Business View Magazine | July 2019

159 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 THE ALLEN COUNTY WAR MEMOR I AL COL I SEUM well-funded. We’re doing in the range of $1.5 to 2 million a year of improvements.” Brown says he’s always looking ahead at the next generation of “necessary improvements,” because meeting and exceeding the expectations of the Coliseum’s guests and keeping the facility “relevant” has been instrumental in its success. Its five-year plan includes an expansion of the Conference Center from just under 28,000 square feet to 50,000. “Expansion continues to be on the horizon,” Brown states. “The original part of the building is 67 years old, but there’s not a lot of the 67-year-old left.” Brown also looks at containing costs. “We’re one of the few self-supporting properties in the country and it’s a matter of having more revenue than expenses,” he remarks. “Like I tell my staff: ‘gross does not equal net.’ You’ve got to pay attention to expenses. Utility costs hit us hard, last year, even with all the improvements we made. We reduced our kilowatt hour use by 288,000 kilowatt hours, but ended up still spending $100,000 more on electricity. Rates and transmission costs go up. Imagine if we weren’t making those improvements.” Brown believes that in addition to making constant improvements that ultimately help maintain the Coliseum’s financial fitness, its fortunes are also intimately tied to recent improvements in the local marketplace. “Fort Wayne, as a community, has had significant growth,” he notes. “We have ten new hotel properties either opened or under construction. And that’s good, because in the past, we haven’t had the hotel space to be able to support all the events that want to come here. So, with the food scene being more developed and some boutique hotels that will be opened within the year, the hospitality scene has arrived.” Change may be constant, but some things are timeless. For almost 70 years, the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum has been an integral part of the lives of Fort Wayne residents and their neighbors. In addition to the countless number