FOND DU LAC – July in Fond du Lac was filled with development news, as well as a few reminders to enjoy a beach day this summer.
Here are the six most-read Fond du Lac Streetwise stories from July.
Bath & Body Works joins Johnson Street retail lineup
The Commons at Forest Plaza — previously the Home Depot building on Johnson Street — welcomed new retail tenants last month, and openings will continue into the fall with the newly announced Bath & Body Works.
Out of the five original stores in the space, Boot Barn, Five Below and Ross opened in July. Burlington has an opening date of Aug. 6. Ulta hasn’t announced a grand opening date.
Rueping Lofts unveils updated downtown building
Rueping Lofts, 183 S. Main St., has finished the redevelopment of the historic 1800s Brickle building, giving community members last month a peek at the apartment units inside and the new location for Bird’s Eye View Optical.
According to developer Sam Meyer, the building has always included a saloon or bar up until now. The most well-known establishments include Brickle’s Tavern starting in 1955, then Beernuts starting in the 1990s.
Readers weigh in on the county’s best beaches
Fond du Lac County has a handful of beaches along Lake Winnebago and on smaller lakes in the area, and several readers voted that the best beach in the area is Wolf Lake in the village of St. Cloud.
The two Kettle Moraine State Forest Northern Unit lakes tied for second. Long Lake has two beaches, and Mauthe Lake has a slightly smaller area, but both require a DNR vehicle admission pass.
All three are unsupervised, but offer bathrooms and picnic areas.
SSM Health announces new senior living in Fond du Lac
After a gift of land from the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes, SSM Health announced plans for a new senior living community off State 23 on the east side of Fond du Lac. The space will accommodate a variety of caregiving needs, with construction anticipated to start in 2027 for a 2028 opening date.
CSA Sisters and caregivers at SSM Health St. Francis Home on the St. Agnes Hospital campus will get a chance to transition to the new community.
Fond du Lac County Jail plan progresses
Venture Architects presented the first update for Fond du Lac County Jail plans, considering space near the current site and county-owned land on Scott Road.
The designs are broken into three phases — the jail and juvenile facility, a law enforcement center with the sheriff’s office, and the courts and court support — so county officials can build all three or hold the plans until time and funding allows.
Particular challenges to the downtown site include usable space and proximity to a 100-year and a 500-year floodplain.
Lakeside Park bathhouses were once local favorites
The top “Remember When …” story of July looked back at a couple of Lakeside Park’s earliest amenities: the swimming bathhouses.
O.W. Helmond and A.C.R. Ecke opened a swimming school in 1896, with the bathhouse sitting 150 feet away from shore and offering changing rooms, springboards, and 40- to 60-foot-tall chutes into the water for a fee.
In 1912, park development progressed into a new entrance from Park Avenue, and a second, free bathhouse opened on the shore nearby. Both closed in the 1960s when Lake Winnebago pollution made swimming hazardous.
Daphne Lemke is the Streetwise reporter for the Fond du Lac Reporter. Contact her at dlemke@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Did you miss this Fond du Lac news in July? 6 stories to know
Reporting by Daphne Lemke, Fond du Lac Reporter / Fond du Lac Reporter
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By Daphne Lemke, Fond du Lac Reporter | USA TODAY Network
