BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) - A growing non-denominational church wants the brakes to be put on a plan to tear down and replace the Brown County Arena.
Life Church not only wants to move into the Arena, Sonny Hennessey, one of the church’s lead pastors, tells FOX 11 the church would pay property taxes on it as well.
The current plan calls for the 60-year-old facility to be torn down, and replaced with a $93 million expo hall.
It would be more than 100,000 square feet.
Two years after repurposing De Pere's vacant Sportsman's Warehouse store, Hennessey says Life Church has already outgrown its current home.
“There were people outside of even our church who said, 'man next thing you're going to need the Brown County Arena' or 'have you ever thought about the Arena?'”
Hennessey says the church has been researching the Arena for the last year or so.
“We've looked at it a couple times, but we've put millions of dollars into buildings before and every building we've gotten, we've gotten bigger and put more money into it. It doesn't scare us anymore.”
Standing in the church's way is the plan formulated last year to tear down and replace the Arena.
Seven municipalities and the county all agreed to use a tax on hotel rooms to pay for most of the new expo hall.
The plan also received support from the Greater Green Bay Area Lodging Association, the Green Bay chapter of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, the Greater Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, and Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy.
Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach....
“So from that standpoint, the county is going to continue to move forward with the project at hand and that's been discussed.”
Life Church isn't the only group that has recently approached the county about an alternate plan for the Arena site.
Others believe parking or private development would be better suited here and suggest putting the new expo hall at the Brown County Fairgrounds.
“There was an opportunity for businesses and interested parties to bring forward their ideas for that site,” said Streckenbach.
“At the time, we only received two responses and so the county moved forward.”
Streckenbach says the expo hall doesn't make sense elsewhere and the county has been missing out on opportunities without it.
Life Church says as long as it could use the Arena on non-Packer home game Sundays, current Arena bookings could continue to be held there as well.
“For our purpose, we would keep the Arena like it is, just make it beautiful like it once was,” said Hennessey.
“It needs paint, it needs a new roof, it needs some structural repair.”
There is still no set date for the Arena's demolition, but county leaders hope it happens sometime next year.
Hennessey says the Life Church is not interested in building a new building.