California developer Majestic Realty Co. is planning a massive industrial park for up to 2.2 million square feet of development at the former Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha, which has been vacant since 2009.
Birmingham, Alabama-based Pari-Mutuel Funding sold the 220-acre property to Majestic on Friday for $14.5 million, according to state records.
“We have several different site plans, but it is going to be a master-planned business park comprising of various different buildings for manufacturing, research and development and different facilities,” said Taylor Talt, vice president of Majestic.
Phase one of the project will be a 500,000- to 750,000-square-foot building that could accommodate up to 500 jobs, Talt said. A specific tenant is not yet identified.
“We have been kicking tires and have some legitimate interest and some other companies that have been sniffing around,” Talt said. “I think that we’ve seen companies over the last three years really looking from Illinois to Wisconsin. Obviously there is also the impact of Foxconn’s announcement. I think being strategically located on I-94 is the place where companies are looking to expand.”
Talt believes the companies the business park will attract will be Illinois-based businesses looking to move north, or possibly Wisconsin-based companies that want to expand.
The former dog track, located at 5522 104th Ave., just east of Interstate 94, has been marketed since August 2015, by commercial real estate firm Transwestern. Last month, the Kenosha plan commission approved a $6.2 million tax incremental financing district for the project.
Majestic is familiar with Kenosha County. The company built a 424,164-square-foot speculative industrial building at its Majestic Badger Logistics Center in 2016 adjacent to the Lake View Corporate Park at 88th Avenue south of Bain Station Road.
“We’ve looked to expand in the market for some time,” Talt said. “Working with the city of Kenosha, the county executive, M7, KABA, MMAC and WEDC and the State, it has been a great experience on all levels.”
Talt said while significant planning has been done on building one at the Dairyland site, there are various site plans for the entire park with some showing six to eight buildings and others showing three buildings.
“We’ll start hitting the market and figure out the direction we want to go,” Talt said.
