Foxconn’s plans to build a nine-story circular office building reminiscent of Epcot’s iconic Spaceship Earth building at the entrance of its Orlando theme park in Mount Pleasant have been put on hold.
On Thursday morning of September 12, Sam Schultz, community development director with the village of Mount Pleasant, released plans about the project at 12001 Braun Road. Included was a design for an approximately 34,000-square-foot building at the site. The building was going to serve as Foxconn’s network operations center. It would have been a central location where administrators will “manage, control and monitor one or more networks.”
“The overall function is to maintain optimal network operations across a variety of platforms, mediums and communication channels. This Network Operations Center will feature a visual representation of the networks being monitored and workstations where detailed network statuses are monitored. Software is employed to help manage the networks.”
Architectural plans submitted to the village show three more buildings near the network operations center. One was 28,700 square feet, another was about 87,000 square feet. The third remained unspecified. The plans do not explain what the other buildings would be used for.
However, around 3:30 p.m. on the same day, the village released a statement saying that those plans had been put on hold so Foxconn could “explore additional design options.”
Instead, Foxconn is said to be moving forward with another building, the “Fii Smart Manufacturing Center.” The one-story, 260,000-square-foot building will house manufacturing, office support staff, packaging and shipping and receiving functions, according to plans submitted to the village.
According to plans, the building will accommodate up to 500 workers. Foxconn plans to break ground in mid-October, if the company receives village approval.
Plans for both the Fii Smart Manufacturing Center and the Network Operations Center were originally submitted to the village on September 9. Last month, Foxconn began vertical construction on what will be a nearly 1 million-square-foot manufacturing plant.
Foxconn’s plans have changed several times since announcing its intent to build flat screens in Wisconsin in 2017 with a 22 million-square-foot Gen 10 plant. Foxconn officials said market changes prompted the company to shift to a smaller Gen 6 facility where smaller screens for cell phones and iPads could be manufactured.
So far, only a single building on the campus has been completed, a 120,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility that opened in late 2018.
Corrinne Hess
Originally published on Wisconsin Public Radio as In A Day, Foxconn Changes Course, Plans To Build Different Mount Pleasant Building
