If one state lawmaker has his way, MSU could be asked to step right up to become the future host of the Michigan State Fair.
While the blue-ribbon honor sounds like a good prize at first, it might prove more harm to the university than good.
State Sen. Leon Stille, R-Spring Lake, on Tuesday announced his plans for the Legislature to consider selling the 240-acre Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit and move the annual event to a more centralized Mid-Michigan location - leaving MSU as a possibility.
Stille cited poor attendance records as one of his main concerns for considering moving the fair. Fairgoer numbers have hovered around 440,000 people annually, which leaves Michigan’s fair ranked No. 50 in attendance in the nation.
His plan has received criticism because it would move the fair from the state’s main population center, but that is unwarranted. A more central location would allow additional western and northern-based Michiganians to attend the event on an annual basis.
And while it would be sad to see one more economic booster removed from Detroit’s city limits, an agriculture-based fair, frankly, doesn’t belong along Woodward Avenue.
Since 1855, MSU has been the agriculture Mecca of the Great Lakes state. There couldn’t be a more appropriate location for the annual festival than near the Spartan campus.
But the question is if MSU has the space to host it. MSU’s East Lansing campus is nearly 5,200-acres big. Of that space, 2,000 acres are developed and 700 acres are protected natural areas.
That leaves about 2,500 undeveloped acres which mostly are devoted to experimental farms and outlying research facilities. It would be hard to find 10 percent of that land worthy of giving up as fairgrounds.
As MSU has grown during the past 147 years, campus development has spread rapidly south across the Red Cedar River at the cost of more farm land. MSU cannot afford to give up its most valuable space.
One measure proposed by Stille to reduce the required fair acreage is to split it into two separate parts - amusement and agriculture. The amusement part could be combined with various county fairs and the agriculture portion could be moved to a new permanent location.
But that just doesn’t work. A fair is not a fair unless it combines both aspects.
A fair is a chance for the agricultural world to show off to the big-city world, and for the big-city world to get a taste of the farmers who feed America. It’s a chance for both worlds to meet and celebrate.
We urge lawmakers to seriously consider Stille’s ideas. The Michigan State Fair should move to a more central location.
We also hope MSU is a serious contender to play that new host. But university and state officials should find a way to make it work without costing the school its valuable farm land.
