Farm Exhibits building is almost a step closer to being finished

PALMER -- Many people are under the impression that the Farm Exhibits building at the Alaska State Fair is supposed to be an open building, without heat and without any use besides housing animals during the month of August. Not so, says fair general manager Joe Lawton.

Construction of the building began in 1982, through funding from the state. But a change in political power in the Valley halted the building's completion.

"Financial support to finish became much less," Lawton said.

More than 20 years later, the Farm Exhibits building may be a step closer to being completed, thanks to a $30,000 grant that Sen. Ted Stevens introduced into the FY04 VA/HUD Appropriations Bill earlier this fall.

"This project has been stalled over 20 years," Lawton said. "We have spent the last three or four years trying to find a way to get it un-stalled."

Finishing the approximately 90,000-square-foot building is too great a project for the fair to take on alone; with discretionary funds of $100,000 to $300,000 a year, there is no way that the fair could fund the multi millions of dollars it will take to close up and heat the building.

"If you put $5 million into a building, the loan payment is $500,000 a year," Lawton said. "We couldn't even afford the loan."

The VA/HUD bill, which passed the U.S. Senate in a voice vote Tuesday, is now in Conference Report, said Melanie Alvord, who works for Stevens.

If the $30,000 grant is approved, it will allow engineering and market analyses, along with the preparation of cost estimates to complete the structure. The building would first need to be inspected by the fire marshal, to make sure the work that has been completed is up to code.

Part of the grant would go toward figuring out other uses for the building outside of fair time. Ideas for using it for recreational or civil defense purposes have been purposed.

Lawton said that once it is determined whether it is possible to complete the building, the next step will be to try to acquire funds for the bigger picture: Completing the structure.

In the Alaska State Fair Newsletter, the fair warns that without action, it is possible for the building to become so far out of compliance of changing building codes that it may have to be razed.

Once the grant is awarded, the report authorized by the grant is expected to be available by early 2004.