In recent years, urban sprawl from the Chicago area has crept north of the state line into Kenosha County. After sluggish growth in the ’70s and ’80s Kenosha County’s population increased by 29 percent from 128,181 in 1990 to an estimated 165,382 in 2009. At the same time, Wispark LLC attracted dozens of firms to its LakeView Corporate Park in Pleasant Prairie, and retail development flourished along Highway 50, which has become a major retail corridor in Kenosha County.
“We don’t see this kind of (retail development) activity in any other market (in southeastern Wisconsin),” said Dan Rosenfeld, principal of Milwaukee-based Mid-America Real Estate-Wisconsin LLC, one of the biggest retail real estate brokerages in the state.
Now, several vacant sites that are potentially prime retail development opportunities in the Highway 50 corridor are on the market, including several that are being sold by banks that took back the properties, several in deed in lieu actions, after the Great Recession.
Several of the sites are being marketed by Mid-America Real Estate. The available sites include several parcels around The Shoppes at Prairie Ridge shopping center southeast of Highway 50 and 104th Avenue in Pleasant Prairie.
The Shoppes at Prairie Ridge has attracted several major retailers. It is anchored by Target and J.C. Penney stores. The shopping center’s other stores include Dick’s Sporting Goods, PetSmart and Ulta Beauty. It also has some restaurants including Olive Garden and Famous Dave’s.
The 367,000-square-foot Shoppes at Prairie Ridge was developed by Indianapolis-based Gershman Brown & Associates, which purchased the 80-acre site from Brookfield-based V.K. Development Inc.
The Shoppes at Prairie Ridge site was originally part of a larger, 412-acre development called Prairie Ridge Marketplace, by V.K. Development.
V.K. gave several properties back to banks when it ran into financial problems after the Great Recession. V.K. turned three sites near The Shoppes at Prairie Ridge over to Milwaukee-based M&I Bank, including a 7.2-acre site next to the Olive Garden, a 10-acre site behind The Shoppes at Prairie Ridge and a 9.5-acre site southeast of St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Five other parcels, totaling 37 acres, located east of the hospital and formerly owned by V.K. are now owned by Greenwich, Conn.-based Starwood Capital Group, which acquired the properties in a note sale from Associated Bank, according to Rosenfeld. Mid-America is marketing the properties for M&I and Starwood.
Four other former V.K. properties, consisting of 36 acres and located south of the hospital, are being marketed by Inland Companies partner Mark Schnoll. The site’s proximity to the hospital could make it suitable for senior housing or medical use, he said. The site is currently zoned under a planned unit development for senior housing and multi-family housing.
“I just talked to a developer looking at it,” Schnoll said.
Schnoll said he is marketing several bank-owned properties covering hundreds of acres throughout southeastern Wisconsin.
“Everywhere you look there is dirt for sale,” he said.
Mid-America is also marketing a 110-acre site southwest of Highway 50 and 104th Avenue and west of The Shoppes at Prairie Ridge. The property was formerly owned by Bravo Realty LLC, but is now owned by a group of lenders, said Rosenfeld, who declined to name the lenders.
About 30 to 40 acres of the 110-acre site could be suitable for retail development, but the rest will probably be used for residential development in some form, Rosenfeld said. Only part of the site has frontage along Highway 50.
Another retail site in play in the area is a 15-acre site northeast of Highway 50 and I-94, in between a Gander Mountain store and a Steinhafel’s furniture store, which is next to a Woodman’s grocery store.
The site was previously owned by developer David Church, who built the StoneFire Pizza Company restaurant and entertainment center at I-43 and Moorland Road in New Berlin. Church also wanted to build a StoneFire Pizza at the Kenosha site. However, he has run into financial problems with the New Berlin business and turned the Kenosha property over to Racine-based Johnson Financial Group.
Another site on the market along I-94 is a 27-acre property located southwest of the interstate and Highway 50. The property was once part of the original outlet mall and is located next to an Ashley Furniture store and a Honda dealership. The property is owned by Glendale, Calif.-based America Realty Advisors.
Some retailers will prefer the highly visible sites along the freeway, but others will prefer the easy to access sites along the Highway 50 retail corridor, Rosenfeld said.
“There are two camps,” he said.
Although Kenosha County has attracted several retail chains in recent years, Rosenfeld said the market there could support more.
“There are still various retailers and category of retailers that are not represented in the (Kenosha County) market that could generate sales to be profitable,” he said.
Retail chains such as home goods retailer Bed, Bath and Beyond or craft store chain Michaels could fill a void in Kenosha County, Rosenfeld said.
Kenosha County is also underserved by auto dealerships, he said.
“There are a handful of (auto makers) that don’t have any (dealerships) in Kenosha,” Rosenfeld said.
The Kenosha area is also underserved for national restaurant chains and national hotel chains, Rosenfeld said.
The Radisson hotel in Pleasant Prairie is the only full-service hotel chain in the county. Several hotel chains have yet to plant their flag in the county.
One benefit for retailers in Kenosha County is that the county’s 5.5 percent sales tax, and lack of sales tax on food, attracts shoppers from Lake County, Ill., where sales taxes range from 6 to 9.5 percent, and food is also subject to sales tax, said Lou Molitor, executive director for the Kenosha Area Chamber of Commerce.
Mid-America is talking to “a few interested groups that are inquiring and reviewing certain parcels,” in the Highway 50 corridor,” Rosenfeld said.
“We’re also talking to a handful of high net worth individuals that see the upside within the trade area,” he said. They will buy it at a discount and take a long term position.”
