Board Approves Conceptual Plans For Dutch Style Hydroponic Greenhouses, Main Street Market
Board Approves Conceptual Plans For Dutch Style Hydroponic Greenhouses
- December 4, 2017
- By TERRY FLORES tflores@kenoshanews.com
PLEASANT PRAIRIE — The Village Board on Monday night approved the master conceptual plans for a hydroponic greenhouse project east of Highway H and a proposed development that would include a 50,000-square-foot medical facility at Green Bay Road and 104th Street.
Prairie Produce Farm LLC is expected to break ground in the spring on its first greenhouse, a 15.3-acre building, on 54.5 acres of a 65-acre site in the Green Hill Farm neighborhood at 122nd Street east of 88th Avenue. The site is just to the northeast of the village’s recycling center.
The $3 million Dutch-style hydroponic greenhouse operation also includes plans for another 20-acre greenhouse that would be constructed in a second phase as early as 2020, depending upon market conditions, according to Jim Hershenbach who represents Prairie Produce, a sister company of DeFresco Produce and Sunrite Greenhouses in Ontario, Canada.
The Green Hill Farm neighborhood had originally been planned for eventual rezoning for residential units. Because of the greenhouse proposal, however, the agricultural zoning currently in place will remain intact, according to Jean Werbie-Harris, the village’s community development director.
The greenhouse development would be the first of its kind in the state and would sell produce such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and strawberries to area grocery outlets. Hershenbach said the high-tech hydroponic greenhouse operation is unique to the Dutch, who perfected such growing methods due to the destruction of soils. The massive hydroponic system will allow non-GMO plantings to grow vertically within maximum height limits of the greenhouses.
While there will be no retail sales to the public onsite, Hershenbach said the greenhouses would be open to visitors and schools for planned educational tours, and the company would partner with area schools and colleges for student internships.
The greenhouses would employ 30 to 40 full-time workers once fully operational, according to Prairie Produce.
The board also approved detailed conceptual plans for the Main Street Market development in the Highpoint Neighborhood, which will accommodate a four-story medical building for Froedtert South on a 22-acre parcel at Green Bay Road and 104th Street.
The development proposal also includes a convenience store, a grocery store and a mix of other retail and commercial services.
Froedtert’s medical building would be the first of six lots to be developed by Bear Development.
Trustee Michael Serpe expressed concerns about traffic safety at 104th Street at the south end of the development and whether there were other options, including the use of Jelly Belly Lane as another outlet. Werbie-Harris said a traffic impact analysis by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is currently underway and is among several options being studied.
Werbie-Harris said Froedtert representatives will also be presenting more detailed building plans for the medical facility in January.
Construction is planned to begin early next year and be completed by the winter of 2018-19.