So, I leave for a Memorial Day weekend vacation and apparently miss a lot …
As you all know by now, Bucyrus announced on Friday it has “completed the purchase of the former Midwest Airlines Corporate Center located at 6744 South Howell Avenue in Oak Creek, Wisconsin from Westminster Badger LLC.”
And, according to Bucyrus, “due to the continued growth of the company, Senior Management and other personnel will be moving to the new location making room for additional employees at its South Milwaukee facility.”
This sounds great, and in many ways it is. Hundreds of new jobs are coming to South Milwaukee due to the company’s expansion, and we should celebrate that, as I have regularly on this blog.
But is it all good news? I fear not.
My first question upon hearing the news on Friday is one that still remains: Will Bucyrus still be based in South Milwaukee?
This is not an insignificant question and should not be overlooked. Thousands of communities, large and small, across the country have large manufacturing plants, but we’re different. To people around the world, we’re the actual home of Bucyrus International, the world’s largest mining equipment manufacturer. It is based in South Milwaukee and has been for 117 years.
This is more than a name on a press release. It is a huge point of pride for us, something that no other city can boast.
I worry that will change … and Bucyrus will now be officially based in Oak Creek.
Media accounts differed as to whether or not that will be the case.
Read coverage in the Journal Sentinel, Business Journal and BizTimes.com. And here is the actual press release.
- The BizTimes.com account says clearly that Bucyrus “will move its corporate headquarters from South Milwaukee to the Oak Creek site.”
- The Business Journal is less clear on that fact, stating that Bucyrus “will move headquarters personnel from South Milwaukee to Midwest Airlines’ former headquarters space in Oak Creek” and “all of the company’s senior management staff, including (CEO Tim) Sullivan will move to the Oak Creek site.”
- The Journal Sentinel, apparently the only local media outlet to land an interview with Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan on Friday, is similarly unclear: “The former Midwest Airlines corporate center will have between 200 and 300 employees, including Bucyrus top management, but the company will continue to have 1,500 employees at its headquarters in South Milwaukee and stopped short of calling Oak Creek its new corporate home.”
In other words, I still don’t know the answer to my question.
This is an important distinction. I look forward to hearing the answer, although we may not know for sure until that first earnings release after the move to the former Midwest Airlines headquarters is complete.
Trust me, I will be looking very closely at the dateline: Will it say “South Milwaukee” or “Oak Creek”?
South Milwaukee Blog 
Now maybe this is confidential information that the city cannot discuss, but did Bucyrus even consider negotiations with the city on available land? Just off the top of my head, there is a nice piece of city-owned property waiting for development on N. Chicago (which is across from the Badger Apartments where the city historians will note that BE once had a facility). Considering the millions that spent building recently, the billions they spent on Terex and the price of certain executives, (along with the bike ride sponsorship and the St. Ann’s benefit) it does not seem as if the company is hurting and if they were really committed to SM.
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