$10M event center, parking upgrade could bring year-round events to Tri-Cities fairgrounds
Benton County is beginning to look at giving the aging fairgrounds a major facelift, with plans to pour millions into the property over the next several years.
A new event center at the Benton County Fairgrounds would be the centerpiece, helping bring more events to the area throughout the year.
Benton County commissioners got their first look at what those plans might entail during a Request for Proposal presentation at a recent meeting. The proposal would see the county engaging with a firm to design the proposed 50,000-square-foot facility.
Ideally, it would also connect to two smaller existing buildings, adding more than 20,000 square feet of usable, interconnected space.
Design process
El Dorado Architects has been selected for the design process, with a bid of just over $1.4 million.
The design will also see revamps to the parking lot and entry. The firm has office in Kansas City, Mo. and Portland, Ore.
County Administrator Jerrod MacPherson told the Herald that a final cost isn’t set in stone, but they hope to have the entire project done for under $10 million.
The county also is working on a new masterplan for the fairgrounds, which is in the design stage.
The facility as currently proposed would be a 50,000-square-foot pre-engineered metal building. It would have partitions that could be moved to divide up the space and be heated and cooled.
El Dorado’s proposal shows the design work could be done as early as spring of 2024, with parking lot and building construction beginning around April.
The parking lot work would be done by the end of summer, in time for the 2024 fair, and the building would be complete by March 2025.
Including in the parking lot and entryway revamp would be a rework of the 4.5-acre north parking lot, with a new circulation area at the entrance to the fairgrounds.
It would also feature a new ticket booth and entry space, as well as 1,500 square feet of office space and new paved walkways between the buildings.
Fairground Manager Tom French said that while the initial package presented to commissioners showed the event center could go in on the area known as the Central Lawn, the location hasn’t been finalized.
He said that if the new building were to fall in the area where the historic Old McDonald’s Barn is currently located, they would most likely move the barn because it’s an important piece of the fair’s history.
Losing events
“We turn away a lot of large events that could bring in a lot of money to the community,” French said. “We want to be extremely (agriculture) heavy, we want to focus on the events related to that.”
French said that he’s heard chatter about the rodeo arena being closed, but that’s actually the opposite of what they hope to accomplish.
“We don’t want to talk away the rodeo arena, we want to do more with it,” he said.
He also pointed to the new 4H facility and public riding arena, as part of their initiative to bring in more agriculture-related events.
“The whole purpose of this project is to revitalize the fairgrounds for use other than just the fair week,” he said. “We want to take this really nice piece of property that the community should have more use of and update it.”
French said it’s important for them to draw more family-friendly, low-cost events. At the same time, the event center could be used to house conferences or events that may have been interested in the Tri-Cities before, but couldn’t find the right space.
He said the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce had expressed interest in hosting a conference in the Tri-Cities, but couldn’t find the right fit.
“We didn’t have enough space located together,” he said. “If we can get that new building to co-exist with the current event space and make it easy to go from one to the other, that’s the goal.”
French said they aim is to revamp the area to be centered around the community, bringing events to the Tri-Cities for the entire community to enjoy.
The 2023 Benton Franklin Fair and Rodeo runs August 22-26. Musical acts announced include rapper T.I. and country star Justin Moore.
The annual horse racing event set for late April and early May will not be held this year, due to insurance issues.
This story was originally published April 6, 2023 at 12:07 PM.
