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The multimillion dollar VTF Grand Event Center opened its doors to the public during the 174th Mercer County Fair. The center is being used to house cattle and horses. It also features a new arena that will be used for several shows during fair week. Fair officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, the opening day of the fair.
CELINA - The multimillion dollar VTF Grand Event Center made its long-awaited public debut at the 174th Mercer County Fair on Thursday morning.
"This has been a huge project," fairgrounds executive director Cara Muhlenkamp said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. "It started with a conversation back in 2019 with (Mercer County community development director) Jared Ebbing on 'What can the Mercer County Fair do to be more successful and be more supportive for our community? How can we be an economic driver for our community?' And here we are seven years later looking at this building."
The 175-foot-by-400-foot event center sits on the northwest side of the fairgrounds. The exterior shell, foundation and critical infrastructure to render the event center operational have all been installed as part of the first phase of construction.
"To get to this point, we are probably roughly around $8 million that has been fully funded and raised, but we still have more to come, so hopefully another $5 million between everything else," Muhlenkamp told The Daily Standard.
Phase 2 will consist of restrooms, concessions and ticket booths, while phase 3 will complete the overall project with a wash bay, stalling and storage.
"While we know we still have things that we've got to accomplish and steps to go forward, we'll get there, and it's going to happen because we have this community," Muhlenkamp told the crowd gathered at the event center Thursday. "Thank you all for being here, believing in the project, believing in the community that we have and providing something so incredibly amazing."
The multimillion dollar VTF Grand Event Center opened its doors to the public during the 174th Mercer County Fair. The center is being used to house cattle and horses. It also features a new arena that will be used for several shows during fair week. Fair officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, the opening day of the fair.
Fair board president Bart Leininger said it's been a long time getting to this point. He also gave a shoutout to the Dave and Danielle Buschur family and VTF Family of Companies, each of which donated $1 million toward the event center.
"I do want to thank the VanTilburgs, the Buschurs, everyone else that had a hand in this," Leininger said. "Like Cara says, we started this back in 2019, and it's been a bumpy road. We've had a lot of different ideas and decisions, and this is where we're at today. I just want to thank everybody again for the helping hands and community support."
Kyle VanTilburg, co-owner of VTF Family of Companies, also addressed the audience.
"Obviously with this weather we had, we can see the need for a facility like this where everybody can gather inside," VanTilburg said. "This started years and years ago, a vision of my dad's and family's. It took a while to come together, but when we've got a community like this, literally we just put a plan together and everybody steps up and makes it happen."
Designed as a versatile, state-of the art facility, the event center is capable of hosting animal shows, rodeos, tractor pulls, concerts and music festivals, circuses, expos, swap meets, job fairs, corporate events, conferences and conventions, galas, fitness competitions, and a seasonal ice rink, according to fair officials.
It's also being incorporated into the 174th Mercer County Fair, housing the breeding beef cattle and horses. On the south end of the event center are 14 horses and one little colt, and on the north side are 68 head of cattle, according to Leininger.
The multimillion dollar VTF Grand Event Center opened its doors to the public during the 174th Mercer County Fair. The center is being used to house cattle and horses. It also features a new arena that will be used for several shows during fair week. Fair officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, the opening day of the fair.
"There is an arena separating the two where they share the arena space between practices and shows," noted fair marketing and sponsorship director Rachel Ungruhn.
Due to the growing numbers of fair entries, a venue like the event center was almost a necessity.
"With the cattle, obviously we've outgrown the old cattle barns over there," Leininger said. "If this facility would not have been done by this time this year, we would have been putting tents up outside over there for cattle, because the youth group has been growing so much with the cattle - and all livestock across the board, numbers are up."
OSU Extension 4-H Educator Beth Guggenbiller also addressed the rising numbers.
"In general, our beef program is growing every year by a lot, which is great," she said. "So we see a lot of our first-year member numbers are really high, especially compared to other species. Beef just keeps adding more each year to the number of first-year members. So we were running out of barn space and definitely needed … to expand our ability to take more animals on."
Leininger pointed to the many amenities that make the event center such an ideal location for cattle and horses.
"With this new facility, we've got all new arena gates, all new stalling gates. We put a new tie out for the cattle. A lot of these guys tie their cattle out at night, so we put all those out there," he said. "This building is very well ventilated. We've got fans. If it gets up in the mid-80s, we're probably going to shut the doors. We have AC units to turn on."
The well-ventilated VTF Grand Event Center, boasting 100,000-square-feet of space, contains an arena being used for several shows at the 174th Mercer County Fair.
Leininger said the time was right to move the horses from their barn to a new location.
"It was a dirt floor, which is good for horses, but it was just a dreary old building," he said. "Lighting was not good. Ventilation was not good."
Another downside to the horse barn is its outdoor arena.
"These guys wouldn't have been able to use the arena this week because the old one's outdoor and it would have been a mud fest," Leininger said. "So luckily we got all this done prior to the big rainstorm, and all these horse shows can happen yet because it's indoors now."
"It's way nicer than our old one, and it's great, because if it rains, then we could still have shows and everything," said Baylee Uncapher, a member of the Rhinestone & Wranglers 4-H Club. "It's a good environment, more than our old building."
In addition to the horse and beef shows, the event center will also host the Mercer County Special Olympics Western Show at 10 a.m. Monday and the Champion Showcase at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
The Champion Showcase is a new event created to celebrate livestock exhibitors in the absence of the traditional fair-ending auction, which was dropped this year.
"This exciting, high-energy production is all about celebrating the hard work, dedication and achievements of our livestock exhibitors," the fair book reads. "Watch as our champions arrive in style, stepping out of a limo and into the spotlight to be recognized for their accomplishments in the show ring."
Looking beyond the fair, Guggenbiller is excited about the year-round opportunities opened up for 4-H programs by having the event center.
"There's always going to be talk of bringing other kinds of shows in throughout the year that our kids can show their animals and get some more exposure," she said. "Hopefully we can have those opportunities for our kids and just give them more time to show their animals that they work on throughout the year."
