SHEBOYGAN, WI\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Kohler Company<\/a>‘s more-than-decade-long push for a golf course in the Black River Forest has hit another lull, with the company announcing a temporary pause in plans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The company has been pursuing various\u00a0projects\u00a0in the village of Kohler,\u00a0including a renovated Woodlake Market<\/a>, new Big Joe’s Fuel and Go, and a new\u00a0golf course\u00a0near Blackwolf Run.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the number of ongoing projects, we have decided to temporarily pause activity while continuing to refine our future plans for our property in the City of Sheboygan, including the expansion of our golf offerings,\u201d Kohler Co. said in a statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This is the latest news on the proposed 18-hole golf course,\u00a0which has been\u00a0sought\u00a0on 247 acres of company-owned land north of Kohler-Andrae State Park.<\/p>\n Mary Faydash of\u00a0Friends of\u00a0the\u00a0Black River Forest<\/a>, a grassroots environmental group that has\u00a0fervently\u00a0opposed\u00a0and stalled\u00a0the project over the years<\/a>, said\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0hard to know what to say in response to Kohler Co.\u2019s recent announcement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t sound official in any way,\u201d Faydash told the Sheboygan Press.\u00a0\u201cThey\u00a0have implied that\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0extended\u00a0far enough on their\u00a0projects\u00a0in order to\u00a0put off development on the lake.\u00a0We\u2019ll\u00a0see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTheir approach has been to believe that\u00a0all of\u00a0the things they build elevate people\u2019s experience and the economy,” she said.<\/p>\n The negative environmental impacts of the project would make the opposite true, Faydash said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis specific project could clearly be shown to\u00a0impact\u00a0the waters of the state,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n FBRF has\u00a0been adamant that the golf course would devastate the Black River Forest ecosystem,\u00a0cause massive\u00a0deforestation\u00a0of old growth trees\u00a0that would deplete habitats, contaminate groundwater and Lake Michigan, and\u00a0disturb Native American burial\u00a0mounds<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to reporting by the Sheboygan Press in 2015, the golf course proposed by Kohler Co. would create 227 full-time jobs and generate an annual economic impact of $20.6 million,<\/p>\n An economic impact study released by the company, performed by SB Friedman Development Advisors in Chicago, estimated that the golf course’s three-year construction phase would create 95 full-time construction jobs and have a $12.5 million economic impact on Sheboygan County.<\/p>\n Kohler Co. said it would make an initial investment of $25 million to build and develop the golf course, although all those dollar figures will need to be adjusted for 2026 economics.<\/p>\n If the course became fully operational, 106 full-time equivalent jobs, or FTEs, would be created by Kohler Co. and another 121 FTEs would be created elsewhere in the county. Together, the 2015 reports said they would be earning $8.9 million annually.<\/p>\n CUP for proposed Kohler Co. golf course expired at beginning of July<\/p>\n Amid the\u00a0recent\u00a0news\u00a0from Kohler Co., the Sheboygan Press\u00a0learned\u00a0the company\u00a0had not\u00a0submitted\u00a0new plans or applied for a building permit from the city, as of late July 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n The extended deadline of the company’s conditional use permit also expired on July 5, because the permit\u2019s timeline\u00a0was tolled\u00a0during the\u00a0duration of\u00a0a recent\u00a0lawsuit, according to City Attorney\u00a0Liz Majerus.\u00a0<\/p>\n How did we get here? The city granted the company a CUP\u00a0for the golf course in December 2020, but several years of litigation paused the one-year timeline due to a tolling provision in the CUP. Within a year of the final case\u2019s resolution, Kohler Co. had to begin development or request an extension, according to the provision.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The last of seven cases related to the proposed project ended in early December 2024, when a Wisconsin court of appeals\u00a0denied issuance of a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources permit<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0fill\u00a03.69 acres\u00a0of wetland<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kohler Co.\u00a0sought extension of its CUP<\/a>\u00a0from the city of Sheboygan in November 2024, saying the\u00a0extension was necessary to\u00a0revise its plans after\u00a0the\u00a0court of\u00a0appeals ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the fall 2024 meeting, the City Plan Commission granted a one-year extension for Kohler Co.\u2019s CUP.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But\u00a0that timeline was paused again\u00a0in early 2025 when\u00a0a\u00a0group of residents living near the proposed site sued Sheboygan\u2019s Plan Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0granting\u00a0the one-year extension and\u00a0denying\u00a0the plaintiff\u2019s appeal for review.\u00a0Paramount to their arguments was that a new CUP\u00a0should\u2019ve\u00a0been\u00a0required\u00a0because a new plan was necessary\u00a0without the DNR wetland permit.\u00a0<\/p>\n A Sheboygan County Circuit Court judge\u00a0dismissed the case in September 2025<\/a>.\u00a0The residents did not appeal the decision.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Faydash said Kohler Co.\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0have to be concerned about its CUP expiring because a draft of the updated zoning code points to the city\u00a0eliminating CUPs\u00a0and reducing the Plan Commission’s statutory authority \u2014\u00a0instead placing that power with the zoning administrator.<\/p>\n A draft provision says the zoning administrator could amend a CUP\u00a0that\u00a0no longer exists or is significantly different\u00a0if modifications reduce the impact on the desired property more than what was previously approved.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Faydash\u00a0and other members of FBRF have pointed to\u00a0this\u00a0provision paving the way<\/a>\u00a0for Kohler Co. to get approval\u00a0for its golf course\u00a0without\u00a0additional\u00a0Plan Commission review.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a pointless approach,\u201d\u00a0Faydash\u00a0said about pursuing a CUP.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The zoning code is still being revised. The last public discussion was during a March Committee of the Whole meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Contact Alex Garner<\/a> at 224-374-2332 or\u00a0agarner@usatodayco.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Aug. 10, 2026, 3:15 p.m. ET Kohler Co.’s extended CUP expired on July 5, 2026, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[58,44,18966,185,186,823,65,189,821,1953,385,1103,4015,62],"class_list":["post-48669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-accessfree","tag-golf","tag-sourcesheboygan-press","tag-sstssportsgolfcourses","tag-sstsncourses","tag-tagconstruction-maintenance","tag-taggolf","tag-taggolf-courses","tag-taggolfweek-travel","tag-taggreen-living-environmental-issues","tag-taglocal-news","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagproperty-development","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/86454750007-092425-she-kohler-andrae-boundries-trails-gck-06.JPG\")
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