ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ) – It’s demolition day for the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena, but if you’re hoping for a big boom, you’ll be disappointed.
“There won’t be where someone pushes down on a lever and all of a sudden walls cave inward,” explains Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach. “This building was built extremely structurally sound.”
He says there won’t be a plume of smoke to signify today as “demolition day,” but rather it’s just day one of work for crews.
Workers will be tasked with dismantling the arena and Shopko Hall piece by piece, rather than having it go down with one large blow.
In terms of what will be visible to motorists and residents in the coming week, there shouldn’t be much to keep an eye on.
“Basically it’s going to be a process, slow at first,” explains Terry Charles, with PMI Entertainment Group. “I think by the end of the week we’ll see fencing going up around the entire complex here, so it’ll become an official construction/demolition zone.”
Charles explains that this is being done to separate Shopko Hall from the Resch Center to ensure that they can continue operations without interruption.
But, once fences are up and work gets underway in good spirits, just how long will it take to see the process through?
Those seeking dramatic explosions and plumes of smoke will be disappointed to find out that none of that is in the plans.
“The reality is that this is going to be taken down methodically with a wrecking ball,” says Streckenbach. “There’s not going to be this one-time event that’s going to take place.”
Meaning as the calendar flips into summer it’s likely that the venues are still standing, at least in some capacity or partially.
“I’ve been told the entire process to bring both the arena and Shopko Hall down will be anywhere between two to three months,” says Charles.
He reiterates the fact that the process is inside out, meaning that crews will be busy inside the structure before any dramatic work to the exterior can start.
“It’s not like you’re going to see the arena come down,” explains Charles. “A lot of stuff needs to happen on the inside.
The arena and Shopko Hall are coming down in order to make room for a new $93-million multi-purpose expo hall.
The new venue is expected to include over 120,000-square-feet of flexible space, which could house multiple events simultaneously.
