Upgrade proposed for county fair structure

Visitors to the Shawano County Fair this year could be enjoying the present while also getting a glimpse of the future.

Fair officials have unveiled a proposal to invest about $170,000 in remodeling and upgrading the Junior Fair Building, which is home to 4-H club members and families throughout the fair.

The proposed new red and green building, which could be ready next year, will be presented to fair-goers this year in a rendering designed to drum up support for the project.

Proponents are asking Shawano County to allocate $125,000 in next year’s county budget to help pay for the building overhaul.

Dana Dallmann, leader of the Seneca Stingers 4-H Club in the town of Morris, said the expenditure would be a worthwhile investment in a property that is badly in need of a face-lift.

Dallmann said he remembers the Junior Fair Building from his days as a 4-H youth during the 1980s. The structure has deteriorated noticeably inside and out over the years, Dallmann said.

“It looks pretty rough,” he said. “I definitely think it’s time for an upgrade.”

County officials are voicing early support for the project, although they also are cautioning that money is tight in the county’s $59-million-a-year budget.

County Board Vice Chairman Arlyn Tober told fair officials that the county would try to find some extra flexibility to support the building overhaul in 2016 budget deliberations over the next several months.

Referring to the county’s cash situation, Tober said: “Right now it looks bleak. But there is a chance.”

Members of the Shawano Area Agricultural Society, which produces the county fair, presented their plans for the Junior Fair Building at a County Board meeting earlier this week.

Dale Hodkiewicz, agricultural society president, said officials hope to start work on the building improvements next May, so that the newly refurbished property will be ready for the 2016 county fair.

Plans call for retaining the existing concrete foundation and structural steel, while rebuilding the walls, installing a new roof and doors, adding a four-foot-tall concrete base, and adding new interior lighting. The building also would be insulated to guard against extreme weather, especially during hot summer months.

Hodkiewicz acknowledged that the project’s cost was significant, but he said the project would improve the 50-year-old structure for future generations of 4-H members and other users.

“There’s a lot of positives,” he told county board members. “A little sticker shock maybe. But what are our alternatives?”

Joe Stellato, head of the University of Wisconsin-Extension office and 4-H program leader in Shawano County, said insulating the building would make it more comfortable and would improve the acoustics for the many 4-H and county fair activities that take place there.

Stellato also noted that the Junior Fair Building is one of the first that county fair visitors see when they arrive on the fairgrounds. The new red- and green-colored structure, he said, would be a big improvement over the rusted and dented white building that exists now.

“It would just really, really enhance the look of the fairgrounds,” he said.

Shawano County owns the fairgrounds, but the agricultural society rents and maintains the property.

Hodkiewicz said his organization would conduct fundraisers to cover its estimated $45,000 cost of the building upgrade, if the county will provide the other $125,000.

County Supervisor Robert Krause, who chairs the committee overseeing the fairgrounds property, agreed that the cost is “daunting.” Krause, however, urged his fellow supervisors to look at the Junior Fair Building during this year’s fair and envision the improvements being proposed by agricultural society officials.

“It has to be fixed,” Krause said. “What they’re trying to do here is make it better — not just fix what they have.”