Renovations planned for the Garvin County fairgrounds took a step forward Monday as the Garvin County Board of Commissioners voted to accept a bid of just under $630,000 to replace metal sheeting and add insulation to fairground buildings.
The renovations will be paid for with part of the $5.3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that have been allocated to the county.
The board received a total of three bids for the project, which were opened during the Oct. 17 regular meeting. At that meeting commissioners voted to take the bids under advisement to allow time for a more thorough review. During Monday’s meeting, County Commissioners Mike Gollihare, Randy Chandler and Gary Ayres voted unanimously to accept the low bid on the project from Zion Construction.
The company submitted a base bid of $475,000 to remove and replace all the exterior metal panels on the sides and roofs of the fairground buildings. Commissioners also accepted alternate bid options totaling $149,238 to install spray foam insulation in the main livestock show barn and an adjacent building that connects the show barn to the Women’s Building, as well as $5,716 to replace an overhead door that had been removed and boarded up.
Zion Construction’s total bid came in at $629,954, which was $175,000 less than the next closest bid submitted by MacHill Construction.
Garvin County Clerk Lori Fulks told the board she had been advised it could take three to four weeks to get project materials, once a bid was approved. The bid from Zion Construction included an estimate of 105 days to complete the project once work was started.
County officials have expressed a desire to have work completed, especially on the main livestock barn, before Garvin County’s spring fair and livestock show, which usually takes place in mid- to late February.
The ARPA funds are part of the pandemic relief package passed by Congress in 2021 and come with stringent guidelines for how they can be spent. The funds are designed to allow state, county and municipal governments to respond to the public health and economic emergency, provide premium pay to essential workers, replace revenue lost due to the pandemic, and make necessary investments in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure.
County officials have said the fairground renovations will make the property more suitable to serve as a hub for the county during natural disasters or a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially being used for PPE storage, mass testing and immunization clinics, staging distribution of medicines and PPE in the county, and providing a space for emergency shelter use by organizations like the Red Cross. The improvements will also benefit the county fair, livestock shows and other events held at the fairgrounds, creating a positive impact on economic recovery for the county.
