Making room for more seats added options for Fort Wayne's stadium

By Jimmy Nesbitt, Evansville Courier & Press

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - When Allen County War Memorial Coliseum was renovated in 2002, hockey fan Vera Moore thought the county was making a big mistake.

She questioned putting $34.5 million into a 50-year-old building and wondered how raising the roof and adding 2,500 seats would draw more people.

I thought they were crazy," she said.

But it didn't take long for Moore - a season ticket holder of Fort Wayne Komets, the city's longtime minor league hockey team - to change her mind.

Those new upper-level seats that she thought would remain empty most nights were filled, even packed for weekend games.

And it wasn't just for hockey games. Concerts and children's shows sold out, too.

"This facility is full all the time," said Moore while attending a recent Wednesday night Komets game with her husband and daughter.

All three are season ticket holders. Their seats are just two rows off the ice. The renovation has created a new atmosphere that has turned her family from casual fans to die-hard hands.

"Now you couldn't keep us away," she said.

The decision to renovate was the result of a long debate over the future of the coliseum. Allen County, which owns the facility, also considered building a new arena Downtown.

It was a discussion that mirrors one now under way in Evansville as the community debates the future of Roberts Stadium.

At 52 years old, Roberts Stadium is about the same age as the coliseum - and the similarities don't stop there.

Before the renovation in Fort Wayne, big-name performers weren't coming to the coliseum because it was outdated and the roof lacked the rigging capacity required by many modern acts, said Randy Brown, general manager of the coliseum.

SMG, the company that manages Roberts Stadium, is making the same complaints about the stadium.

Allen County contracted with an international engineering firm to raise the coliseum roof. The renovations allowed Brown to expand seating from 10,500 to 13,000 seats. The roof's rigging capacity was increased, and suites and premium seating were added.

Gateway Consultants, the firm hired to study Roberts Stadium, has said raising the roof there may not be possible. Renovations would cost $38.2 million to $89.9 million. If the roof could be raised, the total probably would be closer to the latter figure, Gateway has said.

Gateway consultant Tom Chema is expected to make a recommendation to the Roberts Stadium Advisory Board this week. So far, all signs appear to point toward construction of a new arena Downtown.

The location makes sense based on the number of funding sources available, Chema has said. Chema last month gave a presentation identifying 11 potential sites, eight of which were Downtown.

There has been little discussion lately of a renovated Roberts Stadium, but city leaders insist wasn't ruled out.

By all accounts, Fort Wayne's renovation has been a success. So how did it work?

In the late 1990s, a discussion began over what to do with the coliseum, said Allen County Commissioner Linda K. Bloom.

"Our building was not in disrepair," Bloom said. "It just needed to expand for the same reasons Evansville needs to expand. We wanted bigger, better shows and more events. We wanted more seats."

So they studied the options. Doing nothing seemed to be too big of a risk. Cost estimates for a new stadium in downtown Fort Wayne were around $100 million. But downtown didn't have the infrastructure, land or parking needed for a new arena, Bloom said.

The coliseum, by comparison, already had 5,000 parking spaces and plenty of room for expansion. It's located 1.5 miles from downtown and close to Interstate 69.

"All of those are huge issues," Bloom said.

A decision was made to renovate, and the county chose to pay for it by adding a penny tax on food and beverages. There were some naysayers, but overall public support "was amazing, really good support in my opinion," Bloom said. "We dug our feet in as commissioners and felt we were making the right decision. ... It just made really good sense to do what we did."

She said the coliseum puts $100 million into the Fort Wayne metro economy.

The city's new downtown minor league baseball stadium, which is scheduled to open next year, is part of a $125 million development called Harrison Square that includes a hotel, parking garage, retail space and 60 condominium units. Brown said the city approved the project, despite not generating much public support. She says some city leaders bill it as a way to bring young professionals back to the city. Several people who spoke at a public hearing on the future of Roberts Stadium speculated that a new Downtown arena would do the same thing in Evansville.

"'Would my children move back? No." Bloom said.