Pleasant Prairie, a village of about 20,000 residents, has become one of the most robust communities in the state of Wisconsin for attracting businesses and jobs.
“People see other companies coming here, they do well and thrive,” said village administrator Michael Pollocoff.
Perched on the Wisconsin-Illinois border, the Kenosha County community has attracted numerous businesses from Illinois as firms south of the border head north in search of larger and less expensive space.
“It’s kind of been something that has been going on since the village incorporated (in 1989),” Pollocoff said.
But the village has been on a hot streak lately with a long list of developments that are bringing new businesses to the community.
“This is probably the busiest we’ve been in eight years,” Pollocoff said.
Recent developments that will bring Illinois companies to Pleasant Prairie include:
- Platteville-based L&M Corrugated Container Corp.’s plans to move its operations in Zion, Ill. to a 99,838-square-foot building at 10680 88th Ave., which it plans to purchase. The company, a manufacturer of corrugated packaging, has 45 employees at its Zion facility that will move to Pleasant Prairie.
- EMCO Chemical Distributors Inc. plans to move its corporate headquarters from North Chicago, Ill. to a 260,000-square-foot facility at 8601 95th St. in Pleasant Prairie. The move will bring about 125 employees to Pleasant Prairie.
- CenterPoint WisPark Land Company LLC’s plans to build a 471,403-square-foot industrial building on a 26-acre site north of 109th Street between 80th and 88th avenues in Pleasant Prairie for Taiwan-based Ta Chen International Inc., a distributor of stainless steel, aluminum and nickel alloy products. The company plans to have 61 employees at the facility, which will be its new Midwest distribution center and will be relocated from a 215,000-square-foot facility in Gurnee, Ill.
- Chicago-based Good Foods Group LLC purchased a 57,000-square-foot building at 10100 88th Ave. in Pleasant Prairie and plans to establish production operations and will move its corporate headquarters there. The company will bring 50 jobs to Pleasant Prairie and could expand its workforce to 150 in about two years if its growth rate continues.
Perhaps the most significant business relocation from Illinois to Pleasant Prairie occurred in 2010 when Uline Inc. completed construction of a new $125 million corporate headquarters in the village. The campus, located near I-94, consists of a 200,000-square-foot office building and a 1 million-square-foot distribution center.
Uline is considering plans for an expansion of the headquarters campus, Pollocoff said.
“They’re seriously looking at it,” he said. “They’re very successful.”
Many of the Illinois companies that move to Pleasant Prairie or consider the move say that Wisconsin’s business climate under the pro-business leadership of Gov. Scott Walker is more appealing than in Illinois, which is facing significant financial problems.
“I think there is a little bit of a buzz in Illinois about going up to Wisconsin because of the direction the two states are going in,” said John Kersey, executive vice president of Milwaukee-based Zilber Ltd. which has developed and acquired several buildings in Pleasant Prairie. The company is working on plans for another speculative industrial building in the village and hopes to break ground on that project by the end of the year.
“Inquiries and tours are up down here,” said Chad Navis, industrial development director for Zilber Property Group. “Probably about 60 percent of all of the business in the area has come from an Illinois address. When people come up here and look around they find what they need. We continue to do spec development. We’re finding you have to have the space available to do these deals.”
Aside from the political dynamics, Pleasant Prairie has other advantages compared to Illinois including land that costs about 50 percent less than in the Chicago area and an abundance of land available near the interstate, which is scare in Illinois, said Jerry Franke, president of Wispark LLC, the real estate development arm of Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Energy Corp. More favorable trade work rules in Wisconsin enable building projects to be completed 15 percent faster than in Illinois, he said. Labor and energy costs are also lower in Wisconsin than in the Chicago area.
Pleasant Prairie’s location makes it a top destination for Illinois firms that prefer Wisconsin’s business climate and want to take advantage of lower costs here.
“Being the first community north of the Illinois state line presents (Pleasant Prairie) as an alternative,” Franke said. Most of the businesses in the Chicago area will stay there, but for those that decide to move Pleasant Prairie will remain and attractive option, he said.
LakeView Corporate Park, developed by Wispark, is the site of many of the businesses that have moved to the village.
“LakeView Corporate Park and the key development sites (in Pleasant Prairie) are strategically located, well served with infrastructure and very attractive,” said Todd Battle, president of the Kenosha Area Business Alliance (KABA).
The sheer massive size of Chicago means that as that region continues to grow some of that growth will continue to spill over the state line into Kenosha County and Pleasant Prairie is at the front of the line to take advantage.
“Chicago is a massive, growing region,” Franke said. “We just want to get a small slice of that pie.”
Not all of the development in Pleasant Prairie is coming from Illinois. Other major developments coming to Pleasant Prairie include:
- Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Meijer Inc.’s plans to expand a 580,000-square-foot distribution center, located on the east side of Highway 31 be that it bought last year between state Highways 50 and 165 in Pleasant Prairie. The expansion will add 253,677 square feet of space, bringing the facility’s total size to 833,677 square feet. Meijer plans to have its operations at the facility up and running by the fall of 2014. It will have 486 full time employees and 42 part time employees. Meijer bought the building from Supervalu Inc., which is moving its Midwest regional office to a building at 8401 102nd St., in Pleasant Prairie, which was formerly occupied by Hospira. The move preserves about 200 jobs in the village, but Supervalu will eliminate about 150 distribution jobs there.
- City of Industry, Calif.-based Majestic Realty Company’s plans to build a 1.18-million-square-foot warehouse/distribution center on an 87.5 acre site east of County Highway H and Bain Station Road in Pleasant Prairie. The company plans to do the project in two phases, with a 750,400-square-foot first phase and a 430,080-square-foot second phase.
- Racine-based S.C. Johnson plans to occupy the entire 256,240-square-foot building at 8505 100th St. in Pleasant Prairie. The company will use the building for storage of Ziplock products and non-combustible liquids such as Windex, Shout and Raid. The company plans to have 15 employees at the facility.
In addition, housing development has rebounded in Pleasant Prairie. About 100 homes were built in the village last year and a similar number is expected this year, Pollocoff said. During the Great Recession home construction in the village had fallen to just a handful of homes each year, he said.
“We’re actually talking with developers that are looking to build new subdivisions again,” Pollocoff said.
Pleasant Prairie officials have worked for years to make it an attractive destination for businesses, Battle said. An important step several years ago was acquiring unsightly property near I-94, including some adult book stores and a military equipment museum, to clear them and improve the community’s “front door,” he said. And land use planning and infrastructure installation set the stage to attract development to the village.
“This isn’t an overnight sensation story,” Battle said. “For the past two decades they’ve been very strategic.”
