Fairgrounds for sale in Jonesboro

Northeast Arkansas District Fair will go on, president says

Northeast Arkansas fairgrounds graphic
Northeast Arkansas fairgrounds graphic

JONESBORO -- After the Northeast Arkansas District Fair closed this year, the 77-acre fairgrounds on the northern edge of Jonesboro is for sale and the future of the annual event is uncertain.

The Craighead County Fair Association filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2014, owing more than $9 million. A U.S. bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of Arkansas approved the liquidation of the fairgrounds and the association's assets and properties.

The property, along U.S. 49, is listed for $8.5 million with Colliers International, a global commercial real estate service with an office in Little Rock. The property was appraised at $13.3 million in 2013, said Lee Strother, the vice president of brokerage of the Little Rock office.

Under the bankruptcy's guidelines, the property must be sold by February or it will be auctioned, said fair association President Michael Cureton.

"We're hoping whoever buys it will use it for what it's intended for," Cureton said. "Hopefully, the public can still use it."

The property includes a 113,646-square-foot exposition building, two 32,000-square-foot facilities for cattle and swine, an 8,000-square-foot maintenance building and a 1,906-square-foot restroom.

The Northeast Arkansas District Fair has been held in Jonesboro for at least 60 years. About 55,000 attend the week-long fair each September.

The association sold portions of its former fairgrounds on Highland Drive and Fair Park Boulevard in the center of Jonesboro for $3.9 million after moving to its new site in 2012.

More of that land is also for sale through Colliers International.

Cureton said the association fell into financial problems after it overspent by $2 million to $3 million when building its new fairgrounds and couldn't pay contractors.

Richard Ramsay, a Little Rock attorney whom the U.S. District Court appointed as a liquidator of the properties, said Friday afternoon that he expects to receive two or three offers for the fairgrounds within a week or so. He said he could not discuss who or what type of business he expects to make those offers.

"I would say it's iffy that it will remain a fairgrounds," Ramsay said. "Not to be an alarmist, but there is a big debt on the land. It may be in the best interest to sell off pieces of the land."

He said it would be beneficial to the association if he sold land parcels at the old fairgrounds site first to help pay for land costs at the newer site.

"That's not my job to keep the fairgrounds alive," Ramsay said. "My job is to get the debt paid off."

Cureton said there was a "100 percent chance" for a fair somewhere next year in Jonesboro, though.

"The location, the size, the quality -- I'm not sure about," he said. "But there should be a fair.

"It would be nice if it were still where it was," he said. "We have buildings designed for that kind of event. Any buyer should see it's built for the public. Hopefully, whoever buys it will keep it that way."

The association also rented its properties out to private companies to hold car shows, craft fairs and other events during the year.

"It's been a great asset to us," Brookland Mayor Kenneth Jones said. His town of 3,150 sits just to the north of the fairgrounds property.

"It brings a lot of visitors to our area," he said. "It's helped a lot of the surrounding towns during the economic downturn.

"I think it's sad. I don't know what we can do. I wish as a county we could come up with a plan."

Brookland voters will be asked next month to support a 2 percent sales tax to fund water improvements. Jones said the visitors the fairgrounds brought in have bought gasoline and food in his town, helping to bolster tax revenue.

"It has a very big effect on us," he said. "If somebody buys it commercially, how do you do a fair one time a year? You could go a thousand directions with this."

State Desk on 10/13/2015

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