Dance floor at Wigwam will need repairs

The cost to repair a dance floor at the Wigwam Event Center in Violet Township after it began to sink during Pickerington North High School’s prom has not been determined, township officials said Monday.

Violet Township, which owns the Wigwam, had yet to meet with contractors to determine the cost of repairs as of Monday morning, said Ed Drobina, the township’s deputy administrator.

The cause of the damage also was still not clear Monday, but the size of the space involved is 18 feet by 18 feet and the whole dance floor is 25 feet by 25 feet, Drobina said. No one was injured, and the prom was moved outside under a tent on the patio.

A wedding scheduled at the facility on Sunday also was moved outside under a tent, Drobina said, but the Wigwam doesn’t plan on canceling any scheduled events.

“The rest of the flooring is fine and we can actually isolate this area from the rest of the floor space,” Drobina said.

Violet Township Fire Department received a call around 10 p.m. Saturday night “on a report of a partial floor collapse” during a prom attended by several hundred Pickerington North students, said Assistant Fire Chief Jim Paxton.

“There was an obvious indentation in the floor in the area where the dance floor had been,” Paxton said. “The best way to describe it is kind of like bowl, because it had a round shape that had sunk in there.”

Fire department officials went to the basement and saw the floor was still intact, but had partially sunk, Paxton said.

The fire department returned to the Wigwam with a structural engineer Sunday morning to further inspect the dance floor prior to the scheduled wedding there.

“Now it’s in the process of getting it evaluated and determined what the best course of action for repair will be,” Paxton said.

Pickerington Schools has had prom at the Wigwam for the past couple of years, district spokesperson Crystal Davis said in an email. The 2022 prom started at 6:30 p.m. and a total of 617 tickets were sold.

“Staff responded immediately for the safety of our students and the event quickly transitioned to the outside patio,” the district said in a statement about the incident.

“The prom was still a great experience for our students,” Pickerington High School North Lead Assistant Principal Jim Campbell said in the prepared statement.

Violet Township purchased the Wigwam for $2.7 million in June 2018. The 63-acre facility is used as community space and was formerly owned by former Dispatch Publisher John F. Wolfe. mhenry@dispatch.com @megankhenry