The Spokane County Fair & Expo Center has created a master plan outlining roughly $8.7 million worth of expansions and upgrades at its facilities here.


The plan was drawn up to clarify the fairgrounds long-range goals and to provide information for Facilities 2000, the group that is studying the expansion of Spokanes convention center and other community projects, says Dolly Hughes, director of the Fair & Expo Center.


The plan doesnt address funding for the projects directly, but is expected to be used by the Facilities 2000 group in determining possible community projects in the county that could receive money in connection with the convention center expansion. The projects have been designed to be done in steps as funding becomes available, she says.


Facilities 2000 is considering using a state sales-tax credit approved by the 1999 Washington Legislature and possible extensions of hotel-motel and sales taxes that funded construction of the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arenaextensions that would require voter approvalto pay for an expansion of the convention center and other community projects. Improvements at the fairgrounds are among the community projects being considered.


Major improvements described in the fairgrounds master plan include building an atrium-like structure that would serve as the new entryway into the main exhibition hall, constructing a new food court, and replacing the grandstand at the main outdoor arena.


All three are critical, says Bill Moore, a member of the Fair & Expo Center advisory board. He says the improvements would help ensure that facilities at the fairgrounds meet health and safety codes, and would enable the fairgrounds to meet a growing community demand for meeting and exhibit space.


The planned new atrium, or entry court, would link the fairgrounds main exhibit hall and smaller exhibition bays located to the south, and would replace the current entrance to the main exhibit hall, Moore says. The entry court would provide nearly 25,000 square feet of additional exhibit space in the complex.


The new main entrance into the court would be just south of the current entrance, facing the parking lot off Havana Street. Hughes says the new entrance would improve the control of foot traffic at the fairgrounds and would make it easier to host more than one event at a time.


The entry-court project would cost about $1.7 million. In smaller remodeling projects in that complex worth about $700,000, the main exhibit hall would be expanded by about 6,500 square feet and other exhibit space in that building would be reconfigured slightly, the master plan says.


The entry court would lead to a covered passage that would connect to a new two-story food court east of the exhibit complex, Moore says. The food court would be a round building about 140 feet in diameter with vendor booths along part of its circumference.


The covered passage and food court are estimated to cost about $2.1 million, the plan says. The new food court would replace an aging food concession facility to the northeast.


The master plan calls for the 3,400-seat grandstand at the main outdoor arena on the east end of the fairgrounds to be replaced with a new one with covered seating for 5,000 and open seating for another 1,000.


The advisory board would like to replace the grandstand by 2003 because seating in the current one is inadequate, and ticketing and access to it are difficult.


The master plan also calls for the installation of a new arch over the main entry on Havana, gates with silos that could house ticket-taking operations at other entry points, and nearly $800,000 worth of other work.


ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, helped prepare the master plan.