Danville business owner proposes plan to purchase Vermilion Co. Fairgrounds for sports park

DANVILLE, Ill. (WAND) - Frank Wright is the owner of Wright's Heating and Air Conditioning and he's looking to expand his services with a Sports Park at the Vermilion County Fairgrounds.

“My wife and I had the idea of starting this racetrack. She passed away. It kind of put the plans on hold for a while to make this proposal. But my family and I talked and discussed things and we’ve come up with the finances for it to where we’re ready to move it this time and we would like to get started pretty much immediately,” said Wright.

Wright made the proposal during yesterday's County Board meeting with plans to add a race track, a hobby store, and more family friendly activities.

“We don’t plan on leaving one acre of those 43 acres untouched for the sports park. Our family is so involved in the heating and air business, and we also have another business but there’s a lot of us," Wright said. "We're all going to take certain parts of it. I will be the, let’s say, manager but everyone in our family is going to have a certain part that they’re responsible for."

The Vermilion County Fairgrounds released a statement that states they don't plan to sell the land now or anytime in the near future.

However, Wright says the sports park will bring in more jobs and more revenue to Vermilion County.

“One we’re going to be putting the property back on the tax roll; we’ll be paying property taxes. We will be hiring people to work the concession stands, we’ll be hiring people to run the bike park, we’ll have employees for the go-kart track," said Wright. "We’ll have at least twenty people on the night of a racing, when we do the rodeos at least twenty people will be hired.”