The old Belle-Clair Speedway racetrack and other structures at the Belle-Clair Fairgrounds in Belleville will soon be torn down to make way for renovations including a brand new speedway.
The St. Clair County Board approved two contracts for those demolitions and more throughout the county with Hank’s Excavating and Landscaping Inc. at its meeting Monday night. Hank’s Excavating and Landscaping Inc. submitted the lowest of four bids the county received for the work.
The racetrack demolition is expected to be the most expensive at $85,000. It will be paid for with federal COVID-related relief funds from the American Rescue Plan.
The other 12 demolitions in the contracts total $133,675. The board has been using grant money from the state to demolish properties across the county since May.
In addition to the old racetrack, the county is demolishing structures at the following addresses, which were purchased this year to expand the Belle-Clair Fairgrounds property:
- 12 S. 12th St.
- 1132 S. Church St.
- 1132 S. Charles St.
- 1138 S. Church St.
The county plans to use most of that land for additional parking. The 12th Street property is part of the area where the new track will be built in the empty southeast corner of the 200 South Belt East property.
The old track first opened for racing in 1948 featuring a fifth-of-a-mile, banked dirt oval with a grandstand seating 5,000 people. It shut down in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials plan to bring races back to the fairgrounds beginning next fall.
County Board Chairman Mark Kern has said the track is falling down and unsafe.
The other structures to be demolished under the contract with Hank’s Excavating and Landscaping Inc. include homes in Dupo, East Carondelet, Belleville and Cahokia Heights and a commercial building in Swansea.
The county’s state grant for demolitions is $2 million. To date, it has spent a total of $700,671, leaving almost $1.3 million remaining.
