Soil moving soon on new development in fast-growing Pleasant Prairie

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A Kwik Trip will christen the latest round of development along fast-growing Pleasant Prairie’s stretch of Interstate 94.

The Pleasant Prairie Village Board earlier this week approved a $2.8 million tax incentive to support infrastructure at the incoming Gateway at Lakeview project, a retail development that compliments a flurry of plans there, including apartments, a hospital and corporate facilities. The tax increment financing incentive supports building roads and grading at the site and allows the developer, Wispark, to begin moving dirt at the site in the next month.

Pleasant Prairie Village Administrator John Steinbrink said the Gateway at Lakeview development helps fill out the area near I-94, where Uline and German candy-maker Haribo are growing. He credits Pleasant Prairie’s spate of development to the village’s proximity to Wisconsin’s border with Illinois.

“The location has a lot to do with it,” Steinbrink said. “We’ve got good schools, we’re between Milwaukee and Chicago. It’s very convenient. People want to be in this area.”

Kwik Trip is the first to move into the Gateway development, a 34-acre site north of Highway 165 along 120th Avenue east of I-94, north of the Pleasant Prairie Prime Outlets. Developers expect to the fill the area primarily with restaurants, retail, office space and a hotel.

Cathy Schulze, a spokeswoman for Wispark’s parent company, WEC Energy Group, said the company is in “active discussions” with tenants to fill a remaining seven sites both north and south of Highway 165. The company aims to begin grading work in the next week or two and anticipates completing grading and site work before winter.

Meanwhile, growth continues in the village.

Advocate Aurora Health Care announced plans in February to build a $130 million ambulatory surgery center and office building on the west side of I-94 in Pleasant Prairie. Construction is expected to begin this summer.

In March 2017, German candy-maker Haribo announced plans to build a $242 million plant in the newly created Prairie Highlands Corporate Park. The village created that business park as space slimmed at the LakeView Corporate Park. In late June, We Energies announced a plan to build a substation supplying power to the business parks.

And Uline, which moved its headquarters from Illinois to Pleasant Prairie in 2010, has grown quickly in Kenosha County of late. In October 2017, the distribution company capped construction of its $77 million second headquarters in Pleasant Prairie. The firm also announced plans to build a second, 800,000 square-foot distribution center next-door to an existing one of similar size near I-94.

For its part, the village has issued $67 million in tax incentives to support corporate parks in the area. The money will go toward funding roads, water infrastructure and other upgrades. Steinbrink said the flurry of development means the village is on-track to pay off the investment on time.

“The return on investment has been quite large,” he said. “The growth has been remarkable.”