Foxconn to unveil ‘major’ development in Eau Claire

Leaders will gather at Phoenix Park on Monday

Gov. Scott Walker, a Foxconn Technology Group executive and the state’s leading economic development official will unveil “a major economic development” in Eau Claire on Monday.

Signals point to an announcement that Foxconn will open a facility of some sort in downtown Eau Claire.

On June 29, Walker and Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou traveled to downtown Green Bay, where they said the company would buy a sixstory building and turn it into an innovation center Foxconn expects to house more than 200 employees.

Last week, speaking to an Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Walker mentioned the Green Bay development and told the group to “watch in the next week or two because something somewhat close to that might happen in Eau Claire,” the Leader-Telegram newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, a source said the suggestion that Foxconn is poised “to create a major presence in the downtown (Eau Claire) area probably would be a real accurate story.”

Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Foxconn has begun site preparation work for a manufacturing campus in Racine County that the company has said will cost $10 billion and lead to the creation of 13,000 Wisconsin jobs.

If the firm hits those targets, it stands to receive about $4 billion in public subsidies. Most of that money would come in the form of cash payments from the state.

The project and the incentive package have split Wisconsin voters, the Marquette University Law School Poll shows.

Walker, who is up for re-election in November, has pointed to Foxconn announcements such as the one in Green Bay and the company’s purchase of a downtown Milwaukee office building for a North American headquarters as evidence that Foxconn will benefit more areas than Racine County.

Monday’s announcement in Eau Claire, which is more than 260 miles northwest of Foxconn’s factory site in Mount Pleasant, likely will give Walker another such talking point.

On hand with Walker Monday at Phoenix Park in Eau Claire will be Mark Hogan, secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.; Steve Jahn, executive director of the Momentum West regional economic development organization; and Alan Yeung, director of U.S. strategic initiatives for Foxconn.

On Saturday, Yeung on Twitter posted an image of a map of Eau Claire County with the number 150 printed across it, along with a cryptic message: “What’s happening? It is …”

A Foxconn spokesman did not return calls Sunday about the coming announcement.