Green Bay paves way for parking key to county’s $25M library expansion

Listen to this article

By JEFF BOLLIER

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Green Bay approved Brown County’s request to demolish a former bank building to create parking spaces for the county’s planned $25 million upgrade to the Central Library on Pine Street.

The City Council on May 5 approved a planned unit development designation for the former Bank Mutual site at 201 N. Monroe Ave., after approving one of two amendments county Planning Director Dan Teaters requested.

The city’s downtown zoning district prohibits surface parking as a principal use and Green Bay has been actively pursuing conversion of surface parking lots into mixed-use developments, such as Nova Green Bay and the parking lot across Monroe Avenue from the library and bank building.

County officials have made the case the spaces are crucial to the library redevelopment plans. They will ensure Aging and Disability Resource Center of Brown County clients have free parking close to the center’s future home. The council approval permits the county to raze the building and replace it with 54 parking spaces across Pine Street from the library.

The approval comes 2½ years after the county bought the former bank building and 18 months after county officials first presented what has become known as the Third on the Square project to combine several community agencies in the library building.

Teaters said the county’s plan has the potential to create “fantastic relationships” both within the library walls and in the downtown Green Bay area in general.

Here’s what to know.

Where is the Bank Mutual building that the county wants to turn into parking?

The former Bank Mutual branch is bounded by Pine Street, North Monroe Avenue, Cherry Street and, to the west, an Encompass Early Childhood education center.

The building has been vacant since 2018 when Associated Bank bought Bank Mutual and closed several branches.

The iconic statues outside the building, “The First Northern Voyageurs” and “The First Northern Loggers,” were removed in 2019 and donated to Heritage Hill and the Neville Public Museum, respectively.

What’s included in Brown County’s Third on the Square development plan for downtown Green Bay?

Brown County in December 2024 first presented the plan to bring multiple county agencies together under one roof at an expanded, updated library building. Here’s what groups are involved and where they will go.

• The Aging and Disability Resource Center will relocate into the library building.
• The Bay Area Workforce Development Board’s job center, which moved there in fall 2025, will share space with the ADRC.
• The Grounded Cafe will move into a new, 3,500-square-foot addition at the corner of Pine Street and North Monroe Avenue that includes a small patio and dining space.
• The former Bank Mutual building would be demolished and the northern half of the site turned into 54 additional parking spaces, two of which would be comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Brown County raised two concerns with Green Bay’s planned unit designation, but the City Council only granted one

Teaters asked council members to consider changes to two requirements the city placed on the approval to use the bank site solely for surface parking.

The planned unit development proposed parking for all four entities – the library, the job center, the ADRC and Grounded Cafe – operating in the library building.

Teaters asked that the job center be removed from the requirements since it is a state-funded operation that could choose not to renew its lease, leaving the county out of compliance through no fault of its own. He also requested that the requirement Grounded Cafe be in operation be generalized to a cafe or restaurant use in case donations to run the cafe dry up at some point. Should that happen, he said, the county would look to bring another cafe or restaurant operator into the space.

The City Council approved an amendment that removed the job center, but an amendment to switch the Grounded Cafe to a generic cafe failed on a voice vote.

Council Vice President Jim Hutchison said the parking lot garnered support partly because of the ADRC and Grounded Cafe uses but also noted the city would be open to discussing changes to the planned unit development should Grounded Cafe close.

What will happen to the rest of the Bank Mutual building site?

The south end of the site would be turned into a grassy area for now.

The county and city would work together on trying to develop the south end of the site with an inclination toward higher-density, mixed-use development.