Crews will begin work on two water main projects in January that will eventually supply Foxconn Technology Group’s 22-million-square-foot LCD panel campus after the Racine Water Works Commission approved the contracts on Tuesday.
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The local financing package for the Foxconn plant calls for $88.4 million in spending on water infrastructure to supply the campus, but the municipalities will also need approval from the Department of Natural Resources to divert Lake Michigan water. There are also some already planned infrastructure upgrades that are being funded through other sources.
“The Racine Water Utility has been hard at work to quickly and efficiently design and plan for the installation of two new water mains,” said Keith Haas, Racine Water Utility general manager. “The construction of these new mains is critical to the Foxconn project being able to move forward.”
Both projects are scheduled to begin in January and should be done by April. The timing is being coordinated with planned roadwork in the area.
A nearly $5.35 million bid from Green Bay-based Advance Construction Inc. was chosen for a water main that will run along Highway H from the water tower near the S.C. Johnson iMet Center to Highway KR. There were a total of 10 bids for the project.
The water main will eventually supply a large concrete batch plant to support construction of the Foxconn campus and eventually supply the campus itself. Initial site plans for the campus show a 323,000-squre-foot facility dedicated to water in the first phase of construction and a similar size facility in the second phase.
Pleasant Prairie-based D.K. Contractors received the contract for another water main along the east Frontage Road of Interstate 94 with a $1.97 million bid. That project received 13 bids and will run from Highway 20 to Highway 11.
Mount Pleasant is seeking Lake Michigan water from Racine to support the needs of Foxconn’s campus and future growth in the southwest portion of the village. About 2.77 square miles of land south of Highway 11 and east of I-94 is in the Des Plaines watershed, putting it outside the Lake Michigan basin.
Haas told BizTimes last week the application should be sent to the DNR by Feb. 1 at the latest. Jim Dick, a DNR spokesman, said the department would need at least 90 days to review the application.
Mount Pleasant would be able to receive Lake Michigan water as a straddling community under the Great Lakes Compact. The agreement generally bans diversion outside of the Great Lakes basin except under limited circumstances.
The only other example of a straddling community diversion is the city of New Berlin. Dick said the city submitted the last of its required documents to the DNR in February 2009 and received approval in May of that year.
