Oklahoma City, Populous Break Ground on New Expo Hall for Oklahoma State Fair Park

On October 14 representatives from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma State Fair, Inc. and Populous officially broke ground on the new, 280,000 square foot exposition hall being constructed near the center of the Oklahoma State Fair Park campus. The new building is designed to allow Oklahoma State Fair Park to accommodate and attract a wider variety of events. The new building includes a 201,000 square foot main hall, main kitchen and commissary to serve the campus, a large glass enclosed entry lobby and extensive storage and loading and support spaces around the perimeter of the main hall.  The building design also includes a large “hangar” door to allow for the installation of very large exhibits and equipment.  The building will be the first 100% LED lighting building on the fairgrounds campus.

“This large single-hall project has served as a great platform for our design team to explore operations and energy efficiency alternatives on a very large scale and through the use of LED lighting, large blade energy efficient fans and other design features we were able to significantly reduce the cooling system requirements, which reduces both capital and long term operating expenditures for the city,” said Todd Gralla, Principal and Director of Equestrian Services at Populous.

This project will replace the existing Travel & Transportation Building and Carriage Hall, which will both be demolished immediately following the 2014 AQHA World Championship Horse Show.  The new building will be completed in Spring 2016.  With the completion of this project, the City of Oklahoma City will have recently invested more than $150 million in fairgrounds improvements.

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