American Friction Welding has relocated its operations from the town of Brookfield to a new facility at 505 Northview Road in Waukesha.
The 63,000-square-foot building is located on 6.5 acres at the corner of Northview and Airport roads. It took two months to complete the move, which included relocating 14 friction welding centers, 10 machining centers and office operations.
“The new building allowed us to design the most efficient production flow with increased capacity for high volume production and larger part size welding,” said Pete Caruso, director of new business development at American Friction Welding.
The company plans to hold an open house at the new facility in the coming months.
“The AFW move was a major undertaking with much planning, as you can imagine,” said John Fischer, president of AFW. “We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. I want to thank our customers, the city of Waukesha, for working with us during the transition and the dedication of the entire AFW team.”
AFW Realty LLP purchased the Waukesha property in January for $4.85 million. The property has an assessed value of $2.8 million according to Waukesha County tax records.
In late 2015, AFW acquired the site of the former National Golf Center on 17 acres along National Avenue in Vernon as a potential site for expansion. At the same time, the area around AFW’s now former Brookfield location at 115 N. Janacek Road was being developed as The Corners.
“AFW needed to purchase the Big Bend property because of the TIF district that the Town of Brookfield implemented,” Fischer said. “There was a chance that we could have been forced to move and we needed a plan to continue to supply our customers with their requirements. When we found the new building we were excited by how much Waukesha welcomed manufacturers like us.”
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