Saturday, January 18, 2020

Foxconn soon worth $522 million, but local officials develop scenario if the project goes south

From JSOnline:

, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Work is done on structures at Foxconn Technology Group's planned flat-screen manufacturing complex in Mount Pleasant on Nov. 6, 2019. (Photo: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Local officials estimate Foxconn Technology Group’s massive development in southeastern Wisconsin will be worth more than $500 million in the next year or so, but they have quietly put together a what-if scenario in case the project doesn’t meet expectations.
A calculation by a team working with Mount Pleasant suggested Foxconn’s planned facility could be valued at many times more than the assessments of other manufacturing sites in Wisconsin.
The team, which included consultant Ehlers Inc., estimated Foxconn’s project and other developments in a Mount Pleasant tax incremental financing district would soon be worth $522 million. That’s about 37% of the $1.4 billion value the district is supposed to achieve by 2023.
The team's views on the project were included in a four-page outline released Friday by Racine County under the state’s open records law. The outline was produced for a September meeting on the project involving officials from the county, Mount Pleasant and the state Department of Administration.
The outline was focused on the state of the financing district and not the broader incentive package worth up to $3 billion the state has offered the Taiwanese tech giant. The state incentives are based on how much Foxconn spends on the project and how many jobs it creates.
The outline expressed skepticism Foxconn would hire as many people as it has repeatedly claimed it would. It has a yearly set of job goals, with an ultimate total of 13,000.
The outline said hitting the job numbers “seems unlikely at present.”
A spokeswoman for Foxconn did not immediately respond to questions about the consultant's review of the project.

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