Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita re-opened its north entrance Monday with upgrades to keep up with the increasing crowds coming from downtown.
Intrust General Manager A.J. Boleski says expanding and renovating Entrance C took seven months.
"It should make the flow in and out of the building much easier," he says.
He says there’s a new plaza outside of the building where guests can line up to get in, similar to the plazas in front of Entrance A and Entrance B on the south side of the arena.
There are also more doors.
"When guests come in, they will notice that we have twice as many doorways now on that side of the building," Boleski says. "The lobby is actually twice as large as it used to be as well, so we gained quite a bit of square footage there."
Boleski says the upgrades were needed because the amount of people using the north entrance has been increasing since the arena opened in 2010.
The arena also added free public Wi-Fi throughout the building in October. Big crowds are expected when the arena hosts the first and second rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship on March 15 and 17.
"The NCAA was obviously a catalyst to getting [the upgrades] done, but every event is going to benefit as a result of them. We are very happy to have Wi-Fi in the building and also the new Entrance C renovations in place," Boleski says.
Concerts by big-name performers such as Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill helped Intrust’s bottom line this year. Boleski says net income for 2017 is already three times higher than last year, with current totals at nearly $700,000.
There have been 69 performances at the arena this year and 60 events.
The Arena Sales Tax Reserve closed the third quarter with more than $10 million.
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