Kearney Expo Center on schedule

KEARNEY, Neb. — There has been wet weather and some bumps along the way during construction of the new Expo Center on the Buffalo County Fairgrounds.

And there were some unexpected chunks of concrete.

However, Fairgrounds Manager Dave Roseberry says officials with BD Construction of Columbus still say they’ll have the building essentially completed by July 10.

He told the Buffalo County Agricultural Association Board on Tuesday that 10 changes had been approved so far. One involved site preparation work that became more complicated after a concrete dump, likely from the 1960s or 1970s, was discovered.

The new Expo Center will include a concourse-main entrance along the west side; a 300-foot by 200-foot main arena with a paved floor and telescoping seating for 2,600 in the middle; and a 300-foot by 100-foot dirt-floor arena on the east end.

Also Tuesday, Roseberry told the Fair Board that he’ll meet with an electrician to get help preparing bid specifications for electrical system upgrades to the Ag Pavilion.

He said the pavilion will be linked into a new transformer that’s part of the Expo Center project. Rewiring will be done to solve outage problems that hampered the fair’s beef and swine show in August.