A water tower adorned with Haribo’s gummy bears in Pleasant Prairie stands as a reminder of the first tenant to arrive at Prairie Highlands Corporate Park. To the east of the tower sits the German candy maker’s 500,000-square-foot manufacturing plant at 12488 Goldbear Drive.
Today, Haribo shares the business park with corporate neighbors including Eli Lilly and Co., Uline and Aurora Health Care.
Nearly a decade ago, none of it was there.
The 458-acre park was idle farmland. Its property owner, Abbott Laboratories, once had pegged it as the site for a 2 million-square-foot health care and pharmaceutical research campus.
By 2017, Abbott agreed to sell the property to the village for $37.5 million, telling the Business Journal at the time that it had no “near-term plans” for the site.
Then-village administrator Michael Pollocoff said Pleasant Prairie had focused on the property as one of the last large pieces of land where it could bring its economic vision to life as a new business park.
Turning raw farmland into a modern business park required more than securing the land. To give the acreage an entirely new economic identity, the village needed to undertake a massive infrastructure buildout, from mass grading and sanitary and water infrastructure to stormwater basins and new roads.
Its answer was tax incremental financing.
TID 5 was created in May 2017 to fund the infrastructure, clearing the way for Haribo to build its first North American manufacturing plant in Pleasant Prairie. Additional investment and development followed, from Eli Lilly’s pharmaceutical manufacturing facility at 10300 128th Ave. to Uline’s 366,000-square-foot H4 corporate office building.
The bet has expanded the district’s potential tax base. TID 5 launched with a base property value of $25 million. As of 2025, that figure had risen to $384.5 million, nearly $360 million in additional taxable value in less than a decade. The district now ranks No. 9 statewide by property value added.
Since 2020, the district has generated $27 million in additional property tax revenue, including $5.2 million last year alone, said Community Development Director Rob Hanson. Tax increment revenue generated by the district is being used to finance projects ranging from a planned roundabout near Interstate 94 to a potential $2 million contribution to a Kenosha Area Business Alliance revolving loan fund for future businesses.
This content is sourced from
Kenosha Area Business Alliance
. It reflects the author's views and has not been edited by our newsroom. It may have been generated using AI assistance.
