By early 2017, no more events at former Coliseum complex

Forty years after the Kansas Coliseum opened, the last of its Pavilions will stop hosting events, leaving the Sunflower Cluster Dog Show and other events without a venue.

The last event at the Pavilions will be in early 2017, owner Johnny Stevens said. The buildings associated with the former Kansas Coliseum will be rented to businesses that want space for storage or manufacturing, he said.

“To run the Pavilions as an event center is weekend work, and it’s all family that’s running it and close friends, and they’re wanting to get back to spending time with their families,” said Stevens, who bought the Coliseum and its accompanying buildings from Sedgwick County in 2012.

Horse events including EquiFest were phased out at the venue last year, when one of the buildings was turned into storage and the dirt areas were paved, Stevens said. Organizers of other events – car shows and tractor pulls, flea markets and vintage markets, sports shows and gun shows – have been finding out recently that they won’t be able to use the venue next year.

“We were shocked,” said Mike Williams of the Sunflower Cluster Dog Show, sponsored by the kennel clubs in Wichita, Hutchinson and Salina each April. This year, the show’s agility trials had to move to the fairgrounds in Hutchinson because of the lack of dirt at the Pavilions. There’s really nothing comparable to the Pavilions in the area where the show can be held, Williams said.

“We’re looking at Century II. ... They have enough space – barely. They’re more expensive. They don’t have any dirt,” Williams said. Plus there isn’t room for the 90 motor homes that come to the show, which the American Kennel Club estimates has a $1.2 million impact, he said.

EquiFest, which in 2011 was estimated to have a $6 million economic impact, moved to Topeka this year.

Some events may simply end.

Richard Bartel of Derby announced on his Facebook page last week that he and his wife, Robin, would stop producing the Park City Chill motorcycle and car show that was last held at the Pavilions in February.

“I need 270,000 square feet ... and there’s just nowhere else in the state of Kansas that has that type of spacing for expo-style events,” Bartel said. Add to that the room needed for the vendors’ trailers and trailers for the 700 vehicles in the Chill, along with accessible and free parking for attendees, and there’s nothing else that compares, he said.

“It’s always been foremost a motorcycle show first, and for all the bikers, outside the Toy Run, they really don’t have their own large big event.”

There’s nothing comparable to the Pavilions in the area, agreed Bob Hanson, president and CEO of the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission. In 2010, he urged the county to keep the Pavilions after it closed the Coliseum. “It’s really difficult.”

The departures also are bad news for Park City, where the Pavilions complex is located.

“Our convention and tourism, we do a lot of sponsoring of events, and it brings a lot of people to the area, so we would like to see it continue to be used like that,” Assistant City Administrator Dana Walden said.

According to the Kansas Coliseum website, which is still operational for the Pavilions: “Circa 1965, after an attempt to use Century II to host a circus, it became clear Sedgwick County needed a livestock and agricultural exhibit hall. The Kansas Coliseum opened in 1977 for the promotion of agricultural, educational and cultural benefits for the citizens and visitors of Sedgwick County.”

When Intrust Bank Arena opened in downtown Wichita in 2010, the Coliseum closed. The county continued to operate the Pavilions afterward at a loss.

Stevens, a Wichita oilman and developer of the Waterfront at 13th and Webb, bought the Coliseum complex at I-135 and 85th Street North in 2012. He said at the time that he planned to keep the Pavilions open through Jan. 1 of this year and, if profitable, beyond then.

Stevens said the Pavilions had not been profitable, but that isn’t the main reason for the closure.

“We actually liked it; it was fun to do,” he said of running events. But “we have so many other things to do. It’s taking away a lot of our personal time.” Stevens is also a partner in Air Capital Flight Line, which bought the former Boeing site in southeast Wichita in late 2014, and that has added pressure, he said.

“We’re trying to bring new business into Wichita, and it takes time for them to make a decision. Those are huge buildings. It requires a company that’s going to hire 100 or 200 people. They don’t make those decisions that quick.” He said half a dozen companies are showing interest in the former Boeing site.

Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research leases the former Coliseum for its Aircraft Structural Test and Evaluation Center. It includes labs for ballistics and impact dynamics testing and bird-strike simulations, said Tracee Friess of the institute. It also now uses one of the Pavilions for storage.

That leaves Pavilion 1 and the covered arena remaining for rental – 250,000 square feet, Stevens said.

The kennel clubs will meet on June 26 to decide whether they can afford to take the dog show to Century II, Williams said. He is still upset that the county sold the Pavilions.

“They did all of us – the kids particularly – a big injustice. These large youth groups, they’ve got nowhere to go to do this training,” especially with horses, he said.

County commissioner Richard Ranzau said it would be nice if Stevens could keep the Pavilions open, “but they have to do what’s best.”

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 9:50 AM with the headline "By early 2017, no more events at former Coliseum complex."