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Efforts to revitalize and strengthen manufacturing in southeastern Wisconsin took an important step forward Wednesday as the area won a special federal designation.

The seven-county Milwaukee region is among 12 areas, selected from a pool of 70 across the country, named "Manufacturing Communities." That designation allows the areas to receive preferential consideration for up to $1.3 billion in federal grant money.

"It's a big deal," said Pat O'Brien, executive director of the M7 economic development group and one of the leaders of the Milwaukee area effort. "What it shows is ... we can not only compete at a national level, but win."

The designation was coveted because it essentially means Milwaukee will have a "most-favored-region" status when competing for federal dollars in the midst of a constrained spending climate in Washington, D.C.

Being selected doesn't guarantee future funding for regional projects. But not being included on the list announced Wednesday by the Obama administration could have made it much harder for area projects to qualify for federal investment.

It also qualifies the region for coordinated support for the region's long-term economic development strategies from 11 federal agencies that are partners in the initiative.

Key projects for an infusion of investment include:

■ A Century City Advanced Manufacturing Training Center in the 30th Street Industrial Corridor.

■ An Energy Innovation Center in the former Eaton Corp. Technology Center, now known as Century City Tower. The innovation center, which has already landed its first tenant, aims to attract business-academia research collaborations as well as entrepreneurs seeking to launch start-up companies serving the energy and power sector.

"Hopefully this will lead to grants that flow that enable investments that develop innovation, and opportunity and new jobs for Milwaukee," said Alan Perlstein, executive director of the Mid-West Energy Research Consortium and a co-author of the grant application.

The goal of the federal program is to spur communities to work in a coordinated fashion on long-term economic development strategies to attract and expand private investment in the manufacturing sector and increase exports.

Reception

At a City Hall news conference, Mayor Tom Barrett praised an "amazing team effort" that collaborated on the application. He called the designation recognition from the White House and other federal agencies that "Milwaukee plays a critical role in the future of manufacturing in this country."

"It's about jobs, it's about creating new opportunities for workers in our region," Barrett said.

The Century City training center would be in the central part of the city, an area suffering from high unemployment. Barrett said Century City should help people living nearby who need jobs, and will ultimately benefit the entire region.

Linda Stewart, chief operating officer of the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, said as more job opportunities in the fields of water, energy and food manufacturing become available, there will be a need for more job training.

"This gives us an unprecedented opportunity to access resources from multiple federal agencies, to increase our regional collaboration, which is already strong, and to make sure that for the long term, we can produce more jobs and help our city become economically even stronger," she said.

The application required regional partners, including businesses such as Johnson Controls, DRS Technologies and LEM US, as well as M-WERC, the Water Council and Food and Beverage Milwaukee, the M7 and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to provide data underscoring the region's strengths and growth opportunities in the area of advanced manufacturing.

"It showed we are the strongest in electrical machines, energy power and control, along with water and food and beverage," said Perlstein. "And that these will be the growth engines for Milwaukee and the region."

Those are the clusters M7 has been working to grow, and O'Brien said that the selection announced Wednesday marked "a validation that those are the right strategies and that somebody else sees...we're moving along the path."

Other initiatives that the Milwaukee region suggested it would pursue include a business accelerator for Food and Beverage Milwaukee, as well as an effort to boost exports by small and midsize manufacturers and attract more foreign direct investment. Other goals include reduction of highway and airport congestion and expansion of the port's export capacity.

In a statement, Gov. Scott Walker praised the M7 and region for its work to win the designation.

"This is a testament to the comprehensive work Milwaukee 7 is doing to develop our workforce, grow our economy, and create jobs," he said. "This designation will help boost economic development in the Transform Milwaukee area, and all of southeastern Wisconsin, which will have a positive impact on our great state."

Federal guidance

Besides preference in applying for federal money, the designation means Milwaukee will get "coordinated support from the federal agencies in the grant application process," O'Brien said. "My reading of that is we'll get a better, closer sense of direction from when grants are announced to help guide us through the process."

Being selected among 70 competing regions is a victory, but more important is the advantage of having experts within the federal bureaucracy coach Milwaukee as it maneuvers through the often-complicated grant-application process, said Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of The Water Council, which aims to position Milwaukee as a center of water engineering and research.

Among U.S. metro areas with a minimum of 500,000 nonfarm jobs, metro Milwaukee consistently shows up with the second highest share of its workforce in manufacturing, behind San Jose, Calif. Wisconsin, meanwhile, vies with Indiana in leading the nation in the share of its workforce in manufacturing.

The designation will be in effect for two years, and the region will be eligible to reapply after that, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.