to 1972.
• Woods Chapel Estates: about 2 miles west of City Hall, platted from 1974 to 1987.
• Lake Village: about 2.5 miles south of City Hall, platted from 1976 to 1986.
• Timber Oaks: about 2 miles north of City Hall, platted from 1977 to 2003.
• Stonecreek: about 2 miles south of City Hall, platted in stages from 1985.
• Waterfield: about 2 miles northeast of City Hall, platted from 1987 to 2000.
• Parkway Estates: about 2 miles southeast of City Hall along Adams Dairy Parkway, platted from 2007 to 2024.
• Chapman Farms: about 4 miles south of City Hall. Its first plat carries a 2005 recording number, and later plats were recorded through 2026.

Browse homes for sale in Blue Springs.

Home values in Blue Springs

The median value of owner-occupied homes in Blue Springs was $263,100 in the 2020-2024 American Community Survey. That is a census estimate, not a sale price. For a particular home, Jackson County’s appraised value is on its parcel record. For a pricing review of your own home, start with the home valuation page.

Property taxes in Blue Springs

Missouri assesses residential property at 19% of its market value. The assessor sets market value as of January 1 of each odd-numbered year, and that value carries into the following even year. The tax is the assessed value times the levy, which is stated per $100 of assessed value. Taxes are due by December 31.

For a home in the Blue Springs R-IV district and the Central Jackson County Fire Protection District, which covers most of the city, the 2025 levies were:

At that rate, each $100,000 of market value is $19,000 of assessed value and about $1,556 a year in tax. An address in another school district pays that district’s levy instead: 4.7391 for Lee’s Summit R-7 and 4.7396 for Grain Valley R-V in 2025. Levies are set each fall, and after a reassessment Missouri requires districts to roll them back so revenue grows only by inflation, up to 5%, plus new construction.

The Jackson County reassessment. In 2023 the county’s reassessment raised assessments by an average of about 30%, and by more than 100% on some properties. More than 54,000 owners appealed. In August 2024 the Missouri State Tax Commission found the county had not done the physical inspections and notices state law requires for increases over 15%, and ordered those increases rolled back. For 2025 the Commission ordered that a home’s assessed value could not exceed its corrected 2024 value plus 15%, except for new construction and improvements, and the county agreed to comply in May 2025.

Appeals. Appeals go to the Jackson County Board of Equalization and deal with market value, not the tax amount. In 2025 the filing deadline was July 14, the second Monday in July, and the board valued homes as of January 1, 2025. Board decisions can be appealed to the State Tax Commission. The next countywide reassessment year is 2027.

Jackson County’s senior property tax credit lets an owner 62 or older, living in the home as their only primary residence, hold the tax bill at the amount for the year they qualify.

School districts

According to the city, three public school districts serve homes inside Blue Springs: the Blue Springs R-IV School District, the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District and the Grain Valley R-V School District. In Jackson County’s tax records, about 83% of the city’s area is in Blue Springs R-IV, about 10% in Lee’s Summit R-7 and about 7% in Grain Valley R-V.

District lines do not follow city limits or subdivision names, so look up each address with the district before you buy. See Blue Springs R-IV, Lee’s Summit R-7 and how school attendance boundaries work.

Utilities in Blue Springs

• Electricity: Evergy, in every Blue Springs ZIP code.
• Natural gas: Spire, in ZIP codes 64014, 64015, 64029 and 64064.
• Water and sewer: the city’s Utilities Division provides sewer service, and water in 64014 and 64015. In 64064, water comes from Jackson County Public Water Service District 13.
• Trash and recycling: the city does not collect trash. Residents contract with one of its licensed private haulers, several of which offer curbside recycling. Glass recycling bins are at two local Price Chopper stores, and yard waste goes to drop-off sites in Oak Grove, Lee’s Summit and Kansas City.

Parks and places

• City parks: 18 public parks, four of them undeveloped, on 678 acres, with seven walking and jogging trails. They include Pink Hill Park, Rotary Park, Burrus Old Mill Park and Gregory O. Grounds Park, home to Lake Remembrance, plus the city’s 18-hole Adams Pointe golf course.
• Carson Ross Community Recreation Complex: at 425 NE Mock Avenue, with a fieldhouse and fitness center and the Blue Surf Bay Waterpark.
• Fleming Park: the largest Jackson County park, with 7,809 acres of land on Woods Chapel Road. It holds Lake Jacomo (970 acres, with a 25-horsepower limit for motorboats) and Blue Springs Lake (720 acres, with a beach and marina), plus Missouri Town 1855.
• Burr Oak Woods Conservation Area: 1,071 acres run by the Missouri Department of Conservation, north of I-70 off M-7. Its nature center, built in 1982, was the department’s first.
• Downtown Blue Springs: at Main Street and M-7. It became a Missouri Associate Main Street Program in summer 2015 and has a farmers market.

Flood zones

The FEMA flood insurance rate maps covering Blue Springs took effect January 20, 2017. In Blue Springs, the mapped flood zones follow the East Fork Little Blue River, Burr Oak Creek, Blue Branch, Swiney Branch and West Fire Prairie Creek and their tributaries. Most mapped areas are Zone AE, with some Zone A and a few regulatory floodways.

Check any address on FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center before you make an offer, and ask an insurance agent for a flood quote on a home near one of these streams.

See also Lee’s Summit, moving to Kansas City and buying across the state line.