When you visit the Washington State Fair this year, you might look around the sprawling campus and think: how far does it go?
The answer, it turns out, is 176 acres.
In a July interview, president Renee McClain told The News Tribune that the organization’s land consists of the fairgrounds, parking and rental properties.
100 acres are inside the fairgrounds proper.
50 acres are used for parking.
26 acres outside the fairgrounds are rental properties.
McClain told The News Tribune that the fair – which is a 501c(3) organization – pays $1.2 million in property taxes each year.
“It is often said that we are the biggest fair in the smallest city,” McClain said. “It has great attributes – it also has its challenges.”
A map included in Puyallup City Council meeting documents shows land owned by the Washington State Fair.
176 acres: A breakdown
The Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer’s Office gave The News Tribune a list of all parcels of land the fair owns.
Out of 90 parcels, the fair bought 44 of them before 1990. The land value of all 90 parcels in the list added up to about $63.8 billion.
Most of the land in the records is zoned as “amusements” or “single family dwellings”:
20 zoned as “amusements”
20 zoned as “single-family dwelling”
17 zoned as “auto parking”
16 zoned as “commercial vacant land”
14 zoned as “vacant land undeveloped”
2 zoned as “fourplex, 4 units”
1 zoned as “duplex, 2 units”
“Keep in mind that is the zoning we have in our records,” Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Marty Campbell wrote in an email to The News Tribune. “You should contact the City of Puyallup for the most accurate zoning information.”
Eric Johnson, spokesperson for the city, told The News Tribune that the fair is working with the city on its comprehensive plan.
“Last year, the Fair requested zoning map amendments for properties that they own to be considered as part of the Comprehensive Plan Update to our Planning Commission,” Johnson wrote in an email to The News Tribune. “Staff is currently working on these and other privately initiated zoning map amendments as part of the larger Zoning Code and Map Amendments phase of the Comprehensive Plan Update and will present them to the Council sometime in the fall, either in October or November.”
Johnson declined to give further details.
“Since these requests are initiated by a private property owner, it would be improper of me to provide a comment about this,” Johnson wrote. “It would make more sense for you to get a comment from the Fair on this.”
The News Tribune followed up with Stacy Van Horne, spokesperson for the fair, in August. The News Tribune asked Van Horne:
How zoning has changed to accommodate the land that the fair owns
What changes have come as a result of working with the city on its comprehensive plan
When the fair bought its rental properties
How many rental properties the fair owns
Why the fair bought rental properties
What the rental properties are being used for and if they have tenants
“We will take a look at the questions again after the Fair if you’re still interested in writing something regarding the Fair’s land/property,” Van Horne wrote in an email to The News Tribune. “In the meantime, if you have any specific Fair event-related questions let me know.”
Looking to the future
In the July interview, McClain said the fair has come to an agreement with the city that it will not use any more of its land for parking.
“We kind of committed to the city that we would not take any more of that land and make it parking,” McClain said. “We keep the parking that we have and we find other options for parking, for transportation – whether that’s shuttling from the Sound Transit lots that we have down here, or getting more involved with Pierce Transit, which we did before the pandemic.”
Land owned by the Washington State Fair Event Center outside of the fairgrounds is visible from 9th Avenue Southwest on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Puyallup, Wash.
McClain said they are still brainstorming ideas for how to use the land.
“We still have quite a bit of property to our west that we can expand that is in our fairgrounds proper,” McClain said. “But there are these properties on the outside where we could look at doing some unique and different things that would very much benefit the city and some of its housing shortages or living spaces for people – but also just connect us to our campus perimeter.”
McClain said the fair has focused on expanding throughout its 125-year history.
“The board and leadership has made these decisions to purchase more contiguous properties – so, properties that are more contiguous to the fair – thinking about future expansion,” McClain said. “We only started with the 10 acres that we were on in 1901 and now we’re at 100 fairground proper acres. You have to have that vision of looking, like, we’re going to get bigger and what we’re going to do.”
While no vision for the land is currently set in stone, McClain is excited for the possibilities.
“We own quite a bit of property to our north, that’s some rentals – and like, maybe, we turn that into multifamily-type housing,” McClain said. “We have mixed-use space and people are living there, they have rooftops that they can experience the fair on a year-round basis. And all of the events, they can sit on their rooftop and listen to a concert. So we are looking at all of that now, what does that look like?”