THINGS LOOKING UP: Foxconn releases new bid package, starts vertical construction

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As vertical construction begins on Foxconn Technology Group’s Mount Pleasant complex, the lead contractors on the massive project are advertising another slew of work.

Officials gathered at the Foxconn project’s site on Thursday to celebrate as construction started on actual buildings there. Up to this point, the work done on the site has consisted mostly of excavations and preparations.

Crews on Thursday got the vertical phase of the project underway by raising several 35-foot-tall prefabricated panels. Local officials and construction managers hailed the development as a milestone in the $10 billion project. So far, about 300 workers on average have been plugging away at the Foxconn site — half of them in trucking.

“This  is another major milestone on the site,” said Adam Jelen, senior vice president of the lead contractor Gilbane‘s central midwest division. “On track is the site development, which started April 26. That’s only four months ago.”

Jelen and Racine County officials gathered at the site Thursday to mark the raising of Foxconn’s first building. Construction of the building started on Wednesday when crews installed the first of some 120 prefabricated panels that will provide the structure’s form. The panels were built by the Waukesha-based company Spancrete at the company’s site in Valders.

Jelen said crews are about halfway done with stormwater management and excavation work and expect to finish site development and similar work before the winter. He said work will start next year on Foxconn’s advanced-display manufacturing operations.

Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave credited the Foxconn project for helping to lower Racine’s unemployment rate and said the project would bring even more jobs to the region.

“This is lifting people up with sustainable jobs and a better quality of life,” he said.

The lead contractors on the Foxconn project, M+W Group and Gilbane, separately released a pair of bid packages this week calling for various types of utility and road work. That new bid package, Foxconn’s third, follows on a contract awarded in July for the construction of the 120,000-square-foot multipurpose building.

The village of Mount Pleasant meanwhile released bid proposals for the first phase of a sanitary-sewer project at the Foxconn site. That sewer project is expected to be completed by the end of April. Future Foxconn bid proposals, scheduled to come out in the fourth quarter of 2018, will be for roadway work and the construction of a substation to provide power to the factory.

• Of Foxconn’s two-part bid proposal released this week, the first part calls for utility work, temporary electric work, site security and a slew of other jobs. The Sigma Group is the environmental engineer on the project and CH2M HILL is the engineer and architect. Project plans will become available on Oct.2 and bids are due Oct. 23.
• The second part of Foxconn’s third bid release meanwhile includes a handful of jobs such as asphalt-paving and curb-and-gutter work. Bids are due Nov. 16 and plans are available on Oct. 30.
• Mount Pleasant’s sanitary-sewer project calls for improvements to a sewer that will service the Foxconn site. Bids on it are due on Sept. 19.

The massive project has local officials busy envisioning how the factory could change the lives of people living between Milwaukee and Illinois.

That work, being carried out under the name Vision 2050, was started in July 2016, well before there was any hint that Foxconn would be considering moving to Wisconsin. The company’s arrival has already made a big difference in the largely rural region, and local officials are eager to gain insight into what other changes might be coming.

To that end, officials plan to hold a series of meetings in September to discuss the region’s development plans.

Foxconn alone is expected to bring 17,000 more jobs and 32,400 more residents to the area, according to preliminary estimates.

Local officials are especially eager to find ways to ensure land near the factory is being used in a responsible way, to encourage the construction of the “right mix” of housing for workers and to provide efficient means of transportation.

Another priority is building a road system capable of accommodating the Foxconn plant. Some of this sort of work is already underway, including the reconstruction of Braun Road in Mount Pleasant and of Interstate 94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois border.

But officials expect to see a shortfall of money for transportation projects. Officials estimate that $809 million will have to be spent by 2050 on needed improvements to nearby roads and warn that there’s only $538 million on hand for that purpose. Follow @natebeck9