PUBLIC HAS FIRST LOOK AT NEW MONTGOMERY FAIRGROUNDS
$15 million first phase includes main event building, exhibit hall.
People got an eyeful during a sneak peek at the new Montgomery County Fairgrounds and Expo Center on Monday evening.
“I knew what this looked like before, and it’s amazing how much work they’ve done,” said Jacqueline Adkins of Germantown. “It’s great.”
Adkins’ children, like hundreds of others in 4-H across the county, will attend the first fair in the facility beginning July 9. Monday night was an opportunity for the public to get the lay of the land and for parents and kids to learn where animals will be unloaded and sheltered during the fair.
After taking their kids in 4-H to the old Dayton site for a dozen years, Jim Adkins called the new site “a big upgrade.”
The new fairgrounds’ $15 million first phase consists of two climate-controlled buildings, a 26,000-square-foot main event building and a 16,000-square-foot exhibit hall.
“We are so pleased how everything is coming together, and we’re on target,” said John Yancik, Montgomery County Agricultural Society Board president. “The 166th edition of the fair truly will be new beginnings, new memories.”
Officials broke ground at 645 Infirmary Road in Jefferson Twp. last August. Construction really got rolling in October at the 150-acre site about 6 miles west of its former home on South Main Street in Dayton.
“We’ve got room,” said John Yancik, president of the Mont-
gomery County Agricultural Society board that operates the fair. “The kids have got grass here to play. We’re going to have 32 different vendors which, at the other place, we couldn’t fit that number in. We’re going to have 25 rides. We just have room.”
The new fairgrounds will continue to take shape over future years, Yancik said.
Because a grandstand has yet to be built, temporary bleachers will be erected alongside a new events field. The area will host the pulling events and others that were typically staged on the infield of the old horse track in Dayton.
Counting overflow parking, the site has room for up to 2,000 vehicles. About 300 of the spots are currently asphalt with a couple hundred more planned. Hundreds are now gravel with overflow on grass. Only about 600 vehicles could squeeze into the fairgrounds along South Main Street in Dayton, officials said.