Yaskawa America, a manufacturer of AC inverter drives and motion control and robotics automation systems, plans to spend $180 million to build out a new headquarters campus in Franklin.
The new headquarters campus will create 700 new jobs once complete, according to officials from the company.
The campus will expand upon Yaskawa America’s existing Franklin location at 2 World Packing World in the Franklin Business Park.
Yaskawa America, which is currently headquartered in Waukegan, Illinois, will build between six and seven new buildings and consolidate its existing Illinois and Wisconsin plant operations in Franklin. The consolidation process will take between eight and 10 years.
The new campus will include a corporate headquarters, training, and lab building; manufacturing and packaging facilities; and robotics and semiconductor production operations. It will encompass over 800,000 square feet.
Part of the new campus will include a building currently occupied by Sussex-based Quad, located at 1 World Packaging Circle. Quad is still a tenant in the building currently.
Yaskawa America is also in discussions with Carma Labs, the maker of Carmex, to purchase additional land to the southwest of its existing plant.
“The company is looking at everything it can in the near future,” said Dennis Fitzgerald, vice president of customer satisfaction at Yaskawa America.
Given a current boom in demand for AI-related products, including humanoid robots, Yaskawa America wants to make sure it has immediate space to grow if needed, Fitzgerald explained.
The completion of the new Franklin headquarters campus will double Yaskawa America’s business within the next decade.
“Our goal is to really expand our capabilities,” said Mike Knapek, CEO of Yaskawa America. “We’ll be making low voltage inverters, medium inverters, solar inverters and we plan to start producing robots.”
Eventually, 1,000 employees will work at the Franklin headquarters, including the 700 new employees.
Gov. Tony Evers announced Friday that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC) is supporting the project by authorizing up to $18 million in performance-based Enterprise Zone tax credits. The actual amount of tax credits received is contingent upon the number of jobs created and the amount of capital investment during that period.
Milwaukee 7 (M7), southeast Wisconsin’s regional economic development organization, assisted with Yaskawa America’s expansion efforts.
Yaskawa America established a presence in southeast Wisconsin 2001 with the purchase of MagneTek’s Drives Group in 2001. The company relocated to Oak Creek in 2008 and added 33,000 square feet of space.
In 2023, Yaskawa America purchased the former Transpak Corp. building in Franklin, which the manufacturer currently occupies. That facility was recently expanded by 54,000 square feet.
Yaskawa America is a subsidiary of Japan-based Yaskawa Electric Corp.
More articles about Yaskawa America:
- Yaskawa America plans expansion of Franklin facility
- Yaskawa America buys former Transpak building in Franklin for $20 million
- Yaskawa to expand Oak Creek facility
