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June 2015 — 16 November 2017
The recommendation: Mayor Tom Henry's Downtown Arena Study Committee, chaired by Sweetwater founder Chuck Surack, began meeting in June 2015 and reported on 21 March 2016: unanimously, the city should pursue a downtown arena of 5,000 to 6,000 seats on the block west of the Grand Wayne Center, across from Parkview Field. Early cost estimates ran $48 to $68 million. The Allen County Commissioners, owners of the Memorial Coliseum, issued their own statement the same day, and the parties committed publicly to an arena that would complement, not harm, the Coliseum and the Embassy Theatre.
The study: The Capital Improvement Board commissioned the feasibility work, and the answer changed as the price did. By the time the Victus Advisors report landed in November 2017 the facility had grown to $105 million, and the consultants found it would attract only about ten new events a year, would lose money — a projected operating loss of some $470,000 a year as a stand-alone facility — and would likely divert events from the city's existing venues. The Coliseum's executive, Randy Brown, affirmed the findings.
The shelving: On 16 November 2017 Mayor Henry announced that further action on the arena was delayed — on hold. No arena was built. The fight's documents make an unusually clean case study: a unanimous civic recommendation, a doubling price, an independent study that subtracted the case, and a mayor who stopped his own project.
Sources:
- City of Fort Wayne and study-committee reporting, 21–22 March 2016 (aroundfortwayne.com; Pollstar, 26 March 2016) — the committee, the unanimous recommendation, the site and the early cost range, and the commissioners' same-day statement.
- Arena Digest, 17 November 2017, and the Victus Advisors feasibility findings as reported — the $105 million figure, the ten new events, the projected operating loss and the 16 November 2017 shelving.
- Elevatus Architecture — the joint schematic-design commission of 2016, with Sink Combs Dethlefs, under the Capital Improvement Board.