Village of Sussex — Brookfield computer software entrepreneur Arthur Sawall is launching a new development, and maybe a new career, in Sussex.
Sawall hopes construction will begin next spring on his first single-family residential development, a subdivision of about 146 lots spread over about 70 acres along the N5600 block of Maple Avenue, near the community center.
Sawall’s development career has focused on commercial developments, including the abandoned Mammoth Springs Cannery Company site at the corner of Waukesha Avenue and Main Street, which he is in the process of converting into a seven-building apartment and retail complex.
Construction on the third and fourth apartment buildings has begun and they both are scheduled to be available in spring of next year. Construction on the first and second apartment buildings, which are now fully occupied, was completed earlier this year.
However, Sawall is still seeking commitments from tenants before he begins construction on the two retail buildings.
Sawall says he likes doing business in Sussex because the village government is easy to work with.
Sawall, 56, was born in a Russian labor camp and migrated to Milwaukee with his German parents in the late 1960s. After earning an engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he started his own computer software company.
After selling the company in 2008, he started dabbling in development, including redeveloping the Mammoth Springs Cannery Company site. Because of a small strip of government land — the Waukesha County Bug L:ine Recreational Trail — that cut across the property, the project had baffled bankers, builders and bureaucrats for more than a decade.
Sawall figured out a way to get the government land moved off the property and the banks and bureaucrats to go along with his residential and retail development project.
He began his second Sussex project in the spring of this year when village officials asked him if he might be interested in investing in some residential property.
Sawall purchased the land from Waukesha State Bank, which had taken it over from a developer whose plans for a new subdivision fell victim to a crashing real estate market and internal legal problems within the company. Sawall also purchased an adjoining parcel of land, including the community center, from the village.
He said he has not yet established a price for the lots or what sizes and how much the homes in the subdivision might cost.
He said he is optimistic about the success of the project because he believes there is a pent-up demand for conventional-sized residential lots served by municipal utilities.
He said construction will take place in three phases.
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