CHICAGO - Allen County, Ind., will use a supplemental tax to an existing food and beverage tax as one of several revenue sources to back $32 million of taxable and tax-exempt revenue bonds to fund the expansion of its War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne.
The county previously had planned to rely on proceeds of a food and beverage tax and revenues generated from stadium use. Summers & Co., a division of J.J.B. Hilliard, W.W. Lyons Inc., will price the bonds late this week or early next week, according to Phillip Gutman, vice president at Summers. The Allen County War Memorial Coliseum Additions Building Corp. will serve as the issuer on the sale that includes a tax-exempt series for $25.9 million. That portion of the bonds will be secured by proceeds from the two taxes. The building corporation opted to use the two taxes over its unlimited property tax pledge.
The 1% supplemental tax was included in legislation passed in July, in part to sidestep an earlier agreement the county made to use the food and beverage tax to pay off earlier bonds used to build the exposition center attached to the coliseum.
Allen County leases the building from the corporation. The expanded coliseum will have 2,500 new seats and 25 new sky boxes. The taxable series for $6.3 million will use the sale and rental of sky boxes to secure the bonds.
The 48-year-old coliseum hosts the Comets, a minor league ice hockey team, and county officials hope to attract a football team, said Therese Brown, Allen County auditor.
The coliseum draws from nearby Ohio, northern Indiana, and southern Michigan, according to Brown. It also contains the exhibition center and meeting rooms.
"It's going to give us an opportunity to have a larger draw of events," she said of the expanded coliseum.
The additions should be completed by fall 2002. A Goldwing motorcycle exposition is slated as the first large event to be held after the expansion, she said.
The sale, originally scheduled for last Thursday, was postponed to make adjustments recommended by legal counsel, officials said. The bonds had been identified as mortgage revenue bonds, but since the project is an expansion and not a new facility, the provision giving the property owner a lien option had to be eliminated.
Moody's Investors Service rated the bonds Aa3 and the county's GO debt Aa3. Standard & Poor's and Fitch have rated neither the bonds nor the county's GO debt.
