Fair board expresses support of new building on fairgrounds
By Brandy Nance
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Lyon County Fair Board expressed approval Wednesday following last week’s presentation regarding a proposal from the Clint Bowyer Foundation to fund and build a multipurpose building on the Lyon County Fairgrounds.
Chris Phillips, of the fair board, said the board met Monday evening to discuss the building, coming to an unanimous agreement to support the proposal.
“The fair board was pretty much in unanimous agreement to go forward with the project,” Phillips told Lyon County commissioners Wednesday morning. “...They felt it would be an addition to the appearance and rentability of the fairgrounds.”
The fair board’s Monday evening meeting came after last week’s meeting between Clint Bowyer’s brother, Casey, and publicist Chip Williams and the Lyon County commissioners. They presented Clint Bowyer’s offer to pay the cost of a multipurpose building on the Lyon County Fairgrounds. All the county needs to do is agree to donate the land the building would sit on. The building, in its initial planning stage, would be between 4,000 and 6,000 square feet — likely closer to the latter — for indoor and outdoor use. The metal building would have an open floor plan and outside, the rear of the building would open into a theater-style seating area for concerts, barbecues, dinners, movie viewings and other functions. The back side would be either glass or have a roll-up feature.
During Wednesday morning’s commission meeting, Phillips said the fair board as a whole did have some concerns about the location of the building. The original proposal from last week suggested the building be built on the Southwest corner of the fairgrounds. Phillips said the fair board would like to have the Quonset huts removed and the new building placed there, facing the Anderson Building.
“They felt that this is the time to get rid of the Quonsets and clean up the area and it would fit the site better,” he said. “If that’s possible they would like to have that done.”
Phillips said the fair board would need to know the plans as soon as possible so it could inform entities that rent the huts.
“Their renewal is coming up right after the fair,” he said.
The fair board also would need to look into another location to store their equipment that is stored in the huts.
“Some of the stuff we can move out to different locations,” Phillips said.
Lyon County Commission Chairman Scott Briggs commented on the proposal to have the huts removed.
“That sure would change the look of the fairgrounds,” Briggs said.
During last week’s proposal, Williams talked about an Aug. 28 deadline for groundbreaking. Ray Toso, former mayor and city commissioner who currently sits on Bowyer’s 79 Fund’s board of directors, said Wednesday that the Aug. 28 date likely would be more of a ceremony.
“Since Clint was in town, got go ahead and be the appropriate time to do the ceremony and the groundbreaking,” Toso said. “His time is pretty limited.”
Toso added that to move forward, approval to use the land is needed.
“This is the first step that has to be taken,” he said.
Commissioners are set to act on the proposal during Thursday’s meeting.
justaflushaway (anonymous) says...
What will BLUESTEM F&R do since the will not have the cheap or free storage in the huts?? anyone want to be that they will leave one there for storage for bluestem??
July 14, 2010 at 1:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
MelissaGarrison (Melissa Garrison) says...
just - I noticed that a comment was printed in the Gazette that the huts "sit empty all year," even though Bluestem uses them almost all year round, except during fair time obviously. So I wondered that, too.
July 15, 2010 at 11:26 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Having the new building where the q-huts sit will really dress up the fairgrounds. I hope they will allow both of Emporia's quilt guilds to display their quilts there during Fair Week. A new building would be so much cleaner than the Anderson Bldg.is.
July 15, 2010 at 12:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )