Here & Now

Racine Farmers Become Millionaires After Foxconn Land Sales

Frederica Freyberg:

This follow-up now on landowners in Racine County and reporting we did last summer about their options to sell to Foxconn.

Tom Fliess:

They did approach, asked if I would be interested in selling.

Frederica Freyberg:

This was farmer Tom Fliess in July talking about being asked to sell. This week it’s reported Fliess did sell 380 acres in Mount Pleasant to Foxconn. Price tag? $18 million. His son also sold 147 acres to Foxconn for $7 million. The company was offering $50,000 an acre, way over the former market value.

Also this week, Foxconn announced it had purchased an office building in downtown Milwaukee from Northwest Mutual. Foxconn says it will serve as its corporate headquarters in Wisconsin.

Now to a different economic story. According to the U.S. Geologic Survey production of domestic frac sand has increased by more than 36% in the past year and for the second year in a row, Wisconsin leads the nation in production of the sand used in hydraulic drilling for oil. In 2017, Wisconsin produced $1.5 billion worth of minerals, most of which was industrial sand. Wisconsin is looking over its shoulder as a frac sand boom is now taking shape in west Texas.