Foxconn Technology Group committed to breaking ground by this summer on an LCD screen fabrication plant in Mount Pleasant that local officials expect will house 1,500 jobs and exceed 1 million square feet of building space.
That facility east of Interstate 94 would start operations in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a Monday announcement by Foxconn. Foxconn on Feb. 1 committed to building the plant after several reports and widespread speculation the company would cancel its plans to fabricate screens in Wisconsin.
The announcement by Foxconn comes nearly a week after Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn founder and CEO Terry Gou, met privately with Wisconsin Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan and Wisconsin Economic Development CEO Mark Hogan on March 11. A source said that meeting was followed on March 12 by private meetings with Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).
“We continue to expand our presence around the state, create jobs, and deepen our partnerships while innovating and adapting to meet changing market needs,” Woo said in the statement. “We’re investing in Wisconsin because we know manufacturing here is going to drive even greater success and growth for Foxconn and for the community.”
State officials were surprised by a January Reuters story that quoted Woo as saying the company might not produce LCD screens in Wisconsin. Within 48 hours of the report, Gou committed to the company fabricating smaller-sized screens in Mount Pleasant after a conversation with President Donald Trump.
Monday’s announcement adds more detail on the timing for the project. Foxconn on April 2 and April 10 will hold information sessions with contractors, and in May will release construction bid packages.
Both Vos and Fitzgerald issued positive Tweets Monday about the Foxconn news.
Fitzergald's Tweet said it was "great to see more progress from #Foxconn."
"This is good news for hard-working families across Wisconsin," Fitzgerald said.
Vos, whose district includes Mount Pleasant, Tweeted it is "good to see #Foxconn is moving forward."
"It’s positive news for @RacineCounty and the entire state," Vos said.
The fabrication plant would produce small- to mid-sized LCD screens that could be used in education, health care, entertainment and sports, security, and smart cities applications, according to the company. It will be built on land Foxconn’s contractors have been grading and preparing for about a year south of Braun Road in Mount Pleasant.
“These are manufacturing jobs, something the country, the Midwest, Wisconsin and Racine County have been longing for,” said Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave, “When we started this process two-and-a-half to three years ago, that was the ultimate goal, to work with Foxconn to bring manufacturing here to Racine County.”
Jenny Trick, executive director of the Racine County Economic Development Corp., said Foxconn told local officials this initial phase of manufacturing operations will require 1,500 employees.
Foxconn, in its incentives contract agreement with the state of Wisconsin, must have at least 1,820 full-time jobs by the end of 2020 to collect any job-creation tax credits. The company had 176 at the end of 2018, short of the required 260 minimum.
Foxconn had announced up to 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin. It has until 2022 to reach that count in order to qualify for the full $1.5 billion in job-creation tax credits in the state contract. However, it can continue collecting the credits if it hits 10,400 jobs in 2027 and maintains that count until the end of 2032.
The scale of the first phase of the Gen6 plant project in terms of size and dollar value has not been specified, Trick said. Foxconn is expected to submit plans soon for local government review that will provide more detail, she said.
“Jenny and I were lucky to go to Osaka and look at their manufacturing buildings,” Delagrave said. “I would say you are looking at state-of-the-art technology to manufacture these screens. It’s something that really hasn’t been seen before.”
Besides delivering the high counts of manufacturing jobs local officials have expected, Foxconn’s fabrication plant could also start to lure in supplier companies. In Osaka, those supplier operations were integrated into the rest of Foxconn’s fabrication process, Trick said.
“You walk through a building and you see a number of different manufacturing operations occurring, and without your knowledge what you are seeing is actually several different businesses that are under one roof seamlessly integrating the supplies and the manufacturing on behalf of Foxconn,” Trick said. “I would anticipate we will see something similar to that in this initial phase of Gen6.”