Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/468967
14 I N D E V E L O P M E N T 2 0 1 5 T he Wisconsin Agricultural Education Center is designed as an educational and tourist destination to showcase a modern dairy. It will feature a 21,000-square-foot discovery center with displays and hands-on learning opportunities, a birthing barn where visitors can watch calves being born, a 200-seat conference center, an outdoor playground and a café and country store featuring Wisconsin products. A comprehensive feasibility study was completed in 2012 that showed the WAEC project would be sustainable in Manitowoc County. An offer has been accepted on the building site, along the I-43 corridor between Milwaukee and Green Bay. The WAEC board is in the midst of a capital campaign to raise funds necessary for construction. WAEC is based on a successful model, Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana, which hosts more than 500,000 visitors each year. WAEC has partnered with a neighboring dairy farm to WISCONSIN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION CENTER Manitowoc County Projected cost: $10-12 million Developer: WAEC is a non-profit entity and its board of directors is composed primarily of farmers and agri-business community members passionate about connecting consumers with food production. Manitowoc JAGEMANN PLATING Projected cost: $4.5 million Projected completion date: Spring 2015 General contractor: Hamann Construction J agemann Plating began work in summer 2014 on a 36,000-square-foot addition to its plant in Manitowoc. The $4.5 million expansion to add new plating technology and equipment will allow Jagemann to add as many as 35 employees. Progress Lakeshore worked with the City of Manitowoc and Manitowoc County to assist Jagemann Plating through low interest loans and tax credits relating to the additional hiring. The addition is slated for the northeast side of the current 70,000-square-foot plant and is expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2015. ENERGY BANK In December 2014 energybank received a $250,000 loan from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. The company is developing technology that enhances the performance of the LED light engine. The company, which specializes in the advancement of solid state lighting and controls, is expected to create more than 60 jobs in the next three years. AMERICOLLECT Americollect recently held a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate its 19,000-square-foot expansion. The company plans to hire 60 additional employees through 2015. offer guided tours of a modern dairy production facility that milks 2,400 cows daily and uses its own methane digester for animal waste. Visitors will learn how power from the digester is sold back to the local electric utility and how the heat it generates is used for sustainable aquaponic agriculture, producing tilapia fish and growing vegetables. Future goals include adding other farms of different sizes and types for enhanced touring opportunities. Progress Lakeshore Peter Wills peter@progresslakeshore.org (920) 482-0540 Julie Maurer, WAEC Board of Directors Soaring Eagle Dairy, LLP (920) 726-4890 | soaringeagle@lakefield.net