An unknown company is buying hundreds of acres of farmland in the Town of Port Washington

Paul Krauska is frustrated with how “hush hush” everything has been surrounding an unknown company’s pursuit of almost 2,000 acres of mostly farmland in the Town of Port Washington for what residents and officials have been told could be the site of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant.

Krauska is one of several landowners in the town who've received buying offers from Jeff Hoffman, a co-chair with the Milwaukee commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield/Boerke and former Port Washington resident, as first reported by the Ozaukee Press and corroborated by the Journal Sentinel.

Hoffman told many of these residents, including Krauska, that the land would be transformed into a semiconductor plant by an American company with ties to a foreign company, Krauska said.

Residents still don’t know what company is eyeing the land and officials aren’t discussing what little they might know.

The town hasn't been contacted by the buyer yet, Mike Didier, real estate agent and chairman of Port Washington's town board, said. But any large semiconductor plant project would require town land being annexed into the City of Port Washington, he said.

At the city's May 21 common council meeting, Port Washington Mayor Ted Neitzke told residents who had hoped to discuss the situation with council members that the city has no information or ability to comment on anything related to the "development on the north side," as he described it.

"We have nothing on the agenda this week or next week or in the near future that we know of for that," Neitzke said.

Several attempts to reach Hoffman, along with Gov. Tony Evers office, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman's office, state Rep. Robert Brooks and state Sen. Duey Stroebel, were unsuccessful throughout the week of May 20.

What are microchips and why would Port Washington be a good candidate for a plant?

Microchips are key components of electronic devices — from smartphones to medical equipment to nuclear weapons.

Over the last few years, President Joe Biden and chip manufacturers have been working to increase domestic semiconductor production and create thousands of high-tech, high-paying jobs.

In 2022, Biden signed into law a sweeping bipartisan bill called the CHIPS Act that provided subsidies to encourage domestic semiconductor production

Didier said Port Washington has several key components needed for a semiconductor plant: an abundance of open farmland that could serve as a development site and close proximity to a large water source, Lake Michigan.

Microchip manufacturers use millions of gallons of water a day to cool equipment and ensure chips are free of contaminants, he said.

"Connecting the dots, it does make sense," Didier said.

If the campus would in any way resemble the Intel microchip plants recently built in Ohio, Port Washington could see multiple factories built and significant investments in infrastructure to support them: new roads and freeway access, electrical substations, extended water and sewer services, according to reporting from the Columbus Dispatch.

Wisconsin once courted Intel for a potential semiconductor facility in Racine County though Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Foxconn starting in 2017. However, the deal fell through when Intel picked Ohio as the home for its $20 billion chip-making center.

What unfolded was a tumultuous years-long relationship and the unfulfilled promises between Wisconsin and Foxconn. The site was eventually sold to Microsoft as part of its planned $3.3 billion investment in its Mount Pleasant data center.

The land buy-up and potential semiconductor factory spark interest and questions from some Port Washington residents and officials

What little we do know comes from landowners who've received offers from Hoffman on behalf of the unknown buyer, though many aren't able to speak publicly due to being under contract and further along in the negotiations process, Didier said.

He said it's too early in the process to say whether he's excited or skeptical about how the buy-up will impact the town.

But he did say that if the plant is as big as people are saying it is, the project will only see success through collaboration between federal, state and local officials.

So far, the buyer has pursued purchase contracts with several landowners west of Interstate 43 and on both the east and west sides of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail, residents have said.

Didier said that some landowners are getting offers in amounts that are considerably higher than what the land is worth.

But several others, including Krauska, could be faced with the prospect of living in the shadow of a massive manufacturing facility or selling their land.

He and almost a dozen others are holding out and working together to negotiate for a deal they believe will be more fair by the May 31 deadline, he said.

Krauska has done a lot of work on his house himself, adding unique personal details and creative accommodations for his son, who is disabled. He regularly uses the home to support his Saukville car business, Eddie’s Service.

The money he was offered, he said, wouldn’t come close to covering the cost of buying the same acreage elsewhere and rebuilding.

"I'm holding out till they make something that I can possibly build somewhere else," Krauska said.

'No one's talking about anything'

Krauska wants open dialogue with officials about how the project would impact their town and the state at large, but "no one's talking about anything," he said.

He said his attempts to question Neitzke about the topic at a public meeting were shut down and attempts to reach out to Grothman have been unfruitful.

Krauska said ultimately he's concerned Port Washington could become the site of a "Foxconn 2.0," as Krauska put it ― that massive public investments from Port Washington and the state at-large could be met with the failures to deliver on company promises and the use of eminent domain to remove landowners who chose to stay on their properties.

But all of that is speculative, he admitted. For now, he and other landowners, residents and officials in Port Washington will be watching the situation closely, he said.

Contact Claudia Levens at clevens@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @levensc13.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Unknown buyer snapping up acres and acres in town of Port Washington