The proposed interior for the Putnam County Event Center can be seen in the designs. The structure will stand at the current site of the merchant and 4-H buildings.
Courtesy of Technicon Design Group
OTTAWA — A new event center is on its way at the Putnam County Fairgrounds.
Putnam County Commissioner John Schlumbohm said the Putnam County Event Center, which will hold 700 to 750 people, will be funded partially from general fund money and capital improvement fund money, but most of the money will come from the American Rescue Plan.
“It’s going to be a very nice venue,” Schlumbohm said. “Technology-wise, it will be state of the art, and it will have plenty of amenities for a variety of purposes.”
The venue, which will be estimated to cost $4 million, will sit where the merchant and 4-H buildings at the Putnam County Fairgrounds currently exist. It is scheduled to open in June 2024 after construction is ultimately completed May 1 of that year, in time for the 2024 Putnam County Fair.
The county commissioners contracted with Ottawa-based Technicon Design Group to work on the plans after years of wanting to build a facility that could be used for 12 months of the year and knowing that the American Rescue Plan money funding 75 to 80 percent of the cost had to be used.
“The merchant and 4-H buildings were starting to deteriorate pretty badly, and this conversation that we needed to do something about them started about three years ago,” Schlumbohm said. “And when the ARP money came through, we decided that a good use for it might be this building to benefit the whole county and the fairgrounds. So we went down this journey of removing the buildings and having one that could be divided for both events during the fair.
Gillian Stechshulte, a Technicon architect working on the multi-use indoor facility, said that a priority in the design was to make it as versatile as possible.
“We tried to design it to be as flexible as we can, in order to serve the widest variety of events possible,” she said. “The fair will be using it for their displays, and then it will be available to rent for things like weddings, trade shows, conferences, festivals and just about anything.”
Schlumbohm added, “We needed a new venue at the fairgrounds for the fair itself. And it will be a rental building, for events, because having the fairgrounds only being used for one week a year seems like a big waste of taxpayer money.”
Stechshulte said Technicon has been working with the commissioners on the designs for at least a year and a half, and they had been meeting regularly to refine the drawings with them and representatives from the fair board.
“They were very receptive to our ideas and had a lot of good ideas of their own,” Schlumbohm said about working with the company. “They had a lot of good ideas of their own, and it was a very amicable relationship working with them. For anything we do, we try to use Putnam County companies if it works out that way and keep money in the county.”
Schlumbohm added that the fair board will also be responsible for managing the completed center. He said he felt they will do a great job.
First, though, Technicon will award a contract for construction with a bidding process starting with documents being sent out to general contractors this week.
Following this year’s Putnam County Fair, the county commissioners will work with a civil engineer to have the merchant and 4-H buildings demolished and construction will begin.
The Putnam County Fair runs from June 19 to 24 in Ottawa.
For more information, call the county commissioner’s office at 419-523-3656.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
