By Brian E. Clark
Wisbusiness.com
WAUWATOSA – Mark Irgens grew up in this community and remembers a time when it seemed that every
third house in his neighborhood had an Allis Chalmers engineer living in it.
The farm equipment maker is long gone, but Irgens, who is president and managing member of Irgens Development Partners, hopes GE Healthcare Technologies’ decision to build its headquarters here will have a similar impact.
Company officials and various dignitaries broke ground Wednesday on the firm’s $85 million, 475,000-square-foot building in the Milwaukee County Research Park.
It will eventually house as many 2,200 employees, including 800 whose jobs GE officials say should be created through growth. When it is completed some time next year, the development will consolidate 1,400 GE employees who currently work in Menomonee Falls, Milwaukee and West Milwaukee.
GE Healthcare has 6,400 employees in the state and is part of one of the world’s biggest companies. More than half of its $10.2 billion in 2003 sales came from U.S. hospitals, with the rest split roughly between Europe and Asia.
The company recently purchased the British medical firm of Amersham Plc for about $10 billion. Globally GE Healthcare employs now 44,000 people, up from 25,000 in 2000.
In Wauwatosa, the new structure will be the Milwaukee area’s third largest building when finished. It will house GE Healthcare’s e-business, information technology and ultrasound divisions.
“This is absolutely great for Wauwatosa,” said Irgens, whose company will put up the building and lease it to GE.
“The people working at GE will be highly educated and great for the community,” he said. It will also have a ripple effect, with vendors locating nearby, as well as other related companies possibly moving in to be close to GE.
“There will be a very positive impact on occupancies and building all around,” he said. “This is real success story for Wauwatosa.”
Gov. Jim Doyle echoed Irgens, calling GE’s decision to build its Healthcare Technologies’ headquarters in Wisconsin a “major win” for the state, especially since the division nearly departed for suburban Chicago.
And Wauwatosa Mayor Theresa Estness said she expects that every new job created by GE Healthcare will create two more in the area.
Shannon Troughton, a spokeswoman for GE, said her company searched for two years before deciding to locate in Wauwatosa.
“We looked at several other sites in the United States – including Illinois – but we wanted to stay in Wisconsin because we are loyal to this state,” she said.
“And in the end, we were offered an attractive package of incentives,” she said.
“We’ll be based in the research park and double its size. There will be good synergy with other companies that will help them, benefit Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and GE Healthcare.”
According to published reports, the development should get at least $35 million in state and local help, including tax credits, low-interest loans and grants.
Wauwatosa gave Irgens Development Partners a $15 million grant to prepare the site and build a parking structure. The money should be repaid over the next 12 years by property taxes.
In addition, the city will by the 25-acre research park for $2.61 million and lease it to Irgens for a dozen years. When the lease ends, Irgens would buy the property.
Nancy Welch, community development director for Wauwatosa, said the benefits to her community are multifold.
“For starters, it will really increase our tax base,” she said. Once debt from loans and tax breaks are retired, the development should add an estimated $1.4 million in annual tax revenue.
Putting together the package that made the deal workable took two years, but was worth it, she said.
Welch said the potential for spin-off companies locating near GE is “exciting.”
“We’ll have GE and Children’s Hospital and Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin working together,” she said.
“There are already a number of biotech companies in the research park,” she added. “The potential for them to expand and to create new firms and jobs is wonderful.”
Moreover, she said the impact of many new GE workers working and likely living in Wauwatosa will be good for her community.
Tom Hefty, co-chair of the governor’s Economic Growth Council, said GE has long been a low-profile high-tech company on the Wisconsin business scene.
“It’s amazing how many people – even business people – weren’t aware of how big they are,” he said.
“The fact that they are expanding is good news for the region and the state,” said Hefty, who is also president of the Waukesha County Economic Development Corp.
Hefty said he would have preferred GE would have built in his county, but was pleased it is on the county line – and not in Illinois.
“They are on the western-most edge of Milwaukee County and adjacent to the Medical College of Wisconsin, which receives more than $100 million annually for research from the federal government,” he said.
“This will bring a focus to biotech and medical device operations and can be a significant engine for the Milwaukee area they way UW Madison has been for Dane County,” he said.
Troughton, GE Healthcare’s spokeswoman, said GE Healthcare looks forward to be an economic engine in the region and continuing its work with Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
She said her company launched six of its last CT products first at Froedtert. And for the past 22 years, GE Healthcare has worked with faculty physicians at the Medical College of Wisconsin and used Froedtert as the primary clinical site for the companies CT imaging equipment.
She said Froedtert was the first hospital in the country to install a multislice scanner in 1998 and a 16-slice multidetector-row CT scanner in 2003, and recently became the first global site to install a Volume CT scanner.
