Possible arena locations ;br; to be discussed Sept. 23

Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 16, 1999

"Location, location, location.

Thursday, September 16, 1999

"Location, location, location."

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That’s what experts say is the key to any successful business.

That’s why the Mower County Board of Commissioners is moving carefully with its plans for a new multipurpose building at the fairgrounds.

Not only is the concept – a year-around facility with two sheets of ice – still being questioned, but also where to place the building on the fairgrounds in southwest Austin.

To date, the county board’s building committee has approved the $4.1 million facility and the entire county board has authorized the project to proceed. In addition, it has hired an architect firm to design the facility.

Meanwhile, it will be up to the long-range planning infrastructure sub-committee to recommend where to place the building on the fairgrounds.

The long-range planning committee was created by the county board to recommend how to spend the $31.7 million in reserves the county has accumulated through taxes and investments.

Funding is coming from the city of Austin and private sources, including Austin Youth Hockey and the Hormel Foods Corporation.

Another key to the success of the financial package is the Hormel Foundation. Two weeks ago, the city of Austin submitted an application to the Foundation on behalf of the county for $350,000.

So confident is the county board’s finance committee that the foundation will deliver the money that it has budgeted for the project in 2000.

The Foundation will not announce its disbursements until next month.

"It’s looking good," Dave Hillier, 3rd District county commissioner, said recently. "We won’t know until late October, when the Foundation makes its announcement, but we believe we have a very good chance of getting the money."

Another sign of the county board’s confidence the funding for the new building will come is the proposed 2000 budget.

A total of $4,350,000 has been included in the county’s building fund budget for the multi-purpose building project.

Thus. the Sept. 23 meeting could give the commissioners the impetuous to move forward on the project.

The meeting begins at 7:45 a.m. Sept. 23 in the 4-H building at the fairgrounds.

Representatives of LHB Engineering and Architectural Services, Inc., Minneapolis, will be there to show sketches and options of a total site plan including the location of the new building.

The meeting will be a workshop for the infrastructure sub-committee members to critique and look at possible options for the total fairgrounds layout.

Members of the Mower County Fair Board, Mower County Historical Society Board of Directors and Mower County 4-H representatives will be invited to give their input.

Early indicates suggest the preferred locations for the new 66,000 square foot building will be placed east of the current 4-H, horticulture, Herb and Murl diner, St. Olaf Lutheran Church diner and other buildings.

Other possible locations have been mid-way between the grandstands and Plager Building or in the far northwest corner of the fairgrounds, where the remaining livestock buildings and Creative Arts building is located.

Wherever it is located, the Historical Society is concerned about its own Historical Center at the fairgrounds. Currently, a main entrance to the fairgrounds bisects the Historical Center with both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Daryl Boehm, president of the Fair Board, has one big concern "Where to put everything at the County Fair," he said.

The Sept. 23 session will be the third meeting of the sub-committee members on the multi-purpose building project.

Ironically, Larry Larson, Sargeant, is the co-chair of the sub-committee.

Larson and John Steele, a Sargeant area farmer, were among citizens who appeared before the county board to protest the multi-purpose building early this year.

Steele has been the most vocal in his opposition to the project. He has said, the county board must first give its attention to existing building needs, such as livestock barns, as it promised to do 10 years ago when it authorized the Fair Board to have the deteriorated livestock barns razed at the fairgrounds. They have never been replaced.

Kyle Klaehn, an Austin agri-businessman and Fair Board member, also has concerns about the existing building needs.

"If we don’t use the new multi-purpose building for livestock, we have to talk about other fairgrounds building issues, too," he said.

Also, the claims a gravel road by his farm northeast of Sargeant has a higher daily traffic county than any other in the county, while being served by a one-lane bridge.

Steele has said roads and bridges also deserve attention before a multi-purpose building.

Only two weeks ago, Steele also criticized the funding package for the new multi-purpose building and the county’s willingness to bail-out the city of Austin.

Pointing to the fact the city’s Riverside Arena has operated at an annual deficit of over $113,000 – admitted to by city officials – and also pointing out another verifiable fact that the vast majority of the hockey players and figure skaters come from the Austin Independent School District area and not greater Mower County, Steele sarcastically said the city’s role in helping the county should be larger.

He said for $1 more than the city of Austin is volunteering to pay, Sargeant Township could build the same facility if the county was going to subsidize to the extent indicated.

Whether all of the "players" in the financial package come through or not, the county board’s record-to-date is still another signal the commmissioners plan to "do" the project no matter what.

The county’s own financial role in the project has grown from $500,000 to $1.8 million with little fanfare since a year ago.