Wallowa County reviews grandstand safety fixes and a $5 million office–museum proposal as staff prepares state grant applications

Wallowa County commissioners spent the Feb. 11 workshop reviewing recommended life‑safety repairs to the fairgrounds grandstand and preliminary designs and cost estimates for a new office and museum building, and were told staff has nearly finished two state capital‑project grant applications that the board must approve before online submission.

County staff said the grandstand work is primarily life‑safety and accessibility upgrades—handrails, guardrail height, non‑slip treads, and additional designated wheelchair spaces—rather than major structural replacement, and that one of the project grant forms covers the grandstand and the other covers the proposed office/museum.

Gary Fleming, who led the grandstand code assessment, recommended keeping the existing structural elements where possible to avoid triggering a full code upgrade. “Unless there are some significant modifications to be done to the building, we don’t need to do any more structural repairs,” Fleming said. He urged raising or replacing guardrails on the north and south sides to current guardrail height and installing interior handrails on stepped aisles, vertical slats or equivalent to meet the four‑inch sphere rule, non‑slip paint on step edges, and designated wheelchair spaces at lower, ramp‑accessible levels. Fleming also recommended against trying to make the press box accessible, saying it would be difficult and possibly better removed or left unused.

Tom Kastner of Meyer Architects presented a concept for a single building in two parts — an administrative office with ticketing and a connected museum space intended to protect and display rolling exhibits (carriages, stagecoaches) and a statuary exhibit that staff has discussed moving back from Statuary Hall. Kastner said the design can be phased so the office or the museum can be built first and the breezeway completed later. The concept includes a plaza and circulation changes so ticketing can operate both during and outside fair events; it also proposes relocating Kiddy Land south of the current area so the museum plaza and restroom layout can function during fairs.

Staff gave cost and program details. Greg (county staff) said an earlier estimate for the office/museum was about $5,000,000 and that the estimate included a 50% contingency. Kastner said the building has separate restrooms for office and museum functions and could include a warming kitchen and public plaza seating for fair visitors. Fleming said code calculations indicate a high required restroom fixture count if restrooms were restored under the grandstand (he cited about 65 toilet/urinal fixtures by one calculation), and staff discussed the option of using portable restrooms or building freestanding restroom structures adjacent to the grandstand to avoid extensive below‑grandstand upgrades.

On next steps, staff told the commission the capital‑project grant forms are “close to being done” and must be submitted online in a single session. The deadline was discussed several times during the workshop; staff first said forms were due Feb. 21 and later referenced the application listing “20 first.” Staff asked the board to review the completed forms and indicate whether the county should submit one or both applications; commissioners asked to have the item on next week’s agenda for formal board action before submission. No formal vote on grant submission occurred at the Feb. 11 workshop.

Commissioners also asked staff to review season‑ticket box seating logistics before removing or converting seats and to work with long‑standing users of box seating if bench seating is reintroduced. Fleming estimated the box/club seating area involves roughly a dozen built‑in boxes; he recommended against trying to make those boxes accessible by ramping into them because of code limitations and loss of seating.

The workshop closed with staff agreeing to circulate the grant application materials to commissioners for review before the board considers a formal motion. The commission did not take any final funding or contract actions during the session.