Developer keeps an eye on Walworth County
The Illinois developer at the center of a contentious debate over the future direction of Delavan Township still has designs on Walworth County.
In an interview with the Daily Herald newspaper, Mark Thomas, president of Shodeen Residential of Geneva, Ill., said the company has property in Lake Geneva that is ripe for large, master-planned communities.
Shodeen has proposed several developments in Walworth County over the years, first near the village of Walworth, then most recently in Delavan Township.
Residents of Delavan Township won't soon forget the battles in 2005 over Shodeen's plan for 4,770 multiple- and single-family homes on 2,000 acres around the Delavan Lake inlet.
The development proposal split the town board.
As timing would have it, the debate came in the middle of an election year, and voters looked on it as a referendum on the Shodeen plan.
A majority of voters in April of 2007 spoke loud and clear.
Two supervisors who were seen as pro Shodeen were voted out, and two who ran on their opposition to the development took their seats.
That left town board Chairman John Pelletier, who was re-elected in April, as the main proponent of the Shodeen plan, but he declined to take be seated as chairman.
Shodeen saw the handwriting on the wall, and by April, 2007, withdrew its plan.
“The original Jackson Creek project … is dead,” the company said in a news release at the time.
Shodeen said it would introduce another proposal at an undetermined date.
But the company hasn't forgotten about Walworth County.
"In five years, I see Shodeen Residential as one of the top five builders in the Chicago area, doing 600 to 800 home closings a year," Thomas said.
"We are currently expanding our scope to include the entire Chicago area and even the Lake Geneva area. We already have some commercial properties in DeKalb and have several hotels, banquet halls and apartments around the area that we own and manage.
"We also have three large parcels of land that we own in Pingree Grove, Elburn and Lake Geneva that are ripe for large, master-planned communities."
In April, the Business Journal of Milwaukee reported taht Shodeen had purchased three lakefront parcels on Third Avenue in the village of Fontana in the middle of a tax incremental financing district.
The company also purchased three parcels in near Lake Petite in the towns of Linn and Walworth.
One of the properties is a 300-acre former horse farm known as Cobblestone Farm, which previously was owned by Dean Buntrock, one of the founders of Waste Management Inc.
Development plans always come with controversy in Walworth County, but even if they go away for awhile, it seems, they're never gone forever.
Nov 24, 2009 at 4:34 p.m.
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'badgerboy' may or may not be a member of the anti-everything crowd. That said, his statement lacks support. One could just as easily say that most people WANT "master planned communities" in the area, instead of unplanned, urban sprawl, particularly if the master planned community includes more green space than other types of development would bring, as well as mixed use that helps return us to neighborhood conveniences within walking distance of many homes.
Nov 24, 2009 at 11:50 a.m.
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When will these developers realize that most people DON'T want these types of "master planned communities" in the area???
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