The Oshkosh City Council is considering purchasing City Center for $12.5 million, according to the Oshkosh Herald.
Tricia Rathermel, president and CEO of the Greater Oshkosh Economic Development Corporation, gave a presentation on the downtown development that is based on the revisioning downtown plan that the Oshkosh community development department put together in 2024.
“A public-sector purchase opens the door to additional opportunities. One key strategy is the potential to subdivide the site into smaller parcels to encourage diverse ownership and investment. It also enables the use of alternative funding sources, including philanthropic support, to deliver public amenities,” Rothermel said in an email.
The City Center property is about 17 acres with over 100 feet on the Fox River riverfront. It opened as Park Plaza, a shopping mall, in 1970 with major retailers like Sears and JCPenney. In the 1990s the owners noted the shift away from typical malls and started a rebrand effort to have more office space.
This led to City Center housing 4imprint’s corporate headquarters, the Social Security office and E-Power Marketing. Other retail shops also joined City Center like Caramel Crisp and Planet Perk. Rathermel said that downtown development is able to generate two to three times more tax revenue per acre compared to big box stores like Walmart.
According to GOEDC, the large stores in northwest Oshkosh – Walmart, Lowe’s, Festival Foods and Menards – are generating $787,394 in tax revenue in 2026 spread over 62.7 acres. That ends up being about $12,500 per acre of tax revenue. Rathermel compared that to the east side of the 400 block of North Main Street in downtown Oshkosh, which is generating $121,691 tax revenue in 2026 on 3.5 acres for an average of $34,769 per acre of tax revenue.
“Downtown truly does generate really good investment for our area,” she said. Rathermel said that if the city buys City Center, 101 Commerce Street and 201 Pearl Avenue, it will have immediate control of the site and will allow for a phased redevelopment over several years
