With an eye toward capitalizing on growth and more jobs in northern Illinois and southeast Wisconsin, an Illinois builder has unveiled plans for a development of more than 600 homes in Kenosha County.
Luxury houses costing as much as $400,000 would be built around an 18-hole championship golf course in the biggest single private investment ever in Kenosha County or in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin`s newest incorporated village. Village officials said they have not been told the total value of the project.
Pleasant Prairie`s Plan Commission gave preliminary approval to the plan Wednesday night after Marc Development Corp. of Inverness unveiled the 433-acre planned development. No one appeared at the meeting to object to the proposal.
Marc`s development would be south of Wisconsin Highway 50 about a mile east of Interstate Highway 94.
Jeffrey Maresh, director of development for Marc, said his company is entering the Wisconsin housing market for the first time because of job growth in the area.
” . . . Obviously, developers feel that growth is moving toward Milwaukee,” he said. ” . . . Pleasant Prairie is a good location. LakeView
(a new industrial park) is creating jobs and the need for new housing, and Kenosha County is noted for its fine school system.”
At the meeting, an official of WISPARK Corp. said 1,500 jobs may soon be coming to the 1,500-acre LakeView Corporate Park, which WISPARK is developing along I-94 just north of the Illinois state line. Jerold P. Franke, vice president of WISPARK, said development of the industrial park is far ahead of schedule and that major announcements about 500,000 square feet of manufacturing space may come soon.
Marc`s project would be situated across Wisconsin 50 from 900 more modestly priced homes that are planned in Kenosha by the Zale Group of Buffalo Grove, another Illinois home builder that is moving across the state line for the first time. Zale unveiled its plan two weeks ago and received preliminary approval from the Kenosha Plan Commission.
Marc`s project includes 331 single-family houses and 280 townhouses and rental apartments, and 167,000 square feet of retail space, the golf course and a 250-room hotel and conference center. Construction of the single-family homes, which will cost $250,000 to $400,000, is to begin in spring 1991, Maresh told the commission.
The project is expected to take seven or eight years to complete and will be largely contingent on growth in neighboring LakeView Corporate Park.
”Judging from what is happening at LakeView that (the completion) could be speeded up,” Maresh said.
The Marc project is one of four large developments with a total of 2,400 housing units being planned for Pleasant Prairie, which is still largely rural. The village extends from Lake Michigan to I-94 and from the Illinois state line north to Kenosha.
Marc is the first developer to make public its plans for the village, although village officials have been aware of the project for some time. Village President Thomas Terwall said he and other officials have had many hours of discussions with representatives of the company.
”There has been a great deal of planning going into this,” Terwall said.
Besides its size, the Marc development would be significant because of its upscale nature. The City and County of Kenosha have been known as a blue- collar area, and $250,000 to $400,000 homes are not common.
