EVANSTON — According to Eugene Joyce and Peter Liguori with the Wyoming Horse Racing Association (WHRA), construction is progressing on the Horse Palace located near Porter’s Fireworks west of the city. Concrete pads, a retaining wall and emergency access lanes are in, and they hope to open the facility by the end of this year.

Joyce and Liguori attended the Uinta County Economic Development Commission (UCEDC) meeting in Evanston on Wednesday, April 23, to provide an update on the planned facility. Joyce said that, when he first moved to Wyoming, there was no horseracing and, in 2011, he started Wyoming Horse Racing in Rock Springs. When the Wyoming legislature approved off-track betting in Wyoming in 2015, the industry experienced rapid growth.

“I had a vision for horseracing off-track betting in Evanston but needed help to get it done and then I met Peter Liguori,” Joyce said. “Peter has international experience in horseracing, and he and others are putting forward a $20 million investment into the Horse Palace here in Evanston.”

Liguori told the commission that their goal is to bring outside dollars into the state and they needed a location for an entertainment facility. The group first purchased Porter’s Fireworks’ original building; however, the facility WHRA had built in Cheyenne was proving to be very successful, so the group decided they needed to build an even larger facility — 27,000 square feet — than first planned.

“The main facility will be phase one of our plan,” Liguori said. “It will contain a restaurant, off-track betting area, a stage venue for concerts, liquor store, and doughnut shop. The doughnut shop in the Cheyenne facility sells over 1,000 dozen donuts on the weekends.”

Liguori said they plan to build a hotel and add more parking later on. Currently, WHRA is looking for downtown office space for 11 employees, including a general manager, senior marketing manager and a human resources manager they’ve already hired. They will also be looking for space in which to provide training for 128 permanent employees in customer service, kitchen work and more.

“Our philosophy is ‘Wyoming first,’ so we hire, buy, donate and promote equine business locally,” Liguori said. “Seventy-five percent of our construction dollars will be spent in Evanston and in the state. This facility will cost $26 million to build and, out of that, $11 million will be spent on construction, employing 150 people. Those employees will generate approximately $7.6 million in indirect and induced spending in the community.”

UCEDC member Brent Hatch asked Liguori if the restaurant would be a franchise restaurant, to which Liguori responded; “No franchise. We will run the restaurant ourselves, and we have a celebrity chef in charge of food and beverages. We want to offer quality food at a reasonable price.”

UCEDC Chair Dan Wheeler told Liguori to connect with Uinta BOCES #1 Executive Director Sheila McGuire, who was in attendance, to talk about possible training space.

Liguori said, “Horseracing is growing in Wyoming. The Wyoming Senate has a committee to study the whole issue, and they seem to be supportive of giving cities and counties more control.”

Dana and Annalisa Beck from the Beck Family Ranch in Lonetree were the next to address the commission. They used a slide presentation to show photos of their ranch and to tell their story. The couple introduced their daughter, Taylor, and her husband, Broderick Thomas, who both work on the ranch.

The Becks moved from Utah, where Dana owned an engineering firm, to Lonetree, in 2015, after buying the old Hussman ranch. They said their original intent was to retire, but they soon became bored and started investing in cattle. They now have 1,000 head of grass-fed cattle. They sell online, at the Evanston Farmers Market and in two retail stores in Rock Springs. They said their model is to sell direct to the consumer.

Annalisa Beck said, “Selling online has been very successful. The local UPS driver told us we are the biggest shipper in Bridger Valley. We offer chicken from Texas and pork from the Midwest; all raised naturally and without antibiotics. We also have a store at the ranch where we sell our meat, honey from Coalville (Utah) and other products in our store. We plan to produce products from tallow and will offer sausages, bacon, ham, jerky, tomahawk steaks and other specialty cuts of meat.”

“We have six children who all want to be involved in the ranch,” Dana said. “Our cows are raised naturally; no grains, corn or soy and no antibiotics, hormones or MRNA. The last 90 days we put them in a feed lot and feed them alfalfa and grass hay before taking them to the closest USDA certified processing plant in Tooele, Utah; which ties up a 14-hour day.”

That long day is the main reason the Becks decided to build a USDA certified processing plant on their ranch. They plan to build an 11,000 square foot facility with a kill floor, coolers and a commercial kitchen. When the plant is in operation the Becks will have a full-time federal inspector there 40 hours per week.

The couple have spent the last 3 years getting approved for the federal USDA certification. Their plant will be the only federally approved meat processing plant in southwest Wyoming. They had-to get lots of permits: a building permit from the county, sewer and composting permit from the state, and USDA federal inspection.

Dana Beck explained that, usually, meat processing plants ship off the offal, bones and guts to a special landfill but they received state permit #2 for composting; the Cheyenne landfill has the #1 permit for composting.

“Currently, Brazil controls 90% of the beef sold in the U.S. that is labeled U.S. We also want to offer USDA-certified processing to our neighbor ranchers and allow easier access to ranch-raised beef directly to consumers,” Dana Beck said. “We spent most of the winter getting taught how to butcher at Rocky Mountain Meat Processors. We now have all the equipment and are ready to go. We plan to hire at least six local people. We have all the underground work done and will be pouring concrete next week.”

Dana encouraged everyone to try some of the products they had brought and displayed on a side table.

Last to speak was Dawn L. Clegg, president of a board in Lyman which is attempting to start a youth club there. She said she would return to the commission at their next meeting in Lyman on May 28 with a full report.

Commission member Jon Conrad announced that he had spent the last nine days in India with others from the University of Wyoming. He said they visited seven universities but India has no community colleges. Studies there found that two-thirds of Indian students come to get their graduate degrees at U.S. universities. Only 23% of India’s high school graduates go on to college and they want to raise it to 50%. Conrad said the people they talked to are very interested in establishing a relationship with Wyoming.