MOUNT PLEASANT, Wis. — An empty field surrounded by farmland in Mount Pleasant will soon be used to harvest computer data.
Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave tells TMJ4 that Microsoft has officially purchased $50 million worth of land to build a massive data center next to Foxconn’s Science and Technology Park.
"I think Microsoft coming here is a pretty big deal,” Delagrave said.
Delagrave says the deal has been in the works since last fall. It’s now finalized after Microsoft paid for 315 acres to build a $1 billion data center.
"They're walking the walk and talking the talk in terms of wanting to be a part of Racine County,” he said.
Delagrave knows Mount Pleasant is no stranger to promises that have fallen apart in the recent past.
Back in 2017, Foxconn committed to creating 13,000 manufacturing jobs on the same land after striking a multi-billion dollar incentives deal with the state and local governments.
Under Foxconn’s latest agreement with the state, it scaled back job expectations at the site to fewer than 1,500 by 2024.
Foxconn had what’s called the ‘right of first refusal’ agreement with Mount Pleasant on the land Microsoft purchased.
"Because of the initial investment of Foxconn, we were able to bring that necessary infrastructure out here,” Delagrave said.
“Do you wish Foxconn wouldn’t have made such big promises?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
"Yes, I do, but in fairness to Foxconn, certainly a lot of dynamics have changed,” Delagrave responded.
Delagrave says the Microsoft deal is much different.
"There's not really incentives here for Microsoft, they bought the land,” he said. “They're making the huge investment."
While its buildings are expected to be huge, a Microsoft representative told local leaders this spring that similar data centers create just a few hundred jobs.
"It's not going to be a thousands of jobs generator, but the flip-side of that is it's a large generator assessable property taxes and property tax base,” Milwaukee Business Journal reporter Sean Ryan said.
Delagrave believes Microsoft is a sample of many more businesses to come to the technology park in the long term.
"We think big things are on the horizon, but we can't do this all in one year, two years,” he said. “It's going to be incremental but we feel like we're well-positioned to really maximize this."
Delagrave says Microsoft is expected to break ground sometime within the next year.
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