Valencia County Fair Board considering donating fairgrounds

Owners of the Valencia County fairgrounds are floating the idea of donating the property to a local governing body in the hopes it will let the fair board focus exclusively on the annual Valencia County Fair.

Jeremiah Ash, who is on the real estate committee for the Valencia Fair Management Co., went to the July 2 Valencia County Commission meeting to begin the discussion of possibly donating the fairgrounds to the county.

In the way of some history, Ash said the fair itself started around the time New Mexico became a state in 1912 and, in 1946, the Valencia County Fair Association was formed and purchased the property off the I-25 Bypass north of the city of Belen.

“And the fair has been held there every year since,” Ash told the commissioners.

The property is a total of just more than 33 acres on two parcels. The developed property is 17.33 acres and is where the main show barn and other infrastructure is located. Ash said there is 2,800 square feet under cover, with 1,300 square feet cooled by evaporative cooler, plus a 650 square-foot kitchen and 850 square feet of restrooms.

Ash said the property has water and sewer service at the property line and multiple service points for electric.

The fairgrounds is south of I-25 Bypass. It is a U-shaped piece of property that wraps around the rodeo arena owned by the Valencia County Sheriff’s Posse and the Sheriff’s Posse Hall, a restaurant owned by CLS Corporation. To the west of that property, across the Los Chavez Drain and abutting Don Felipe Road is another 15.89 acres of undeveloped land, colloquially known as “the marsh.”

Both pieces of property are in the unincorporated area of Valencia County, not within the boundaries of the city of Belen.

“The ultimate goal is to donate the property to the county,” he said. “That enhances the improvement of the facility long term and allows the fair board to operate the best county fair it can. It provides the county with the opportunity to host multiple events.”

Ash said the second objective is to allow the fair to be held at the location in perpetuity.

“Hopefully, any lease would be offset by the value of the donation,” he said. “We want to ensure the continuity of the long-standing tradition of having the fair there, which honors the intention of the original founders to have the fair there forever.”

He continued, saying he wasn’t at the meeting to present particular terms but to open the discussion of the donation.

Commissioner Joseph Bizzell said the idea sounded like a great opportunity for the whole community, saying there weren’t many places for people to go to events like horse and dog shows.

“Socorro has a big, covered arena and they’ve been able to bring in events from all over the state,” Bizzell said. “We are close enough to Albuquerque, in the middle of the state, if we have a good facility, people would come. This could help tourism, help the whole community.”

Commissioner Morris Sparkman asked Ash what the annual operating costs were for the facility, to which Ash said he would have to research those figures.

“To put on the fair is about $20,000 a year. I think that fluctuates depending on the events we host throughout the year,” Ash added. “Maintenance costs fluctuate. Some of the facilities are older.”

During this year’s legislative session, the county received $2.2 million in capital outlay out a requested total $7.2 million to plan, design, construct and equip a sports complex and fairgrounds facility in Valencia County.

Saying there’s a lot of room for improvement to the grounds, Commissioner Troy Richardson said the capital outlay funds could go a long way to improve the facilities.

“They’ve done a good job the last several years and been dedicated to improving things. If the county were to take over the facility, I think that would give the board the opportunity to focus on putting on the fair,” Richardson said. “They are a volunteer board and they’re over there every weekend of the year fixing roofs, grading the parking lot, cutting weeds. The location would be conducive to an event complex and I think it’s a good thing to look into.”

Valencia County Manager Jhonathan Aragon said his understanding was the fair board made most of its money through the sale of the animals shown by local youth at the county fair, and those buyers were also the same donors who funded the upkeep of the grounds.

“So they’re kind of dipping into them twice. If we were able to alleviate the donations needed for upkeep, that would give the kids a bigger pool of money,” Aragon said. “I know for many years, kids have been a really big priority of this commission. This partnership would be a way to do that.”

N.M. Rep. Tanya Mirabal Moya was at the commission meeting. As one of the representatives who advocated for the funding the for an event center, she felt the donation “would be amazing for this county. Those of us who grew up in Belen grew up at the fairgrounds. It is aging and they are doing what they can with the resources they have.”

Moya felt such a facility could pull events from Albuquerque that were looking for alternative locations to the New Mexico State Fairgrounds, noting a facility in Valencia County wouldn’t be as expensive but would still result in an economic benefit to the community.

She asked if the Sheriff’s Posse grounds were also part of the donation or just the fairgrounds. Aragon said at the moment, the conversation was just with the fair board.