Kenosha County outlines multimillion-dollar Kemper shoreline plan and County Trunk Highway W erosion concerns

Public Works and Parks leaders told supervisors that two major infrastructure projects — the Kemper Center shoreline and work on County Trunk Highway W — will be priorities for capital planning in coming years and carry large price tags and schedule uncertainty.

Wyatt Moore, director of parks and recreation, described the Kemper shoreline project as a long-running effort with an existing plan priced at about $34,000,000. Moore said the county planned aggressively to pursue grant funding but that a recent cancellation of FEMA’s BRIC grant program for new applications required a shift to a phased approach, splitting the shoreline into three sections so grant applications and capital spending would be more manageable over a five- to ten-year horizon.

Moore warned that if grant funding cannot be secured the county may need to add the project to the capital-improvement program and delay until 2027 or later so the plan can be reworked into phased sections.

Highway staff described the County Trunk Highway W resurfacing planned for 2026 from the Illinois state line to County Highway C; that project is in design and moving through right-of-way work. Staff also identified an adjacent segment north of that — from Highway C to state Highway 50 — as vulnerable to riverbank erosion along the Fox River, notably near the Kenosha County Fairgrounds, and said the county must evaluate both resurfacing and bank-protection measures to avoid repeat emergency closures such as a 2019 event that required sheet piling.

On the Kemper Center itself, staff summarized a prior study that examined three options: the county taking over full operations (to capture rental and event revenue), mothballing the building while preserving the surrounding park and gardens, or issuing RFPs to private operators for specific uses. Staff said deed restrictions limit sale options and that any sale would be limited to a municipality under the original deed conditions, so selling the facility outright to a private buyer is not a straightforward option.

Supervisors asked about phasing costs and timelines; staff said phase-specific cost estimates are not yet available because mobilization, demobilization and other one-time costs complicate dividing the existing single-plan estimate into three smaller pieces.

Public Works said it will continue aggressive grant-seeking and will bring updated cost and schedule options to the capital budget process this summer and fall.