A master plan developed that year for rebuilding the downtown proposed a pedestrian plaza.

[1] The project was considered a failure by most standards, isolating the downtown area from the rest of the city, with large parking lots to accommodate expected visitors leaving Seventh and Ninth Streets (the main ways around Plaza 8) without buildings along them, and leaving the four-block area mostly quiet.

Besides Prange's, the main strip of the mall was home to 16 retail shops and the entire side of one block was a vacant lot.

Developer John Livesey proposed a $100 million enclosed shopping and office complex, to be called City Center.

[7] Only a four-story addition to the north side of the First Wisconsin Building was constructed as part of City Centre.

Demolition of the store, located directly across from the fountain and Mead Public Library, was completed in March 2015.

The city used the site in the summer 2015 as an open field for local concerts sponsored by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and its yearly arts festival, with a multi-use development and performance stage opening in late summer 2017 known as City Green, which connects the JMKAC campus to the rest of the downtown area.

[9] Plaza 8 featured a water feature with a cascading effect which still stands to this day as part of the main entrance plaza for Mead Public Library, whose main entrance was re-focused to face Wisconsin Avenue rather than North 8th Street in a 1997 remodeling/addition.

Due to concerns about drowning the city eventually had to post signs prohibiting wading and playing within the water feature.