Kwik Trip distribution center may soon be built in DeForest

A new Kwik Trip distribution center may soon rise from an empty farm field in DeForest.

The convenience store company paid $14.1 million for 151 acres in the village in the southwest quadrant of the intersection of Highways 51 and 19, and is in talks with village officials about using 60 of those acres to build a new distribution center that could serve about 350 stores. The remaining 91 acres will likely be considered for future development, according to DeForest Administrator Bill Chang.

Kwik Trip has been in talks with DeForest and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation since late fall, when the convenience store chain bought the land proposed for the distribution center. The field, south of the UW-Health DeForest-Windsor Clinic and west of the UnityPoint Health-Meriter DeForest-Windsor Clinic, was in the town of Burke before it was annexed to DeForest...