Lakeshore Builders Group Reshapes Kenosha's Waterfront

Renata Vaughn keeps a rolled-up set of the original blueprints for her company's first major project, a mixed-use building near Kenosha's harbor, pinned to a wall in her office rather than filed away in storage. It is a reminder, she said, of how close Lakeshore Builders Group came to not landing that contract at all, back when the company was a five-person outfit competing against much larger Chicago-based firms for redevelopment work along Kenosha's Lake Michigan shoreline.

Vaughn founded Lakeshore Builders Group in 2010 after nearly a decade working as a project manager for a Milwaukee general contractor, frustrated by what she saw as outside firms treating Kenosha's waterfront as an afterthought compared to more prominent lakefront markets. She believed a locally headquartered builder with genuine relationships in the community could compete for redevelopment contracts that larger firms often won on price alone, then executed with minimal local input.

Winning Kenosha's Trust

The company's first significant break came through a city redevelopment initiative aimed at transforming a stretch of underused industrial land near the harbor into mixed residential and commercial space. Vaughn's bid was not the lowest submitted, but she credits the win to a detailed community engagement plan that included input sessions with nearby residents, something competing bids reportedly skipped. "We won that job because we showed up to listen before we showed up to build," she said in a recent interview at the company's office overlooking the harbor.

That project, completed in 2013, became a portfolio centerpiece that Lakeshore Builders Group has referenced in nearly every major bid since. The company has since completed more than a dozen mixed-use and multifamily developments along or near Kenosha's lakefront, along with commercial renovation projects in the city's historic downtown corridor.

Weathering a Volatile Construction Market

Vaughn has navigated the company through significant swings in material costs and labor availability over the past several years, decisions she says required turning down some projects rather than accepting contracts at margins too thin to absorb unexpected cost increases. She built a small in-house estimating team specifically to model material cost volatility into every bid, a level of financial caution she attributes to watching two competing local contractors go under during a previous downturn.

Training the Next Generation of Tradespeople

With Kenosha's construction labor market tightening as experienced tradespeople retire, Vaughn has invested heavily in an apprenticeship partnership with a regional trade union and a local technical college, bringing on roughly a dozen apprentices per year in carpentry, electrical, and project management tracks. She has also pushed to recruit more women into the trades, noting that Lakeshore Builders Group's field crews remain overwhelmingly male despite her own position running the company.

Betting on More Waterfront Growth

Vaughn remains bullish on Kenosha's continued appeal to residents and businesses priced out of Milwaukee and Chicago's more expensive real estate markets, and Lakeshore Builders Group currently has three mixed-use projects in various stages of permitting near the harbor. She has also begun exploring commercial renovation work further inland, aiming to diversify the company's project pipeline beyond waterfront development alone.

"Kenosha spent a long time being the place people passed through between Milwaukee and Chicago," Vaughn said, looking out over a construction site near the harbor. "I think we're finally building the reasons for people to stop."