Pairings, the proposed wine and culinary center for downtown Geneva, kicked off its capital campaign at the SPIRE Institute Thursday evening.

Mark Winchell, executive director of the Ashtabula County Convention and Visitors Bureau and a Pairings Ohio’s Wine & Culinary Experience trustee, said that The Chef’s Challenge event at Fuel attracted 325 persons. Winchell said the 13 volunteers who put together the event originally felt 200 would be an optimistic number.

“From my perspective, I was very pleased,” Winchell said as he reviewed the evening.

Geneva Assistant City Manager and Pairings trustee Jennifer Brown said the trustees will meet Monday to review the event and get a clearer picture of its financial success. Many local businesses showed their support for the concept by donating items and services to a fundraiser silent auction. A ticket to the wine-and-food pairing event was $75.

“We raised money,” Brown said.

The challenge was the inaugural event for Pairings’ capital campaign, which is being launched after three years of research and planning. The group completed a feasibility study, wrote a business plan and hired a public relations firm and architect. A $200,000 seed grant from the Civic Development Corporation has helped fund the process.

The architectural renderings of the 38,000-square-foot complex were unveiled as part of the dinner event. The center, to be built on three acres in downtown Geneva, will feature a red brick and sandstone facade and design that will fit into the predominant architecture of the downtown. It will house a kitchen and amphitheater that will be used for classes; a full service, upscale restaurant; high-end meeting space; office space that can be rented; and wine-making facilities that can be used for education and winery startup.

In addition to promoting and growing tourism, viniculture and agriculture in the region, Pairings should serve as a catalyst for further growth in the downtown area and along the Route 534 corridor. Pairings trustees refer to the center as the “third pillar” of economic development on the corridor, the other two being the Lodge and Conference Center and SPIRE Institute.

“This is an economic driver, not an economic hole,” Winchell said. “The downtown becomes a larger incubator.”

Winchell said trustees are committed to making Pairings sustainable through diversity. He said the group visited a similar center in New York and studied ones in California to learn from those centers’ mistakes and borrow their most successful elements.

Aimed at an audience with plenty of disposable income, Pairings is expected to draw 90,000 users in the first year. Winchell said they expect 85 percent or more of those users will be from outside Ashtabula County.

The Pairings business plan projects the creation of at least 20 new full-time jobs and more than 30 seasonal and part-time jobs, plus independent contractor assignments. Annual revenue of $4.5 million is projected if 90,000 visitors use the facility.

Groundbreaking is planned for late 2013, but millions of dollars need to be raised/committed before that can happen. Winchell said the trustees have shown “unbridled passion” for the concept and now they are looking for “unbridled capital” to make it happen. The investment is projected at between $10 and $15 million.

The trustees hit the road with their plea Friday morning as they made a presentation to the Ashtabula County Port Authority. Port Authority Chairman Rob Schimmelpfennig said the authority members “want to do whatever it is we can help you do.” Exactly what that will involve remains to be seen, however, because the funding structure has not been determined.

Pairings Trustee Ken Johnson said their next step is to bring in professional fundraising assistance so they can develop a blueprint for raising the millions that will be needed to build, equip and market the venture. The trustees said they are committed to doing everything on a top-notch level, including hiring professional executives to run the center. Winchell noted that there is a great need to raise the level professionalism in Ohio’s wine industry; there is only one classically trained winemaker working in the state, which has more than 150 wineries.