When the State Fair of Virginia Inc., Doswell, Va., sold its land to the Richmond International Raceway in 1999, they were faced with the challenge of finding a new site for its event held annually in September. By 2003, they had purchased the historic Meadow Farm, once home to Triple Crown winner Secretariat, and had begun an $81 million project to prepare the 400-acre site for use as a park and event center. In 2008, with the help of Richmond, Va.-based KBS Construction Co. and its 25-year partner Columbus, Miss.–based, Ceco Building Systems, they broke ground on the new facility, The Meadow Event Park.
Together with Bullock Smith & Partners Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., as the architects on the project, they built two structures that combine the location’s racehorse past with the design functionality necessary to host large-scale events like the State Fair of Virginia and the Meadow Highland Games and Celtic Festival, as well as smaller weddings, graduation ceremonies and private parties.
“The design intent was to keep a rather rural feel to the buildings,” says Tommy Wade of Bullock Smith & Partners. They were required to work with the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code to regulate roof height, the buildings’ distance from the road and the overall aesthetics of the buildings – something Wade says they were easily able to comply with.
The 63,354-square-foot exhibition center is the larger of the two buildings, officially titled the Farm Bureau Hall, and has a 211-foot clear span frame with 24-gauge horizontal siding in snowdrift white. Its flashings and trim color are in ocean blue, and the roof is a 24-gauge standing-seam Galvalume Magna-Loc. All metal components were manufactured by Ceco Building Systems.
The construction of the building provided new challenges for KBS, which was responsible for the foundation and concrete slab work, as well as for providing the pre-engineered metal building. To maintain the architecture’s rural feel, the design called for horizontal siding, instead of vertical siding, atop the 8 feet of concrete, something Wade and his crew had utilized before, but not KBS.
“This was the first time KBS ever used this kind of wall panel,” says Carleton Van Rensselaer, KBS project manager. “It looks less like a metal building – it really had a nice look to it.” According to Rensselaer, it was also the largest clear span frame KBS had ever worked with.
The 10,000-square-foot Meadow Pavilion sits nearby, its flashing and trim also painted in blue and white, the traditional racing colors of the farm, to match the exhibition center. To pay further homage to its equine heritage, the building sports two large cupolas on its hipped roof.
“The cupolas were vital to maintaining the agricultural feel and they gave the building some nice presence,” explains Wade.
According to Rensselaer, the cupolas also provided structural challenges. “They actually changed the size of the cupolas through the process and we had to add structural steel to support them,” he said.
Although original plans for the site included the construction of up to 15 buildings, Wade says that the three already constructed, including a private residence that existed on-site previously and is being renovated for use as the Union First Market Bank Hall, can accommodate large and small events. The larger exhibition center can be divided to create two smaller venues and the Meadow Pavilion is well-suited for smaller functions while also making use of natural light. According to Wade, any additional buildings constructed at the site will match the architectural style of the existing ones.
For 2009, the State Fair of Virginia reported a 2.4 percent improvement on the previous years’ attendance, with 247,958 visitors, the highest turnout for the event in five years.
Founded in 1975, KBS is the largest locally owned construction firm in central Virginia and has been rated among the top 30 construction firms in the Mid-Atlantic region. Its portfolio of successful projects includes adaptive reuse, commercial office, educational, health care, industrial, multi-residential, recreational, retail and senior living. Ceco Building Systems is a division of NCI Building Systems and designs and fabricates metal buildings. NCI Building Systems is one of the largest integrated manufacturers and marketers of metal building components and custom-designed metal building systems in North America. Bullock Smith & Partners is an architectural firm with offices in Knoxville and Nashville, Tenn.