Uline Eyes 1.4 MSF Expansion at Milwaukee-Area Campus

Photo by Adrian Sulyok on Unsplash

Uline Inc. has set its sights on expanding its campus in Kenosha, Wis., with a 1.4 million-square-foot addition, and the shipping and packaging materials company is seeking the permission of local authorities to move forward, as first reported in the Milwaukee Business Journal.

Uline has tapped Eppstein Uhen Architects and Pinnacle Engineering Group, both of which were part of the development team behind Uline’s Pleasant Prairie, Wis.-based headquarters campus, to help put the specifics for the Kenosha project on paper in the form of site plans. According to documents submitted to Kenosha’s City Plan Commission, the state-of-the-art distribution center will offer racking totaling approximately 882,900 square feet, as well as 476 dock doors and 41 bays. Additionally, the site will feature a stormwater pond.

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The Kenosha expansion plan, however, is in the earliest of stages; Uline still has quite a few hoops to jump through before it can obtain final approval. The company has submitted a request for the rezoning of the designated site off Interstates 41 and 94 from agricultural land holding to heavy manufacturing district. Additionally, as part of the site is technically located in the city of Paris, Uline is also pursuing the transfer of 36 acres into the city of Kenosha. Both proposals are scheduled to come before the Plan Commission for consideration on February 23.

Kenosha’s industrial market expands

The Southeast Wisconsin industrial real estate market continues to thrive, despite high levels of new product coming online. As noted in a fourth quarter 2022 report by Colliers, “With nearly 2.3 million square feet of deliveries in the fourth quarter, vacancy rates market-wide decreased 15 basis points, demonstrating the continued strength in the industrial market.”

Kenosha is not lacking in new industrial development either and still, the competition for space remains substantial. At the close of 2022, 4 million square feet of the approximately 7.8 million square feet of industrial space under development were sprouting up in Kenosha County, according to a report by the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin. Given that Kenosha County led Southeast Wisconsin’s seven-county region in absorption with a whopping 3.5 million square feet of positive net absorption in the fourth quarter of 2022, the submarket appears well-positioned to continue to accommodate new additions.

As for Uline’s proposed expansion, if all goes as hoped at the February City Plan meeting, Kenosha’s Common Council will make a final ruling on the zoning issue at its March 20 meeting.