Ground Broken On Community Center
MALVERN – Five years in the making, members of the Mills County Fair Association and more than 60 supporters and dignitaries helped break ground Thursday afternoon on the Charles E. and Florence M. Lakin Community Center.
The $2.75 million facility will be built on the north end of the Mills County Fairgrounds.
“We’re so proud of this day and so proud of the turnout,” Mills County Fair Association Building Committee spokesman Woody Wright said. “So many people in the community came out today to be a part of a monumental ground-breaking. We’ve never had a building like this in Mills County.”
Wright and fellow building committee member Chad McCollester have been two of the major proponents for the project since it was first initiated in 2011. McCollester said the ground breaking was a culmination of five years of hard work and commitment by a team of dedicated volunteers.
“It’s been a long road,” McCollester said, noting the Mills County Fair Association had three goals in mind when the project was kicked off – to build the first climate-controlled building on the fairgrounds; have a facility that would be utilized year-round for educational and community purposes; and to ensure the future of a county fair in Mills County.
The 16,000 square-foot facility will be located near the main entrance to the Mills County Fairgrounds. The building will be utilized for numerous fair activities, such as project judging, queen pageant, working exhibits, bingo and other entertainment. It will also house the Mills County Extension Office and have the capacity to seat up to 800 people for educational programs, community events and private functions throughout the year.
Among the participants in Thursday’s ceremony was Tom Pribil, a representative of the Charles E. and Florence M. Lakin family. The family’s foundation is contributing $1 million toward the project.
“I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to make the lead donation,” Pribil said. “It means a lot to them (Lakins) and we look forward to the grand opening.”
Charles Lakin was an Emerson native and Florence grew up in Malvern.
Also receiving special recognition at the ceremony were three other major financial contributors, the Iowa West Foundation, Farm Bureau and members of the Ellison and Rena Van Pelt family, who contributed $100,000 as a memorial to their parents. A large meeting room at the facility will be called the Van Pelt Room.
The facility will be built on property owned by the county. Richard Crouch, a member of the Mills County Board of Supervisors, said the community center has the potential to bring economic growth to the Malvern area.
“I think from the county aspect, it could create economic growth and bring in people coming to the community,” Crouch said. “You could have someone come here and say they really like this area. Maybe they’ll want to build a house here or move here.”
As a member of the board of supervisors, Crouch attends regional meetings throughout southwest Iowa. He’s hopeful some of those meetings can get staged at the community center once it’s built.
“That’s our problem now,” Crouch said. “We have so many meetings we have to travel to because we don’t have a facility in the area where we could hold a meeting. We do a lot of our meetings in Atlantic. If you can hold some here, you’ll have people who will be in town going to Casey’s to buy fuel and going to the other businesses.”
Construction at the site will begin after preliminary dirt work is completed this summer. The facility could be ready for use in the summer or fall of 2017.