The Friendlyville area of the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds will get a facelift ahead of the Southwest Washington Fair after the approval of a $250,000 grant from the Washington state Department of Agriculture.
The Lewis County Board of Commissioners accepted the grant from the state of Washington during its Tuesday business meeting.
According to Lewis County Facilities Administrator Matt Patana, the grant will fund grading, paving and fencing improvements in and around the Friendlyville area of the local fairgrounds.
The grant requires a small match from Lewis County. As part of the grant, the county is obligated to put $15,000 toward skilled labor for the project.
According to the grant documents included in the commissioners’ business meeting agenda, the project will excavate the Friendlyville area to improve the grading. It will also add new paved pathways to and around the goat and sheep showing areas and replace gates and fences in the area.
Shortly before approval, Commissioner Scott Brummer asked Patana for a rough timeline on the project. Patana predicted the project is likely to be completed in time for the Southwest Washington Fair at the end of the summer. The work is unlikely to be completed in time for the annual Spring Youth Fair.
The grant received by the county is a Washington state Department of Agriculture Fairs Program Capital Projects Grant. The grants are required to be used specifically for capital improvements at one of the state’s fairgrounds. The grants are aimed at improving health and safety and benefitting the “fair-going public.”
The work is just one more project to be added to the list as the county, state and some generous benefactors have fueled a slate of recent improvements to the fairgrounds. In the past year, the county has updated the 4-H barn and completed work on the fairgrounds’ water main using county funds and state grant funds.
Last summer, fair leaders completed a two-year undertaking to replace stalls in the fairgrounds’ beef cattle pavilion. That effort was funded in large part by donations, with some seed money from the county.
Lewis County has also used state grant funds to begin the first steps of building a new equestrian center at the fairgrounds. That project is far from a sure thing and would require much more financial support from the state, but an initial concept was designed using grant funding.
