Cedar Vineyard project dead again, official says

The beleaguered Cedar Vineyard subdivision proposed for Port Washington’s southeast bluff appears to be dead in the water.

“As far as we know, it is dead,” Bob Harris, the city’s director of planning and development, said Tuesday. “Our understanding is the bank (property owner Waukesha State Bank) terminated the offer to purchase.”

Harris said he does not know why that occurred, adding no other developers have made serious inquiries about the land.

Mayor Ted Neitzke said his understanding is that the development “is on a pause. It sounds like they’ve hit some hurdles.”

Neither Keith Van De Laarschot, a commercial banker with Waukesha State Bank, nor Tom Swarthout, president of the Highview Group, an Illinois-based firm working with Ascend Real Estate Group of Chicago on the development, would comment.

“It’s disappointing,” Harris said of the development. “I think to a person everyone agrees it’s a terrific project for that location.”

The enthusiasm for the project, he said, can be attributed to several factors.

“It was everything — the public access to the bluff, the vineyard and winery along with the bike and pedestrian connection made it a desireable project,” Harris said, adding the city spent a significant amount of time and money working to accommodate the project. “The scale of development was good.”

The Cedar Vineyard was initially proposed by Swarthout in 2015 for 227 acres of the former VK Development property along the south bluff with 73 home sites, a 100-acre nature conservancy, a vineyard and winery.

The city approved a tax incremental financing district to help with the infrastructure costs and Ozaukee County and the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust began working on plans to buy the nature conservancy portion of the project.

But the Highview Group never purchased the land and the project stalled. The Land Trust and the county, however, reached an agreement to purchase the southern portion of the land as a nature conservancy, and fundraising for that project is nearing an end.

Earlier this year, Swarthout and Ascend Real Estate Group brought a modified plan for the Cedar Vineyard subdivision to the city. This plan called for 45 single-family lots on 74 acres between Highway C and the Lake Michigan bluff north of Cedar Gorge.

About a third of the property was to be residential, a third vineyards for the winery planned for four acres on the west side of Highway C owned by the Tillman family and the remaining third was to be open space, including two miles of public bike and pedestrian trails and bluff and beach access.