Rethinking a Downtown Arena for Fort Wayne

Client Challenge

Fort Wayne had been exploring a new multi-purpose arena on the 29-acre North River site — a long-dormant former rail yard serving as a gateway into downtown. Six years after Victus's original 2017 feasibility study, the market, venue landscape and financial considerations had evolved. Faegre Drinker needed an updated analysis that accounted for recent music venue development, a potential collaboration with Parkview Health on an attached fieldhouse and a realistic view of what a new arena could deliver in a market already served by the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.

Approach

Victus Advisors conducted an updated feasibility study for the proposed North River arena. The work included demographic and socioeconomic analysis of the Fort Wayne market, profiles of local sports, concert and entertainment venues, benchmarking against 12 comparable arenas, stakeholder and regional event promoter interviews, building program and management structure recommendations, five-year usage and operating projections, a 30-year economic and fiscal impact analysis and a hybrid model analysis evaluating the proposed Parkview Health fieldhouse addition.

Benefits to Client

The study produced a market-driven path forward for the North River site. Victus recommended a right-sized 3,500-to-4,000-seat arena (rather than the larger concept explored in 2017), a joint operating structure with the existing War Memorial Coliseum to reduce public venue competition and a realistic operating profile that reflected the arena's secondary-market positioning. Over a 30-year horizon, the analysis projected roughly $52 million in net direct spending (NPV) for Allen County, along with a clear-eyed operating pro forma for both the arena alone and a hybrid arena-plus-fieldhouse scenario. These findings equipped Fort Wayne leadership to make informed decisions on program, scale, management structure and collaboration opportunities ahead of moving the project forward.