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New Building at
Fairgrounds Going Up The $1.4 million project underway at the future site of the Livingston County 4-H and FFA Fairgrounds is well underway and the huge multi-purpose building and nearby cattle building are nearing completion. The Chillicothe R-2 School Board received an update on the project during Tuesday evening's regular November meeting held at district headquarters. "Things are looking really good," said Ron Wolf, Grand River Technical School co-director. "The multi-purpose building is really massive and it's about two-thirds done." he added, explaining that the building is expected to be completed by the end of 2006. Specifically, the multi-purpose building is 28,000 square feet - 8,000 of which will be enclosed and subsequently heated and air conditioned. When put in use for the county fair, the enclosed portion of the building is where the items formerly housed in the green building at the former fairgrounds site will likely be placed. The show ring will also be placed in the area and the wings coming off of the building will be open and house all livestock, excluding horses and cattle. The cattle barn, located just east of the multi-purpose room is almost completed as well. Wolf said that the walkway between the multi-purpose building and the cattle barn still needs to be finished. Water, sewer, and electricity has already been installed. "The main thing we have left to do in order to have a county fair there is have the arena built," Wolf said, adding that the project will be done sometime over the winter and should be finished by next spring, depending on the weather. The campground is also expected to be completed by that time. The bulk of the project is being funded through donations from four local foundations and the Chillicothe Development Corporation. Funding from these sources are as follows:
According to Chillicothe R-2 School Superintendent Dale Wallace, some of those funds have been pledged on an annual basis for a period up to five years. Wolf said that he has received commitment from a few local banks and announcements regarding their respective donations to help fund the project will be announced within the coming months. The multi-purpose building, the wings off of it and the cattle barn are considered to be part of Phase 1 of the project. Phase 2, according to Wolf, includes concrete work in the cattle barn, construction of the horse barn, and building stalls for it. Wolf said that the temporary plans for the site also includes a new shelter house donated by the Chillicothe Rotary Club. He noted that bids were being taken on that project now and the building will likely go up next spring. The site of the new Livingston County 4-H and FFA Fairgrounds encompasses 16 acres, in addition to the 22 acres currently housed in the Litton Agri-Science Learning Center, which will also be utilized during fair time. While the buildings at the new fairgrounds site have been going up, the ones at the former fairgrounds site, just east of Chillicothe, have been going down. According to Bob Peters, a member of the Livingston County
Fair Board's building committee, all of the buildings at the former fairgrounds have been sold to Todd and Bob
Rounkles as of Oct. 14. Peters said he was excited about the activity going on in the new fairgrounds site. |