By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock State Fair has no immediate plans to move, but all options are being considered, the president and general manager of the Arkansas Livestock Show and Association said Monday.
“We think at this point in time we’re doing due diligence in just seeing what our options are,” said Ralph Shoptaw.
A newspaper ad over the weekend asked for proposals for possible new locations for the state fairgrounds.
“We would pass up a good opportunity to just least explore our options if we did not go ahead and do this now,” Shoptaw said. “And, at end of the day, it might be that we can’t and we just have to improve on what we have now.”
The request for proposals, or RFP, asked for a minimum of 350 contiguous usable acres, land for future expansion and highway access.
Shoptaw said the state fairgrounds complex has been located off Roosevelt Road for 70 years and is showing its age.
“We’ve realized over the last few years that we’ve just about outgrown our facilities,” Shoptaw said of the 100-acre property.
“Our buildings are old and it takes a lot of maintenance to keep them up,” he said, adding that the average state fair across the United States sits on about 366 acres of land.
The RFP also asked that all proposed locations be within 35 miles of the current state fairgrounds and that proposals be received by 4 p.m. on Sept. 15.
Earlier this year, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola presented the executive committee of the Arkansas Livestock Show and Association with a plan to renovate the fairgrounds. The cost of that project would be about $57 million.
“I thought it was a good plan, but I also thought we ought to look at other options,” Shoptaw said, adding that Little Rock, as well as any city or community within a 35 radius on the state fairgrounds, is eligible to submit a proposal.
“We want to see what is out there,” he said, adding that the board has yet to determine what a new state fairgrounds would look like.
“We’re just thinking about where we are going to be 10 years out, 20 years out,” he said. “We would eventually have to do a feasibility study to see what it would cost to move.”
Shoptaw said any move would have to be paid for with state and local economic incentives, bonds, loans or fund raising.
Stodola did not immediately return a phone call for comment Monday afternoon.
