UWM Announces First Private Development at Innovation Campus

The UWM Real Estate Foundation announced Tuesday night that ABB Inc. and Zilber Property Group have entered into a letter of intent to develop a three-story office building at UWM's Innovation Park campus on Wauwatosa's County Grounds.

The proposed 95,000 square-foot building is intended to house ABB’s businesses operating in Southeast Wisconsin. This office represents a total of 350 jobs, which includes over 100 engineers and scientists. The site is located in the western portion of Innovation Campus, situated east of Hwy. 45 between Watertown Plank Road and Swan Boulevard.

This is the first private development at Innovation Park. The Innovation Park campus is a public-private partnership designed to provide industry and academia with a wide array of opportunities to collaborate on projects that will create jobs in Wisconsin and provide opportunities for faculty and students to enhance their research portfolios.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with ABB on our Innovation Campus," said Michael Lovell, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "I have had the opportunity to work with other divisions of ABB in the past and know firsthand how partnering with ABB will bring new and exciting collaborative opportunities for our students and faculty.” 

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in over 100 countries and employs about 145,000 people. ABB’s Wisconsin operations are primarily involved in low- and medium-voltage drives, low-voltage products and power electronics.

The decision by ABB to build a new facility is based on the significant growth of these businesses at ABB’s Glendale Avenue site in New Berlin and the addition of more than 200 jobs there over the last three years.

The location choice and opportunity to work with faculty and students from UWM complements a similar arrangement in Raleigh, NC, where ABB has part of its business operations for North America located on the Centennial Campus at North Carolina State.

Pending lease completion and public approvals, construction of the new building would begin in spring of 2013 with anticipated occupancy a year later.

“We are very pleased to have been chosen as the developer for this project by ABB," said Jim Borris, president and CEO of Zilber Ltd. "Innovation campus exists today because of the forward thinking of UWM, the State of Wisconsin, Milwaukee County and the City of Wauwatosa.

"It is destined to become the region’s premier academia and industrial collaboration center. That thought process has been validated by this announcement and we are thrilled to be a part of this exciting development.”