Business View Magazine | July 2019

156 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 which is our part-time, temporary staffing firm. Over the last ten years, our cumulative economic impact has been over a billion dollars. So, we are a major economic generator for Fort Wayne and the greater Allen County community.” According to Brown, who’s been at the helm for the past 31 years, one of his major responsibilities has been to keep the facility “relevant” by maintaining the physical plant as a state-of-the-art complex. Thus, over the last three decades, there have been continual additions, improvements, and upgrades to the Coliseum’s building and internal structures. The first major renovation occurred in the late ‘80s, when the $27 million Expo Center was added, with a gross footage of 250,000 square feet of new space, and another $7 million was spent for updates to the original building. “That turned us from a so-so exhibit player to a much bigger regional player – number two in the state of Indiana,” Brown reports. “In 2000-02, we did a $34.5 million renovation of the arena and we actually raised the roof – a 41-foot, 10-inch raise. It took our seating capacity to nearly 13,000. We added 24 suites and 318 club seats – a total, top- to-bottom modernization of the facility.” There have been other renovations over the years, the most recent being the construction of the Coliseum’s Conference Center in the south end of the complex. “It’s added 60,000 square feet,” says Brown, “and we renovated 15,000 square feet of lobby space. We’ve got a million square feet under roof, now, so for a ‘second tier’ facility, we’re already a big one. The new room, itself, Conference Center A, B, C, D, and E, is just a little under 28,000 square feet that can be subdivided into the five different rooms. It has a 29-foot ceiling, LED lighting, and very high-tech theatrical lighting. It’s another type of facility within our arsenal. Our pre-function lobby space, now, is approximately 20,000 square feet. The Conference Center also has four, 30- foot tall doors and can be opened to provide contiguous space with our Expo.”