MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Construction is under way on a new WVU Extension Services and 4-H Center at Mylan Park.
The new center will be 40-thousand square feet and is projected to cost $3.5 million. There will be an additional 15-thousand square feet of outdoor arenas.
“Now you’re going to have a focus, which it should be,” said County Commissioner Ed Hawkins on WAJR’s Morgantown AM. “In Monongalia County, which is where WVU is, extension should be a focal point and that’s what is going to happen. This is going to be a focal point for WVU extension education as well as 4-H.”
Hawkins said the idea originated when he found that the current fairground barn wasn’t large enough to accommodate the number of kids wanting to bring animals.
“So I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to be the commissioner who’s begging for money for the fair,'” he said. “So I’m going to send my other commissioners out to meet with these individuals as well as Mylan Park and see what we may be able to facilitate.”
Monongalia County Commissioners came up with the idea to construct the new WVU Extension Services and 4-H Center and with the help of Mylan, made it happen.
The new center will feature an incubator kitchen, an outdoor arena, and an enclosed show ring.
“What we hope to bring into this will be, what I call, breeder shows of lambs, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, you name it,” Hawkins said. “We’re right beside the interstate, we’re right at Mylan Park. The potential here is unlimited. We still have space that we can rent.”
West Virginia University Extension and Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt will have offices in the building.
With the new center an “educational arm,” Hawkins hopes to bring more awareness to agriculture.
“It is an agricultural center, in other words like it or not, what has happened is that there is less focus that seems to be placed in the past on agricultural development and now you see people going back to the land,” he said. “They want to know what’s in what they’re eating.”
The building is being funded through Mylan, but the county will eventually own it, according to Commissioner Hawkins. And with the revenue from fairs and rented spaces, he believes it can be paid for in less than seven years.
“The big picture, I think is, you can see progress,” Hawkins said. “It’s not stagnant no matter what arena that you’re looking at you can see that there’s visible progress being made to this, particularly in education.”
The building is expected to be completed by late December 2018.
Story by Hannah Williams