The last decade as a chronology, 2015–2026

Year-banded · every entry dated and sourced

2015. Mayor Dave Wood, first seated by caucus in 2010 and elected in his own right in 2011, was re-elected — the second of the three re-elections (2015, 2019, 2023) the government record documents. On the river, Central Park was rebuilt on the cleared Rubber Regenerating ground astride the race — the park-making of the decade beginning on old factory land, as the parks and arts records carry it.

2016. On 18 August 2016 the Twin Branch Solar Power Plant — Indiana Michigan Power's 2.6-megawatt array on the industrial ground north of the AM General factory, expected to power about 365 homes a year — went online, the decade's first plant news. The same month, August 2016, stands in the river's flood sequence in the events record, between the record crest still to come and the 1982 flood behind it.

2017. AM General sold its commercial assembly plant in Mishawaka — the former Hummer H2 plant — to SF Motors, the electric-vehicle company, in a transaction announced at $110 million with a further $30 million of improvements committed and the plant's roughly 430 commercial-plant jobs stated to be preserved; the company's defense business, the Humvee's ground, stayed AM General's and stayed in Mishawaka. (The sale is documented in the seller's counsel's account; its Mishawaka consequence is the one printed here — the commercial plant changed hands, the military plant did not.) On 18 September 2017 Mishawaka Fire Station No. 4 entered the National Register of Historic Places, on the architecture record's listing roll.

2018. In February 2018 the St. Joseph River made its record: the crest of 22 February 2018 — 12.7 feet on the South Bend gauge — passed the 1982 mark that had stood as the river's record, the flood sequence's closing entry in the events record. The same year, the Carnegie library building of 1916 opened as a restaurant, Jesus Latin Grill and Tequila Bar — the old library's working life resumed in its dining-room form, as the libraries record carries it.

2019. Mayor Wood was re-elected. Liberty Mutual announced the closing of its downtown Mishawaka office — the vacancy the city would buy its way into three years later, as the city-hall course in the Story of Mishawaka section records it. The Memorial Day parade held the last of its pre-lapse editions: the city's own account of its 2023 return calls that parade the first since 2019. And the 100 Center — the 1970s redevelopment of the Kamm & Schellinger brewery ground — stood by 2019 mostly vacant and, in the Chamber's redevelopment profile's words, a nuisance for the city: the decade's largest downtown problem at its documented low point.

2020. The census of 1 April 2020 counted 51,063 people, the most the city has ever held. Former Mayor Robert C. Beutter, five terms and twenty years in the office, died on 2 January 2020. In March 2020 the library's Heritage Center closed in the pandemic and its collections moved to the lower-level Local & Family History area. On 4 July 2020 about thirty protesters gathered at the Main Street bridge and a car was driven through them, dragging one person fifty feet — the first documented unrest event on Mishawaka ground in the record reached, carried whole in the Black history record. In July 2020 the ownership above the plant changed: KPS Capital Partners acquired AM General from MacAndrews & Forbes, the documented change of hands of the decade for the city's largest works.

2021. The Dodge line ended its 143 years: ABB's sale of the Dodge division to RBC Bearings, announced 26 July 2021 at $2.9 billion for the division worldwide, closed on 2 November 2021, and the Mishawaka plant — the works Wallace Dodge founded in 1878 — closed with it, its ground beginning the brownfield course the city-today file carries in its November 2026 state.

2022. The government moved house: in the fall of 2022 the city completed its phased move into the purchased and renovated Liberty Mutual building at 100 Lincolnway West — City Hall, the utilities and the police under one roof — ending the 1904 City Hall's 118 years, on the Story of Mishawaka section's city-hall course. On 7 June 2022 St. Joseph's Parish Square entered the National Register, the listing roll's latest entry in the architecture record.

2023. Mayor Wood was re-elected to the term that runs to the election of 2 November 2027. In May 2023 the Memorial Day parade returned — the first since 2019, rebuilt by VFW Post 360 under Commander Dan Gann, with 97-year-old Raymond Gervais as grand marshal. On 17 June 2023 the five James Brenner luminous sculptures at Ironworks Plaza were completed, the public-art ledger's largest modern entry. In February 2023 construction began on the renovation of the library's Harris Branch in Granger.

