Dirt Work Moving Forward At Tennessee Avenue Fairgrounds

Equipment has moved onto the Tennessee Avenue Putnam County Fairgrounds site to start dirt work.

Mayor Randy Porter said the project will prepare the property for paving, utility work and construction of building pads.

“They’ve started to do some clearing around the edges of the property and getting all the wetlands, water and streams staked out,” Porter said. “We are having a meeting with them next week when they’ll be getting full force.”

Porter said after the 12 month process, the county will start construction on buildings. Porter said the new convention center that received state funding will likely start a little sooner sometime in the spring.

“Once we get that done, we are looking at starting some building and actually start the new convention center and welcome center, which is a smaller building than the expo center,” Porter said. “That’s the one we got the $2.5 million from the state to help construct. We’ll probably start construction on that next April. They”re looking at having at least the main road cut to it and the building pad down so we can at least start with it.”

Porter said the county will stockpile the dirt on site and use it for the new park at the Patton House and the new school bus garage across the street. Porter said a lot of the dirt will also be sold.

“Second phase will be late next summer or early fall when they do the paving of the streets and get that going,” Porter said. “Once we sell the old fairgrounds, we will start on the new Expo center, which will be the big building.”

The county commission allocated $6.5 million for the dirt work. The contract of work was signed for $6.3 million last month.