U.S. Highway 41 has been a key thoroughfare in Wisconsin since 1926, and what has been known since 2015 as Interstate 41 today connects Russell, Illinois with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, seeing average daily traffic counts exceeding 80,000 at many of its busiest points.
Like any place where a road “runs through it,” communities along Wisconsin’s interstates have seen their share of debates about the benefit, or lack thereof, in these locations. In downtown Milwaukee, for example, citizens are currently embroiled in a debate over whether to repair, replace or remove I-794.
In Oshkosh, I-41 has been seen primarily as an asset, says Tricia Rathermel, president and CEO of the Greater Oshkosh Economic Development Corporation. It boasts a global attraction in the Experimental Aircraft Association. In the heyday of big box retail, anchor stores like JC Penney and Wal-Mart beckoned shoppers to Oshkosh from many corners of the state.
“[Oshkosh is] kind of a gateway to the north and south of our state,” Rathermel says. “[The interstate] has always allowed us to recruit some great anchor tenants, and we’ve had some really good ones over the years.”
But anchor tenants change with the times, world events, economics and corporate investment. Currently, a key tenant driving development along the interstate is Oshkosh Corporation’s sparkling headquarters on Lake Butte des Morts, which has spurred an additional $33 million in investment over the last five years, according to Colan Treml, economic development director for the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce.
The latest developments that have been attracted to the Oshkosh Avenue corridor are a new 90-room, four-story Tru by Hilton hotel property and a Mr. Brews Taphouse restaurant. Treml and Rathermel say the area continues to grow and is developing into somewhat of a gateway to Oshkosh’s Central City.
“The thing I love about Oshkosh Avenue and the opportunity we’ve had there is that it’s allowed us to recruit some of these newer, up and coming, smaller regional franchises like Mr. Brews,” Rathermel says. “We’re seeing these expansions of franchises, but not nationwide franchises. So it’s kind of exciting for Oshkosh to be the next step in their growth.”
Also springing up along I-41 for the new year will be a new Old National Bank building, Crumbl Cookies, a Michaels craft store, and a Panda Express on the site of the former Golden Corral restaurant.
“And there’s room for more development,” Treml says. “We already have construction going on, but there’s another site right next to [Panda Express] that’s open for development. There’s another plot of land in the Oshkosh Avenue corridor that’s for sale. There’s so many more opportunities that could come.”
Stay and play
Oshkosh has long been linked to tourism and previously held the nickname “Event City,” so demand for hotels and restaurants is not new. But anticipation for the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay has been driving hotel investment across the New North region, including Oshkosh. When it opens ahead of the draft, the Tru by Hilton development will become the second new hotel option in the Oshkosh Avenue corridor, joining the existing TownPlace Suites by Marriott that opened in 2022 on North Westfield Street.
Meanwhile, the 176-room Best Western Premier Waterfront Hotel located at 1 N. Main St. has been purchased by a new ownership group that plans to convert it to a flagship Marriott, Rathermel says. The property is expected to be closed for the first three months of this year and will carry the new Marriott branding upon re-opening.
Neighborhood health care
In November, the Oshkosh City Council approved plans for a new, 18-bed ThedaCare/Froedert micro-hospital on the northwest corner of Oregon Street and Sixth Avenue. The $53.5 million facility will have emergency care, outpatient diagnostics and surgery, a retail pharmacy, and primary and specialty care.
It is one of two micro-hospitals planned by ThedaCare and Froedert; the other will be located in Fond du Lac.
Rathermel says construction on the 84,000-square-foot project is expected to begin in the spring at the former Morgan Door manufacturing site, which was geographically desirable to ThedaCare and Froedert in terms of serving patients. It is also, she says, an opportunity to revitalize what had become in many ways a blighted industrial lot.
“Around 2020 is when we first heard [ThedaCare and Froedert] were looking for a site to do a smaller hospital, and they had right away targeted our Central City area,” Rathermel says. “We don’t necessarily need another full-sized hospital, but having access to health care and emergency care where the majority of our population is living near downtown is beneficial. And the work they’re going to put into the site is going to vastly improve the look of that neighborhood.”
A place to call home
Rathermel says apartment-style housing continues to be in high demand in Greater Oshkosh, and development work continues to address the need.
The MK Lofts project, which has been renovating the original Miles Kimball facility in Oshkosh’s Sawdust District into luxury apartments, is nearing completion. Also in the Sawdust District, the Mill on Main — a mixed-use development by T. Wall Enterprises that will add 295 apartments along South Main Street — is expected to break ground in the spring. An additional project to create market rate apartments along 20th Avenue was approved in November.
“We have a lot of opportunities for newer, desirable apartment-style living coming into the works,” Rathermel says. “If people are looking for a place to live, they should consider Oshkosh.”
