Fairground seating work planned for fall

Those who traditionally attend the Union County Fair may have some additional steps to take next year as plans are for some of the seating around the rodeo arena to undergo a remodel this fall.

Using funds from the America Rescue Plan, the county fairboard will begin work on adding additional seats only to the south side of the arena.

“The seating should be delivered in October,” said Union County Fairboard President Ben Adamson.

The delivery for the seating was intentional as the facility is still being used by breed show organizations.

“We still have some things going on here,” Adamson said. “We will get started after that.” Weather may also play a factor in how much can be completed. Adamson said the fair board is aware the work may not be done until next spring.

But what is scheduled to happen is not exactly as it was originally visioned.

The goal was to have the work done before the 2022 Union County Fair. Delays with a bleacher seat provider and the rising cost of aluminum have forced the work to be delayed.

“Aluminum prices are through the roof,” Adamson said earlier this year.

Late last year, the Union County Board of Supervisors approved $350,000 of the county’s American Rescue Plan funds to the fair to replace and expand the bleachers in the rodeo arena. Adamson said the $350,000 won’t go as far as he hoped.

Adamson said he held multiple discussions with a bleacher company and was continually told how the cost of aluminum is increasing. One conversation was a hike of $24,000.

Adamson said he started searching for other bleacher providers and found one through the Creston school district from its bond election in March.

He said the work as originally proposed was estimated closer to $400,000.

A suggestion among the fair board was to start out only remodeling the south side of the bleachers. Adamson said the north side seats will be remodeled. When is unknown because of cost.

The arena has two sections of seating; one on the north side and another on the south side. The south side holds 960 people. The north side holds about 300 making a total of 1,260. The original idea for the south side was to nearly double the seating. As proposed, the south side would hold about 1,800. Concrete and lighting work will also add to the cost.

Earlier this week, Union County Board of Supervisors approved bids for remodeling and relocating offices within the courthouse using the same funding.

Union County received $2.3 million in American Rescue Funds and has already dedicated about half of that amount. It is unknown when the remaining balance will be determined on spending.