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Although it might not yet look like it from the outside, the Mahr Park Arboretum Event Center is nearing completion at least to a point that it will officially be opened by the first of September.

Situated in the center of Mahr Park, the event center will be housed in what was once the parks maintenance barn and includes a large central meeting room and a kitchen area.

The Madisonville Tourism Advisory Board approved $225,000 in renovations to the existing facility last fiscal year. Recently, Hopkins County Tourism donated another $100,000 to the effort to help complete the building.

The county tourism agency will host the first two events to be held in the renovated facility. Up first will be the Kentucky Tourism Cabinet, who will hold a meeting in the location on Sept. 9 with Tourism Secretary Mike Berry as the guest speaker. The Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau will use the facility Sept. 10-11 which will feature an appearance by State Auditor Mike Harmon.

The decision to transition the building from maintenance barn to event center was as much an aesthetic one as anything else. While the city easily could have built a new building to be the event center elsewhere in the park, the location is something of a centerpiece to Mahr Park.

It was the first thing you saw when you came over the hill coming into the park, said Madisonville Mayor Kevin Cotton.

Plans are underway to build another maintenance barn at another location within the park. That location is being designed in such a way that the building will blend in with the natural terrain and plants within the nature park, with part of the building actually being planned to be built into the ground.

Were being very cautious, said Cotton. We really dont want the new barn to stand out.

The new maintenance facility project is ready to go to bid, but officials are currently waiting on the National Park Service to sign-off on a grant to finalize the citys approval. Cotton said Congressman James Comer, as well as Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul have all been asked to assist.

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Mahr Park Event Center will open Sept. 9 | Local News - The Messenger