Power Tool Manufacturer Plans to Bring 2,000 Jobs to Milwaukee

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Milwaukee Tool is reportedly planning to bring as many as 2,000 jobs back to its namesake city's downtown corridor.

The power tool manufacturer, founded in the Wisconsin city nearly a century ago but headquartered in the suburb of Brookfield since 1965, would overhaul a largely vacant office building in the Westown neighborhood to accommodate the new jobs, the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel reports.

The city Redevelopment Authority filed a public notice for the proposal and will consider a proposed tax incremental financing district to help fund the project. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett proposed $20 million in funding across two grants: a $12.1 million grant for at least 1,210 jobs and $7.9 million grant for the remaining 790 jobs.

The positions would reportedly be new hires as well as jobs currently housed at the Brookfield campus, whose workforce has grown more than six-fold over the past decade. The downtown facility, a former health insurance company office, could open with some of the jobs filled as soon as this fall.

Milwaukee Tool officials told the Journal-Sentinel that it is considering locations to expand, but no additional details were available. The company is already building a new site in nearby Menomonee Falls and a manufacturing plant in West Bend, Wisconsin.

"A site in downtown Milwaukee is our first choice," Ty Staviski, the company's chief financial officer, said in the statement.

Image Credit: @MilwaukeeTool / Twitter