New campus with a focus on the past
Komatsu emphasizes connections to Milwaukee
For more than a century, Milwaukee-based Harnischfeger Industries Inc. was known throughout the world for making heavy industrial equipment — including its P&H brand mining shovels that move tons of earth with a single scoop.
But, for all those years, Harnischfeger, reorganized as Joy Global Inc. in 2001 before being acquired by Japan-based Komatsu Ltd. in 2017, didn’t make a big effort to tell its story.
Now, the rebranded Komatsu Mining Corp. is opening its new corporate campus in the Harbor District south of downtown — a development that includes a focus on the company’s history in a city with a rich industrial heritage.
“We really feel like we’ve missed that opportunity to be associated with that long history of (Milwaukee) manufacturing,” said Caley Clinton, Komatsu Mining’s senior manager for public relations.
The new $285 million Harbor District headquarters aims to change that.
Komatsu’s three-story, 176,000-square-foot office building is now open at 401 E. Greenfield Ave., with employees relocating there through next month. The connected 430,000-square-foot manufacturing space is to open by summer.
The corporate campus is replacing manufacturing operations now based at 4400 W. National Ave., West Milwaukee, as well as offices at Honey Creek Corporate Center, 135 S. 84th St., on Milwaukee’s far west side.
Komatsu expects to have 500 employees at the Harbor District campus by January, with about 1,000 employees once the manufacturing operation is running.
Using rainwater to flush the toilets
A city financing package, approved in December 2018 by the council and Mayor Tom Barrett, will provide annual payments to Komatsu from the new development’s property taxes.
Those payments could total $18.2 million by 2034 — if the company has 946 employees by that year. The annual payments would be proportionately reduced by around $19,200 for each job that falls short.
The payments could eventually total $25 million — if Komatsu creates 1,300 jobs, with additional development phases, in the long term.
Also, the city will spend $15 million to build a river walk and other public improvements. The walking path, with construction to begin next spring, will extend from the end of Greenfield Avenue up the Kinnickinnic River to South Kinnickinnic Avenue.
Komatsu’s new office building, where employees began relocating this fall, features several items designed to reduce energy and water use.
Those include a system that collects rainwater in an underground tank and then recycles it to flush the building’s toilets, said Matt Beaudry, the company’s Harbor District project manager.
The building’s lights automatically dim in proportion to the amount of natural light that comes into the offices, he said.
Other sustainability touches include electric vehicle charging stations in the parking structure; small wind spires to generate power for the parking structure’s lights, and plans for solar panels on the manufacturing building’s roof.
Also, bio-swales throughout the campus are designed to reduce storm water runoff, and its pollutants, into the harbor. (The state Department of Natural Resources disclosed Dec. 9 that Komatsu’s West Milwaukee operations spilled about 400 gallons of oil into a storm sewer which drains into the nearby Menomonee River).
In addition, the Harbor District development uses an air purification system that was upgraded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Also, the office building reflects the trend for co-working space, including conference rooms with audio-visual equipment that connects with colleagues around the world, as well as smaller work spaces that are broken away from the traditional desks.
“There’s a lot of interesting nooks,” said Jill Rick, a senior communications specialist.
Such features seem especially important after a long period of people working remotely, Beaudry said.
“We’ve really learned to appreciate that incidental contact,” he said.
Mining shovel from Utah copper mine
Another new feature: a coffee shop that includes space exclusively for employees as well as an outward-facing portion for the public.
The coffee shop’s public portion, featuring Anodyne Coffee and scheduled for a Jan. 10 opening, is within the office building’s Komatsu Experience Center.
That center features displays of the company’s history, including products from the turn of the 20th century; conference rooms that can be used for meetings of such groups as the neighborhood’s business improvement district, and an interactive model of Komatsu’s corporate campus that highlights its sustainability features.
The company plans to install interactive information kiosks along Greenfield Avenue’s sidewalk which leads to Harbor View Plaza at the end of the street. That plaza will connect with the future river walk.
Meanwhile, the office building’s public entry is marked by two huge pieces of retired company equipment: a P&H brand mining shovel last used at a Utah copper mine and an accompanying offroad loading truck.
“We make big, cool equipment and things people want to see,” Clinton said.
The experience center will include a store where the public can buy company-branded apparel and other items.
That focus on the company’s long history, and the important role mining plays in making products people use every day, was “something we really couldn’t do in our old building,” Clinton said.
Meanwhile, the Harnischfeger and P&H names still resonate in Milwaukee, Rick said.
“I feel like it’s a hometown pride thing,” she said.