The Union County Fair Board is asking the county commissioners for help to upgrade the local fairgrounds.
Fair board representatives were at a recent commissioners meeting to ask for the money.
“Our investment that we were looking at from you guys is, over the next five years, $1 million to help put back into the community and get started,” said fair board member Michelle Kuhlwein.
Fundraising committee member Dean Cook said the fair board could settle for half a million.
The fair board is in the midst of a multi-phase renovation of the fairgrounds, which would include a 20,000-square-foot, year-round event center.
Fair board officials believe the overall project will cost $2.4 million, hoping for 25% to come from private funds and the remainder to come from public funds. Fair officials said there would be additional costs to upgrade the electric at the fairgrounds. Officials said those improvements could be an additional $500,000.
Kuhlwein said the fair board has “raised over $500,000, private money” though she said the board has exhausted those funding options.
“But we are hearing now, what’s the public sector going to do? What’s our commissioners going to do? What’s the cities going to do? Because until we get some commitments from you guys and the city, the private funding is kind of at a standstill.”
She said the board feels that once there is a commitment from the city and the county, private donors will be more receptive.
Earlier this year representatives of the fair board asked the city to contribute $250,000 — $50,000 for five years— to the project. Kuhlwein told the commissioners that Marysville has committed funding, but “we just don’t have an amount yet.”
The fair board has also approached state officials to be part of the state’s Capital Appropriation Budget, which supports large-scale community projects. That money would be used to improve the electric at the fairgrounds, not for the building.
“We were informed that we need to get some commitments out of the local people,” Kuhlwein explained.
She said the state does not want to fund projects that local officials are not supporting or that may not come to fruition.
“If we don’t take advantage of these dollars that are out there now… if we don’t commit to this, they are going to spend it on something else,” Kuhlwein said.
Kuhlwein said the county could use COVID-19 relief funds to help with the project.
Board members also explained that by moving away from private funding, there are more options for uses. They said businesses do not want to hold events in a building named after a competitor.
“Having it the Union County Events Center, it’s more Union County,” fair board member Darrison Cook said.
Dean Cook said the board met with U.S Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) who is also supporting the project, though not financially.
“He said, ‘This is a great place to have a community center,” Cook told the commissioners. “He said, ‘At the end of the day, who wants to have a convention in Columbus and deal with Franklin County, you know, with their riots down there.’”
Kuhlwein added that calling it the Union County Events Center “would settle a lot of fights.”
The commissioners asked if they could have some time to process the request.
“At this point in time, I don’t think either one of us are willing to commit anything to you without having some thought into it,” County Commissioner Steve Robinson said.
He questioned how smart it is to put money into a fairgrounds that is landlocked.
Darrison Cook said there is a deadline for the decision.
“We want it by the end of the year,” he said.
The event center would be built on the site of the current Merchant’s Building near the Route 31 entrance. Officials said they would like to start the project before the fair next year, and it would take about a year.
“Our end goal is to have this community building like a lot of other places do,” Kuhlwein said. “This building really is not about the fair at all. It is about our community. It is about our community having a place where they can come and have events with 400 or more people.”
The year-round facility will offer meeting rooms, exposition space, outdoor gathering spaces, a prep kitchen, loading dock and climate control.
The project would also include converting about 1.5 acres off of Route 31 into parking adjacent to the new building. The event center is in addition to the new 12,800-square-foot cattle barn completed earlier this year.
Officials have said the center will be large enough to hold up to 1,000 people, or 600 if they are seated, though the size and amenities of the building are fundraising dependent.
Officials have said they envision using the space for things like meetings, specialty shows, weddings, sporting events, proms and community emergency events like mass vaccination clinics as well an incubator space for start-up businesses.
Kuhlwein added that the building could have dedicated office space for nonprofits.
“I think there is a lot of things that can be done with a lot of our nonprofits in town, where they could have a space,” Kuhlwein said.
She added, “that is kind of our vision for that and then the revenues that eventually we would make off building, then we could use that to sustain the fair for the week of the fair for our kids.”
“We want to promote good business and development there at our grounds so that we can get people there so that we can be self-sustaining after this drive,” Kuhlwein said. “We don’t want to have to be in here every year begging the commissioners so that we can run.”