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A year after opening, the addition to the OmniCenter has not only hit its stride, but is outpacing projections. After a long nine years of planning, fundraising and building, the second building at the OmniCenter was finally completed and has substantially increased business and added to profitability.
According to OmniCenter Manager Tom Hammill, 28,000 people have attended events at the second building since it opened in July 2007. “On June 21 (2008) we had three different weddings,” Hammill said. “Six hundred were in arena one; 300 in arena two and 100 in the new banquet room, and we still had room for another event. Before (the new building), we could only do one event. Now we can do four or five events at once.”
From wedding receptions to roller hockey, Hammill and his staff are having fun creating new ways to use the buildings. “It’s fun having the additional space to work with,” Hammill said. “It certainly adds on to what we can do. It used to be when we had skating going on, we had to turn other business away.” Hammill said he was just talking with a company that was interested in bringing a women’s roller derby league to La Crosse.
Since opening, Building Two has been host to the Home and Garden Show, The First Free Church dinner, ice hockey, three wedding receptions, birthday skate parties, summer roller hockey, a Wisconsin Ice Arena Fall workshop and trade show and a 3-on-3 hockey tournament. More than 27 events have been held in the new conference/banquet room.
Something new for the summer is the addition of roller hockey through the youth hockey club. Forty-five to 50 youth and adults are utilizing the new arena each Tuesday and Thursday night through the summer.
“We’re now a multiplex facility and we’re always looking for new events,” Hammill said. Through mid-October, 12 major events were scheduled that were expected to bring more than 1,000 attendees each. Most of those events are ones that have kept coming back for the last three to 15 years. Hammill said they need to attract more business banquets such as Christmas parties and training conferences to the facility.
The Omni Center recorded a profit of $11,603 for 2007, with the arenas contributing 53 percent of operating revenues.
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