Plymouth, Wisconsin is getting 102 new single-family homes after officials broke ground on Scholar's Ridge, a 32-acre subdivision along South Pleasant View Road built to tackle one of the tightest housing markets in the state. Gov. Tony Evers joined Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority leadership and local stakeholders at the site for the ceremony, marking a project years in the making for Sheboygan County's working families.
The gathering, as reported by wispolitics.com, brought together Evers, WHEDA CEO and Executive Director Elmer Moore Jr., and local leaders and employers to celebrate what the outlet described as a milestone in expanding accessible homeownership and supporting the regional workforce. Each of the 102 homes is meant to be priced to offer attainable homeownership for working families, according to the same report. The project is being financed in part through a $3.4 million Infrastructure Access Loan administered by WHEDA — the first time that particular loan program has backed a single-family housing development, per wispolitics.com.
WHEDA's infrastructure loan is designed to help developers cover the cost of installing, replacing or upgrading public infrastructure tied to workforce or senior housing, according to WHEDA. As of this spring, the agency had awarded more than $18.3 million through that program statewide, and its three housing loan programs combined have supported nearly 3,500 workforce housing units across Wisconsin, wispolitics.com reported. The state agency also noted that more than 35,000 housing units have been built statewide since 2019 to meet the needs of workers, families, seniors and communities.
Local Employers and County Funds Behind the Land
Sheboygan County used American Rescue Plan Act funds to acquire the land for Scholar's Ridge, according to insightonbusiness.com. The outlet also reported that the project draws on private donations from the Forward Fund — contributed by Sargento, Masters Gallery Foods, Kohler and Johnsonville — along with the WHEDA loan and funding from the City of Plymouth. Those four companies, along with Sheboygan County itself, each put in $2 million to help launch the Forward Fund back in 2021, according to the Badger Institute.
The Badger Institute describes the Forward Fund as a public-private partnership built specifically to chip away at the county's shortage of entry-level housing. Importantly, buyers of Forward Fund homes don't need to work for one of the contributing companies — employees of other Sheboygan County businesses, or people who've accepted a job offer in the county, are also eligible, per the same report. WHBL News, which first reported on this week's groundbreaking, noted that the Forward Fund is what made Scholar's Ridge possible in the first place, according to WHBL News.
A Housing Market Running on Fumes
The numbers behind this push are stark. A 2023 report for the City of Sheboygan found the average home sale price jumped 24.4% to $243,700, up from $195,900 in 2021, the Badger Institute reported. Rental vacancy in Sheboygan has sat below 1%, far under the 4% to 7% range considered healthy for a functioning market, according to the same source.
Sheboygan County had fewer than 15 days of single-family home inventory at any price point at the time it was measured, according to The Business News. That scarcity matters because the county's employment base is still expanding — projections cited by the outlet show county employment growing 8%, or more than 35,000 jobs, between 2020 and 2030, adding pressure to a market that already can't keep pace.
Third Subdivision in a Five-Year Push
Scholar's Ridge is the third subdivision to come out of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation's Housing Initiative, which launched in 2021 with a goal of building nearly 600 entry-level homes across the county within five years, per the business news outlet's reporting. Two earlier projects in Sheboygan Falls — Founders' Pointe, planned for 54 entry-level houses, and the nearby Founders' Pointe Neighborhood, envisioned as a 41-home pocket neighborhood — laid the groundwork for the initiative's approach. The Badger Institute separately identified Founders' Point as the Forward Fund's first project, also described as a 54-home subdivision in Sheboygan Falls.
With Scholar's Ridge now underway, the initiative is pushing closer to its countywide target, combining state financing tools with direct contributions from some of Sheboygan County's largest employers. For a region where available homes vanish almost as fast as they're listed, the 102 lots along Pleasant View Road represent one of the more concrete attempts yet to close that gap.
