Thousands of people come to the Georgia National Fair each year, but now they may get a chance to stay overnight. The state agency that runs the fairgrounds is looking to build a hotel with 100 rooms. The more people coming to Perry means more cash for businesses as well.
There lots to buy when you walk into the Perry Pawn Shop. Brian Whitney helps run the pawn shop and says a hotel coming to the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agriculture Center will bring in more customers.
"The fair brings in about 500,000 to 600,000 every year, and we see a good portion of that," said Whitney.
Up the road at the fairgrounds, executive director Stephen Shimp says the hotel will cost about $17 million to build.
"It'd be groundbreaking for us, it's the last piece of the puzzle for our commercial development. I mean, we've got the space," says Shimp.
The hotel will be attached to the Miller-Murphy Howard Building. That's the fairground's 65,000-square food convention center. Shimp says that he sees about 950,000 people that walk the grounds each year. With a hotel in the equation, Shimp says people will stay longer for stuff like conventions, trade shows, and rodeos. Whitney says the people running the hotel are also potential customers.
"A lot of people come in here if they need tools for anything they do there," said Whitney.
The deadline for developer's proposals is November 16.
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A 100-plus-room hotel could be coming to the Georgia National Fairgrounds.
The state agency that runs the fairgrounds has posted an invitation for bidders to design, build and run the hotel.
It would be located next to the Miller-Murphy-Howard Building, the fairground's 65,000-square-foot convention center.
The invitation posted online by the Georgia Agricultural Exposition Authority says they're looking for a long term lease with the developer.
The fairgrounds opened off Interstate 75 in Perry in 1990.
A half-million people a year visit the fair each October, and thousands more attend rodeos, livestock shows, sales and other gatherings held at the fairgrounds year-round.