2024. The decade's largest ground transaction was boundary ground: on 23 May 2024 Microsoft's purchase of 929 acres of the St. Joe Farm in Granger was recorded — $77.5 million, county recorder's record — for the data-center campus the city will serve with water and sewer, carried at boundary size in this section's Microsoft entry. The City of Mishawaka acquired the former Dodge and RMG foundry ground in October 2024. On 19 December 2024 the 100 Center redevelopment received its $5.64 million READI award toward the $41.5 million project, on the city's release. And the 1924 Mishawaka High School building marked its centennial, the mayor's 2024 words calling it a building of a beauty and age no other school corporation around could boast, on the architecture record.

2025. The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimate put the city at 51,226 people on 1 July 2025 — the largest Mishawaka there has been, restated as an estimate. Mayor Wood served 2025 as president of Aim, the state's municipal association, having been elected 10 October 2024. The Kamm Island Fest reached its twenty-second annual edition. The AM General plant's working strength stands in the businesses record at about 400 UAW Local 5 members on the union's 2025 contract record, building the JLTV A2 under the recompete the company won in February 2023. On 10 June 2025 the plant at 12900 McKinley Highway — the former Hummer H2 plant, AM General’s commercial plant, not its military campus — passed from Mullen Automotive to GEM in satisfaction of a federal judgment; the full account stands in the Major Events record of this history.

2026. The building year, as this section's own entries document it: the library's bookmobile was launched on 24 March 2026; the Plan Commission recommended the 100 Center's selective demolition on 14 April; the mayor's State of the City address followed on 30 April, with the 100 Center's completion "unknown" in his own word; the Gurley Leep Auto Campus broke ground on 27 April for an announced October 2027 completion; the Normain Park transformation and its Miracle League complex held their grand opening on 18 July; Habitat for Humanity broke ground on Woodfield Crossing in August; Saint Joseph Health System announced its $25 million Cancer Center on 20 August; and the Bittersweet Branch reopened on 2 November after its mechanical renovation — the present the closing as-of statement of this section verifies, item by item, to 10 November 2026.

Sources:

1. This history, government and spine records — Wood's elections of 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023 and his Aim presidency for 2025; Beutter's death, 2 January 2020; the Liberty Mutual closing announcement and the City Hall move of fall 2022; the 1924 high school's centennial words of 2024.
2. This history, businesses record — the Twin Branch Solar Power Plant online 18 August 2016 (I&M's release); the Dodge division's sale (ABB's release: announced 26 July 2021 at $2.9 billion; concluded 2 November 2021) and the plant's closing; AM General's present complex at about 400 UAW Local 5 members on the union's 2025 contract record.
3. WilmerHale, counsel's account of AM General's sale of its Mishawaka commercial assembly plant to SF Motors (2017) — the sale, the defense business remaining AM General's; the transaction's announced terms ($110 million; $30 million of improvements; about 430 jobs preserved) as reported in the contemporary press record.
4. Paul Weiss and Barnes & Thornburg, counsel's accounts (2020) — MacAndrews & Forbes' sale of AM General to KPS Capital Partners, completed July 2020, terms undisclosed.
5. This history, events record — the flood sequence (August 2016; the record crest of 22 February 2018 at 12.7 feet); the Memorial Day parade's lapse and its return in May 2023 (City of Mishawaka, 30 May 2023).
6. This history, libraries record — the Heritage Center's March 2020 closing and move; the Carnegie building's 2018 restaurant opening; the Harris Branch renovation begun February 2023; and the libraries depth addendum — the bookmobile's launch of 24 March 2026.
7. This history, architecture and arts records — the National Register listings of Fire Station No. 4 (18 September 2017) and St. Joseph's Parish Square (7 June 2022); the Brenner sculptures completed 17 June 2023; Central Park rebuilt in 2015.
8. This history, black-history record — 4 July 2020 at the Main Street bridge (South Bend Tribune, 6 July 2020).
9. This history, population record — the 2020 count of 51,063 and the Vintage 2025 estimate of 51,226 at 1 July 2025.
10. The entries of this section and their sources — the Microsoft purchase recorded 23 May 2024; the city's acquisition of the Dodge ground, October 2024; the READI award of 19 December 2024; the 2026 building course (14 and 27 and 30 April, 18 July, August, 20 August, 2 November 2026).