Brown County considers arena future

ASHWAUBENON - Are changes in store for Brown County's Veterans Memorial Arena? The Arena will be 53 years old this Fall. It's near ShopKo Hall and the Resch Center, just across the street from Lambeau Field. Thursday night a county committee got a first hand look at the facility and took some steps to plan for its future.

The Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena has hosted many events. Brown County owns the facility. PMI, the group that manages it, will tell you the arena is old but functional.

"It's a 53 year old building and it's going to have plumbing issues and we have air conditioning and heating issues, so those kind of things," said Ken Wachter, President, PMI. "Right now it operates fine for us and we use it a lot. We're just concerned that in the future we're going to have major repairs."

The Brown County Education and Recreation Committee toured the facility before its Thursday night meeting.

PMI's president and county officials are aware the arena may have additional competition in Appleton, where a new convention center is being considered.

"We're not afraid of competition. We just want to be able to be competitive. If they build a new building that has amenities that we don't have, renters will tendency to go somewhere new," said Wachter.

"It's important that we get the stake holders involved all together and start this conversation," said Jesse Brunette, Brown County Supervisor, during the meeting.

The committee voted unanimously to organize a meeting with officials from the Packers, PMI, Brown County, and Ashwaubenon to look at the future of the arena.

"I think we're really at that point in time where we need to sit back and say what is our interest in this asset and whether or not we need to make bigger decisions and start to put some money toward repairing it and making it a viable economic driving force for the community," Troy Streckenbach, Brown County Executive, told reporters.

Wachter says the arena has booked events for the next couple of years, and the improvements are not immediately needed, but need to be considered now so the arena will continue to be successful.