The North Iowa Fair Board has launched their $1.5 million capital improvement campaign that will allow the North Iowa Events Center to hold horse shows year-round, with plans to build a heated warm-up ring and an enclosed, heated barn.
As reported by KGLO News, phase one would entail the $650,000 build of the heated warm-up ring, and phase two the build of the $850,000 enclosed, heated barn. The Fair Board is looking to receive $600,000 of their budget from local government funding through American Rescue Plan funds.
Don O’Connor, member of the Fair’s Board, says these improvements are necessary in order to stay competitive with the other horse show facilities in the state. “We want to return North Iowa to the premier horse facility that we once were. When this was originally built many years ago, this was state of the art,” says O’Connor. “There was nobody else that had anything finer. Unfortunately, we’ve just not kept up.”
O’Connor says that not only will these upgrades help the North Iowa Events Center, but they will also economically impact the greater community. The project is estimated to last 12 months.
