8/15/14 Future of fairgrounds in Millersburg is greenspace

  • By Nick Sabo
  • August 15, 2014
  • 404
                        
SUMMARY: Buildings to come down as park district takes over The Holmes County Fair is over for another year. Rides have been hauled away, tents are coming down, and building closed up. But this time, the quiet settling over the county fairgrounds will be permanent - interrupted only by the sound of demolition as the fair’s buildings come down. The fairgrounds owes it new home at Harvest Ridge in large part to a Clean Ohio grant. The grant money was used to purchase the old fairgrounds from the Holmes County Agricultural Society for the park district, giving the agricultural society seed money for Harvest Ridge. However, the Clean Ohio grant purchase carried the stipulation that the fairgrounds revert to green space. The fair was given a three-year deadline to evacuate, leaving nature to take over. Most of the buildings will be coming down, park district director Jen Halverson said. “The grant does not allow us to build any new structures, but we can keep structures that fit in with what we are doing,” Halverson said. “Some will stay, and some will be around for a little while longer.” Halverson said the agricultural society will be able to take away whatever buildings they like. The grandstands will most likely be saved; plans presented by Harvest Ridge project coordinator Tom Wilke show them relocated to the new grounds. So far, the park district plans to keep the building housing the restrooms, but most of the other structures will not be worthwhile to keep, Halverson said. What else may be kept will be weighed against how well they will serve the public in the land’s new use as limited recreational space. Some of the buildings are marked for demolition already, Halverson said. “The 4H building, the FFA building will be coming down,” Halverson said. “Floods cause a lot of damage and they don’t fit what we’re going to be doing. It isn’t worth the effort to clean two inches of mud out of buildings we’re not going to use.” Halverson said some buildings do appear to be salvageable. The show arena, for example, is a newer building and is in pretty good shape. Once the agricultural society decides what it wants to keep, the face of the fairgrounds should change quickly, Halverson said. The old fairgrounds will be part of a larger recreational area that will include the Crissey Memorial Pool and Holmes County Trail. The pool is being renovated by the park district, and a steel bridge that once spanned a Holmes County roadway will be set up over the Killbuck Creek, connecting Hipp Station, and the trail, to the old fairgrounds.


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