ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ) – The next phase of demolition of the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena is underway.
Since the final events were held at the 61-year-old arena in April, crews have been removing items and demolishing interior structures.
“A lot of stuff in this building and you can tell it was built in the 1950s,” says Kurt Wolfgram, Miron Construction Project Executive.
The public may not have noticed much of a change over that time, but now some drastic gutting to the exterior is set to happen.
“After a lengthy planning process, now it’s time to begin the process of taking the structure down, but it is not being done in a way that many may expect,” says Wolfgram.
The process of taking down the arena might not be as immediate as some people expected.
“A lot of people are looking for this big implosion, but that is not the way they take it down. They do like to recycle as much as they can and take it down piece by piece,” he explains.
The process includes a high-reach excavator pulling down the exterior wall and letting it fall to the ground.
The process will lead to taking down the roof and eventually the entire structure.
“What will be left is just the columns and the roof in the next couple of days,” Wolfgram says. “Probably by the middle of next week they will start taking the roof down and that will take several days depending on how it goes. I would say the entire structure will be down in two to two and a half weeks.”
That news is music to the ears of Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach.
“Everything that was planned is working as plotted out,” he says. “More importantly, it’s coming within the budget constraints.”
According to Wolfgram, the roof will be removed in sections until the building collapses in on itself.
A new $93 million facility is planned to replace the arena and Shopko Hall, which was connected to the arena and is already demolished.
Work on that new facility could begin as early as next week, which is something that has County Executive Streckenbach particularly excited.
“January 2021, I mean a year-and-a-half from now we’re going to be seeing the vision that started many years ago,” he says.
