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Fiserv, Inc., to move headquarters to downtown Milwaukee if financial incentives approved

Panoramic view from on high above Milwaulkee looking towards Lake Michigan
Geoff Eccles
/
Getty Images
Gov. Evers says Fiserv moving hundreds of jobs to downtown and creating about 250 more would be good for the city.

The huge financial services and technology firm, Fiserv, says it will move its global headquarters from Brookfield to downtown Milwaukee if two incentive proposals are approved.

The city of Milwaukee is offering to create a seven million dollar tax incremental district (TID), with re-payments over twenty years through higher property taxes on the improved site. The headquarters would be in part of the former Boston Store building at W. Michigan St. and N. Vel Phillips Ave. The Milwaukee Common Council would have to OK that plan.

The Evers Administration says the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) is considering a package for the firm. The public-private agency won't disclose details, and Gov. Tony Evers declined to comment as well when asked Thursday. Evers does say Fiserv moving hundreds of jobs to downtown and creating about 250 more would be good for the city.

"They're a great employer in the state—in the city. We've been talking with them as long as I've been governor actually. So, it's good that we're at that point where we have certainty. I can remember during the pandemic, we used a lot of their data stuff to drive our decision-making actually," Evers told news reporters.

Gov. Tony Evers campaigns at Laborers Local 113 on Appleton Ave., in Milwaukee, just prior to speaking to reporters about the possible move of Fiserv's corporate headquarters from Brookfield to downtown Milwaukee.
Chuck Quirmbach
Gov. Tony Evers campaigns at Laborers Local 113 on Appleton Ave., in Milwaukee, just prior to speaking to reporters about the possible move of Fiserv's corporate headquarters from Brookfield to downtown Milwaukee.

In 2017, then-Gov. Scott Walker and the State Legislature OK’d the concept of about twelve million dollars in tax credits for Fiserv if it kept its headquarters in Wisconsin.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the forty million dollar headquarters project would have to meet city requirements on percentages of the preparation work going to Milwaukee residents, and small women-owned and minority-owned businesses.

Fiserv has about twenty years left on the naming rights deal for the basketball arena where the Milwaukee Bucks play, just blocks away from the possible company headquarters site.

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