Plaza 8

Plaza 8 (now known simply as Downtown Sheboygan) was a pedestrian mall located in Downtown Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The mall stretched three and half city blocks in length from Ontario Avenue south past New York Avenue on North 8th Street. The area is now the Harbor Centre Downtown.

History
The Sheboygan Redevelopment Authority was created in 1966 by the city's Common Council and was responsible for the redevelopment of the downtown. A master plan developed that year for rebuilding the downtown proposed a pedestrian plaza. The federal government approved the project in 1972 and construction was completed in 1976. Plaza 8 was funded by the Federal Urban Renewal Agency and by the City of Sheboygan. The project was considered a failure by many city officials and residents. The mall did not help the economy of the downtown as expected an retail sales did not improve. Plaza 8 was one of the last large projects financed by the Federal Urban Renewal Agency. In August 1989, more than a third of the storefronts stood empty. Besides Prange's, the main strip of the mall was home to 16 retail shops and the entire side of one block was a vacant lot. The mall was renovated in 1990 and traffic was reintroduced to the blocks. Since then, the City of Sheboygan has created the Harbor Centre Business Improvement District to manage the downtown, riverfront and recently developed South Pier District. The plaza was home to Prange's, Walgreen's and numerous local stores and restaurants.. The original Prange's building would stand until a flood and ensuing fire rendered it obsolete. Prange's rebuilt a new store on the same site. In 1992, the store name was changed after Younkers purchased the H.C. Prange Company.

Water main break and fires
The 74 year old building that housed Prange's was damaged by a water main break in May 1983 after the building's support columns sagged. The building was in the process of being torn down when fire destroyed the store on October 16, 1983. Authorizes suggested the cause of the fire was arson. Burning debris caused damage to the City Hall and St. Clement's school gymnasium. The core of the building was built in 1909 and was expanded give times since then, the last time in 1969 and contained 235,000 square feet of retail space. It also served as headquarters for the Prange and Prangeway stores in Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. The building was reconstructed in 1984. As of 2014, the arsonist has never been caught and the fire remains one of Sheboygan's most prominent cold cases.

Sheboygan City Centre
In April 1987, the city had planned to put downtown including Plaza 8, under one roof. Developer John Livesey proposed a $100 million enclosed shopping and office complex, to be called City Center. The only buildings that would have remained in the City Center site were the Prange's store, Mead Public Library and Trinity Luthern Church. Most of the other buildings would have been demolished by the city including the First Wisconsin Sheboygan Bank (now the U.S. Bank).

According to Livesey, the project would have included:


 * At least three department stores, including the existing Prange's, totaling almost 270,000 square-feet of space.
 * Two 15-story office buildings with 300,000 square-feet of space.
 * A 200-room hotel and convention center.
 * A four-screen movie theater and food court.
 * Parking for almost 3,500 cars.

In August 1988, the project received a setback when one of two remaining department stores pulled out of the proposed development.

Future
More recently, the Boston Store occupied the building of the former Prange's and Younkers closed in 2013. The building sat vacant for more than a year, being used for law enforcement training throughout 2014. Demolition of the store, located directly across from the foundation and Mead Public Library, is expected to begin late January 2015.

City officials plan to turn the site into a green space corridor to connect the John Michael Kohler Arts Center to the rest of the downtown area. Long-term, the hope is to develop businesses around the green space to create an arts hub.

Features
Plaza 8 featured a fountain with a cascading effect which still stands to this day as a part of the nearby Mead Public Library. 250 trees, 350 flowering bushes and 5,000 flowers were planted with a $5.9 million federal grant. Additional features of the plaza included; new paving, lightning and sitting areas. With completion of the plaza in 1976, traffic was restricted on North 8th Street between New York Avenue from the south and Ontario Avenue to the north.

Foundation
The largest and last remaining feature of Plaza 8 is the water foundation that sits adjacent to Mead Public Library. The foundation was built with concrete elements with water bubbing out of concrete blocks and cascading down a series of lower blocks. The foundation's waterfall was a drop of approximately 10 feet with a flow of 10,000 gallons per minute.