Reader question: Leicht Park is “underutilized” you say? How can a park be underutilized if concerts and events are there in the summer?
Answer: Not much defines Leicht Memorial Park than a tall cottonwood tree, a statue of Zachary Taylor, a dock, flagpoles along the Fox River, and about 7 acres of grass lawn.
It’s ideal topography for a festival ground, the park’s primary use.
When there aren’t festivals, there are cruise ships and protests and concerts. Barring those, there are fishers and strollers along the water.
For years, Green Bay’s officials have ambitioned for much more, and may get more, finally, at the end of the year.
Leicht Transfer & Storage Co. donated $1 million worth of land to the city for use as a park in February 1999, two months before the city’s then-costliest fire burned through paper pulp at the company’s adjacent warehouse. A band shell and cruise ship docks were some early ideas floated, then-Mayor Paul Jadin told the Press-Gazette at the time.
A special committee of 13 citizens lodged itself on the third floor of the Neville Public Museum, overlooking the park, and in February 2000 started to hash out designs.
“I’m real excited about this little gem we’ve got down on the west side,” committee member John Gustavson said at the time. “It’s very visible. Very accessible. It’s going to be very nice.”
The committee members talked about honoring the site’s history. Fort Howard once stood at the site as the oldest permanent structure of its time. They talked of the band shell – “It would give a lot of energy to the riverfront,” Gustavson said.
Bill Landvatter, parks director at the time, said he hoped the committee could finalize its ideas by April of that year, the same month that construction for a restored $11 million warehouse and new Leicht company office could start, the Press-Gazette reported at the time. The park and warehouse were to be simultaneously developed, Landvatter said.
A park sketch was done by April. The start to warehouse construction was not, stalling “in part because of rising interest rates and increased construction costs,” Allen Boyle, Leicht’s chief operating officer, told the Press-Gazette at the time. “All of a sudden, for a warehouse, it was way too expensive,” Boyle said.
For the park, committee’s draft included an amphitheater sloping down to a stage, an ice rink, a sculpture garden, and a fountain on 2.59 acres of land. It didn’t figure a cost. A consultant would determine that later, the Press-Gazette reported. Landvatter said he hoped construction to start that fall or spring 2001 either on a design reduced “to an acceptable cost” or on a full design once the city raised enough money.
A request for consulting services was still pending seven months later, in November 2000, when Leicht indefinitely delayed replacing its warehouse, citing increased costs, the Press-Gazette reported at the time. Landvatter hoped to send out a consulting request for the park design by the year’s end, but “that’s going to take some time,” he said.
Progress sputtered for several years.
Leicht Park would likely be developed “in the next year” on a smaller scale than originally planned, the Press-Gazette reported in May 2002. Jadin said development could start once a settlement with Georgia-Pacific over PCBs in the Fox River was reached and the money put toward the park.
The citizens committee in 2003 bristled to the idea of the park being home to the Receiver statue – later redone and placed just west of the park at what is now The Depot. Newly elected Mayor Jim Schmitt that year said he hoped to see Leicht Park turn into festival grounds.
Construction to the tune of $1.4 million began in 2005 on a landscape catering to festivities: Trees, walkways, a square overlooking the river, docks, and a $50,000 bronze statue of Zachary Taylor who once commanded Fort Howard.
“It’s been quite a project,” Naletta Burr, then-director of the business improvement nonprofit On Broadway, told the Press-Gazette at the time. “The idea that it’s breaking ground and things are actually happening is very exciting for everybody.”
The park stayed for years as a flat grassy lawn.
Renewed talk of band shells and amphitheaters to transform the park into a downtown destination were approved in early 2025. With a biergarten, cantilevered pavilion, and amphitheater, the revived designs have a similar character to those early 2000s plans. On Broadway executive director Brian Johnson has said the proposed pavilion will be “a showcase for the city.”
A crane, since mid-March, is now the park’s most prominent feature, signaling the start of work on the pavilion, needing to be done by the end of the year. The city allocated about $5 million toward the pavilion’s construction from Tax Increment District 5, which is set to expire Dec. 21, giving the city a hard deadline for construction.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Reader asks if Leicht Memorial Park in Green Bay is ‘underutilitzed’
Reporting by Jesse Lin, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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