The American Royal Association is building a new campus in Kansas City, Kansas, west of the West Bottoms. During an interview with KFRM, Maggie Morfeld, Director of New Campus Development with the American Royal Association, gave updates on the progress.

“The whole entire complex is a million square feet. Right now we have five barn gables up, and so they’re all interconnected. It’s 390,000 square feet of what we’re calling an exhibition hall. That is up and standing right now. We got roofs and doors on and they’ve been working on the inside, trying to get that finished over the winter,” said Morfeld. “We are in a bit of a strategic construction pause at this point and so once we get that moving ahead, we’ll continue with the rest of the fundraising and financing of the project and get our three arenas erected hopefully later this year, our learning and engagement center is 80,000 square feet. The cool thing about this entire complex is that the whole thing is going to be a learning and engagement center.”

Located near 22 land-grant universities and serving FFA and 4-H chapters, the new campus will enhance agricultural outreach. The American Royal hopes to expand its national presence, with visitors currently coming from 49 states.