YUMA, Ariz.-
The feasibility study that was done to see if moving the fairgrounds to another location was presented tonight to the public.
The study revealed three different locations in Yuma County where the fair could be moved. David Forkner one of the people who conducted the study explains, “We looked at zones of where the property could be moved. We started with ten we have three general areas that meet our location criteria.”
Forkner says the new location would double the size of the current location. “We are looking at 160 acres a lot of that is parking. What we have now is 84 acres so we are reflectively looking at doubling the size,” says Forkner.
The total cost of the new location would be about 94 million dollars for new buildings, a new arena, parking and more. Forkner says it’s not about the numbers but customer satisfaction.“If you look past the numbers and purely at the quality of the experience. We don’t look at the numbers we look at satisfaction rates and are people having a good time,” says Forkner.
Yuma City Council member Gary Knight was at the meeting. He says a updated location will be good for the fair and believes Yuma residents will come to believe the same thing. “I think they are going to understand we can have both we just can’t have the fairgrounds where it’s always been but make that an opportunity to have it bigger and better somewhere else,” says Knight.
No official plans have been made yet to move the fairgrounds. It could take up to ten years to do so.