A design for the layout and placement of the new Dreher 4-H building at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds is done.

The 6,000-square-foot building will have classrooms, meeting rooms, a kitchen, restrooms and storage and multiuse areas at the fairgrounds, near 19th and Harper streets.

“It’s going to be a real nice building that is going to get used virtually every day out there,” said Lee Queen, a member of the county committee working with B.A. Green Construction Co. and Treanor Architects on the project.

Decisions are pending about what the lobby and exterior of the building will look like.

“They’ve still got some design work to do, but it’s pretty close to being done,” Queen said. “Right now we concentrated on the footprint and how it’s going to look inside.”

The building is being financed with $600,000 bequeathed to the Douglas County 4-H program from the Helen Dreher estate. Before her death in 2005, Dreher made sure the money would be given to 4-H and asked that it be used for a new building, her attorney, George Catt, told county leaders last fall. In return she asked that a plaque be placed on the building bearing the Dreher family name.

During their meeting at 9 a.m. Monday, Douglas County commissioners will examine the designs.

The plans place the building between the Douglas County Extension Service building and Building 21. The parking lot at the south entrance to the Extension building will be reconfigured.

The Dreher building will take up some space used by fair vendors, but the project includes more parking spaces and courtyards for people wanting to sit and eat, Queen said.

The building also will be used for some fair exhibit space, he said.

Construction of the building is expected to begin after the fair ends in August.

The building will benefit more than 400 community 4-H club members and about 1,000 who participate in the 4-H after-school program.