This week Governor Jim Doyle and Mayor Tom Barrett led the city of Milwaukee in welcoming the Spanish company, Talgo to the Milwaukee business community.
Talgo is establishing its North American manufacturing facility in Milwaukee and will build high speed trains for Wisconsin and other states.
After considering proposals in various locations around Wisconsin, Talgo selected Milwaukee’s Century City site. The company will perform final manufacturing and assembly of high-speed trains in a completely refurbished building near the corner of Townsend and 28th Streets.
Century City is the 84- acre city-owned business park that was once the home to A.O. Smith and Tower Automotive manufacturing operations. Plans for the entire Century City site foresee up to 1,000 long-term jobs on the now vacant property. Talgo becomes the first business within the city’s business park. Mayor Barrett credited the combined efforts of his city development team, the regional Milwaukee 7 economic effort, and the State of Wisconsin for successfully attracting Talgo to Milwaukee.
Alderman Willie Wade made the following statement regarding the Talgo’s move to Milwaukee:
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Talgo for choosing the Tower/Century City site in the City of Milwaukee for its North American operations center. I would also like to thank Governor Jim Doyle and his staff for helping make this happen — first securing federal funds for a high speed rail infrastructure project — and then following through with detailed negotiations to close the deal. The Governor worked hard on this exciting project, and because of his efforts Milwaukee stands to benefit for many years to come.
Initially, Talgo expects 125 jobs to be created at the plant, and as someone who represents an area and a population that is in dire need of jobs, this is truly exciting and wonderful news.
Just the prospect of job opportunities for many people today is very exciting news. But this recession has hit people in my community extremely hard, and quite frankly things were pretty tough even before the recession. Talgo has given us a bright ray of hope that we can once again manufacture valuable machines – this time trains that will be carrying passengers to destinations near and far, in a future where public transportation plays a pivotal role in our everyday life and in stimulating crucial economic development our city needs.
Century City falls within my aldermanic district and within the district of my colleague Ashanti Hamilton. I would like to recognize and thank Alderman Hamilton for his work to help the city close the deal on the Tower site, and for helping to create Tax Incremental District #74, which is all about job creation. His commitment has been unwavering and enthusiastic, and he deserves our thanks.
This extremely positive catalytic development would not have been possible without the help and support of Congresswoman Gwen Moore, and of Rocky Marcoux, commissioner of the Department of City Development. They helped persuade Talgo to look hard at Century City, and they are both deserving of Milwaukee’s thanks and praise for a job well done.
Thanks to Talgo, the City of Milwaukee and Century City have gotten off to a great start on creating jobs, and much earlier than we originally anticipated.
