Central States Fairgrounds reveal vision fund grant plans

RAPID CITY, S.D. – One of the vision fund recipients has announced how they will be spending their money.

The Central States Fairgrounds are receiving about a million dollars to fix up five buildings from the inside and out. The historic Soule building, which went up in the 1950’s and survived the 1972 flood, will get the most renovation work.

The hope is to have the buildings prepared for housing more events in all seasons.

“We’re obviously pretty heavy AG, and we want to attract more youth livestock shows or livestock shows to the area because that’s really where the economic impact comes from. It’s the ‘agri-tourism’ if you will, coming into our area,” Assistant General Manager for the Central States Fairgrounds John Kaiser explained. “But the other thing is to provide another space for some winter activities. You know, places people have a place to go for their kids to maybe practice soccer or baseball or softball and things of that nature.”

Plans are already in the works for the renovations with Kaiser having started even as the stock sales are already underway.

“I’ve already started working with different contractors on the projects. The way that the committee and the city council designated this money was allocated by the year, and we were chosen to be allocated in 2022,” he said. “So they’re hoping, and our hope is to really get started on this immediately because there is an immediate use for it. There’s an immediate desire from the community to have a place like this. So our plan is to just rock n’ roll right away.”

There is no word yet on when the renovations are scheduled to begin.