Summer 2019 has come and gone and brought continued positive development activity for Kenosha County. The Prairie Highlands Corporate Park development in Pleasant Prairie continues to be a hot spot with the recent announcement from Nexus Pharmaceuticals that they will build a state of the art manufacturing facility at the site to produce generic injectables.
As we have previously shared, the Prairie Highlands Corporate Park development is located on property that was assembled in 2006, and held for more than 10 years, by Abbott Laboratories. The Village of Pleasant Prairie acquired the nearly 500-acre site from Abbott to make way for Haribo’s first U.S. confectionery plant. Haribo purchased approximately 140 acres from the Village. Site grading and infrastructure work is under way with a spring 2020 construction start expected for Haribo’s manufacturing facility. Additionally, Advocate Aurora purchased 64 acres from the Village and is currently building a $130 million, 200,000 SF medical center complex. Other pending deals at the site include Offsite’s planned hyperscale data center and developer H.S.A.’s acquisition of 70 acres for a business park development on land that rests in the Village of Bristol. Nexus will join these developments.
There’s also significant activity in LakeView Corporate Park including a sizable addition to Ta Chen’s distribution center and a new 50,000 SF manufacturing facility for Bio Fab Technologies.
A bit further north along Interstate 94, these strong industrial development trends continue with ULINE currently constructing another 800,000 SF facility and laying the groundwork for an
additional 1.1 million SF building.
Adjacent to ULINE’s Kenosha campus, Zilber Property Group has developed Kenosha Corporate Park and built a 525,000 SF industrial facility. Silgan Containers, the largest provider of metal food packaging in the U.S., has leased the entire facility and is in process of setting up operations there.
It is great to take note of the positive developments — while also acknowledging and working to address areas in need of attention.
With an incredibly tight labor market, new tools are needed to support talent recruitment efforts. We have helped develop the LifeBalanced Kenosha.com web site to assist. We encourage our
employers to use this important tool in their recruiting efforts. It was developed for employers – so your feedback is welcome! Let us know what you like about the tool and what we could improve.
We have also hosted sessions with residential developers and local municipalities to discuss housing market inefficiencies and ideas on how to better match supply with demand. We need more housing of all types and there is a particular demand for quality, affordable workforce housing.
Given the importance of a well performing education system to the long term health of our community, we have also leveraged the KABA Foundation to invest in, and partner with, Building Our Future – – a county-wide education initiative that relies on a collective impact model. Read more about Building Our Future and how you can get involved at buildingourfuturekc.org.
We are also at the table attempting to support other community development initiatives like Downtown Revitalization and the re-purposing of the former Chrysler site.
There is much good news to celebrate regarding our community and its economic development success. Considerable work remains to build a vibrant and healthy place that provides economic opportunities for the entire community long term. Thank you for your continued support of, and involvement in, our organization.
Written by Todd Battle, President, Kenosha Area Business Alliance