How many people can be at Crown Uptown? Owner again seeks to boost occupancy

The owner of the Crown Uptown Theatre is trying again to boost the number of people he can have in the venue.

Owner Mike Brown has sought for almost a year to increase the occupancy limit. That push faced many setbacks and led to his threat to demolish the theater. The city considered placing the theater on the Wichita Historic Registry to protect it from demolition, but council members deadlocked 3-3.

Now Brown is seeking to remove the current occupancy limit so he can host larger shows that will generate more money at the venue. He instead wants to use the city’s fire and building code to decide the occupancy limit, which is how occupancy limits are normally set.

Occupancy at the theater was limited to 850 in a planned unit development in 2017. City staff and Brown could not clarify why that limit was set in the development. Brown became owner of the building in 2023.

“We’ll do what we can to save whatever’s there,” Brown told the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission on Thursday. “In reality, with what is being restricted and put on it, we can’t make it make money.”

It’s not yet known what the occupancy could be under the fire and building codes.

Earlier this week, the District 1 Advisory Board did not recommend any action be taken on Brown’s request after a tie vote.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Commission approved Brown’s request to remove the current limit in a 9-5 vote Thursday. That action will send the issue back to the City Council on Nov. 6.

Brown would not take questions from reporters after the planning commission’s meeting.

Neighbors spoke in opposition to removing the theater’s occupancy limit and also said they were uncertain what Brown plans to do with the building.

“The key word in the name of this body is planning,” Stephen Holt said to the commission. “You’re being asked to approve first and hope and pray for a plan later. Well, that’s not planning at all, is it? That’s reacting. That’s chaos. Don’t bring chaos to this neighborhood.”

Holt owns the buildings connected to the theater and is in litigation with Brown over the parking lots surrounding it.

Other neighbors were concerned about parking and pedestrian safety if the occupancy limit is increased.

The theater has a 17-space parking lot to the east of the building, which neighbors said is often taken up by tour buses and trucks on show nights.

“We know what this application is truly about, increasing occupancy without any forethought into a parking plan or public safety,” Aimee McCaffree said during public comment, “and in doing so, it will certainly flood an already flooded residential neighborhood with crowds waiting for ride shares late into the night, spilling into driveways, alleyways and front yards.”

Previous attempts to increase the building’s occupancy failed mainly because the theater does not have a fire suppression system.

Brown contends that the theater, which caught fire from a lightning strike in 2021, is not made of combustible material.

“There’s no flammable material in the building,” he told the board.

The Wichita City Council will decide whether to approve Brown’s request when it meets at 6 p.m. Nov. 6. The meeting is on a Thursday because an election is on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

This story was originally published October 10, 2025 at 12:55 PM.