ST. CLAIR COUNTY, Il. (KMOX) - St. Clair County officials say they're ready to pour millions of dollars into the Belle-Claire Fairgrounds -- including a new, bigger Belle-Claire Speedway.
St. Clair officials announced earlier this week they were able to secure an additional $5 million from the state of Illinois to help with the county's project to overhaul the fairgrounds and build a bigger, newer speedway. The total amount of money to help overhaul the grounds is slightly over $21 million.
"The COVID-19 relief funds that were sent to St. Clair Country, one of the boxes you could check to use the funding is if business or touring went away during the COVID-19, so it allowed us to earmark the funds for St. Clair County Fairgrounds Park," said Mark Kern, St. Clair County Board Chair on Total Information A.M. Thursday.
The current existing 1/5-mile track, which was built a long time ago according to Kern, will be demolished and a new racetrack, which will be a 1/4 mile will be built just southeast of the existing track.
"It has deteriorated greatly over the years and it was closed for a long time before we purchased the site," said Kern. "It is uninsurable to re-open that particular facility, so we will be tearing that down, moving it a bit on the site to be able to create more parking for the entire facility and we will be rebuilding that track into a racing dirt track."
The upgraded facility will be utilized for future county fairs and other events.
Along with the rebuilding of the track, the Expo Center will see some improvements, from a new roof, redesigned exterior, upgrades to electrical, heating and air conditioning systems. The money will also be used to build a an emergency shelter that has 20 restrooms with showers added to the back of the center for citizens.
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