As the village president applauds progress at the Foxconn Technology Group site in Mount Pleasant, further signs are emerging that the pace of the massive project the company promised has fallen short of original expectations.

Village President David DeGroot praised Foxconn on Monday for paying its property taxes and special assessments — a total of more than $8.4 million — ahead of schedule.

“We continue to see tremendous progress at Foxconn’s campus in the Village,” DeGroot said in a statement. “These advance payments are one more example of Foxconn’s commitment to our area and to its obligations under the local development agreement.”

But on multiple fronts beyond those that have been widely reported, Foxconn, which promised to build a projected $10 billion complex and create 13,000 Wisconsin jobs, has moved more slowly than it previously indicated it would.

Among them:

Foxconn asked in September 2018 for the scheduling of two road projects to be reversed in part because of the company’s plans to build a research institute and have it ready for occupancy in January 2020. Construction of the institute, which is to be a joint project with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has yet to begin. Its planned site remains vacant.

Mount Pleasant was supposed to have transferred title to Foxconn six months ago for about 244 acres in the company’s primary development zone, but the village has held off until it is sure Foxconn is prepared to use the land.

Two years into its development, Foxconn appears to have invested far less at the Mount Pleasant site than was projected in a November 2017 document that is incorporated into the state contract.

Already well known is the fact that the company is building what it says will be a “Generation 6” flat-screen factory rather than the larger, costlier “Generation 10.5” plant specified in its state and local contracts.

That change is central to an ongoing dispute between the administration of Gov. Tony Evers and Foxconn over the need to amend the contract signed by Foxconn and the state in 2017, and whether the company’s altered project qualifies for the nearly $3 billion in potential tax credits under the agreement.

FULL COVERAGE:Foxconn in Wisconsin

But beyond the change in the type of factory it is building — and perhaps because of it — Foxconn also appears to be well short of spending targets referenced by the state contract.

The contract calls for three specific Foxconn entities to carry out the firm’s project “in good faith and substantially in accordance with” their November 2017 application to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. for tax credits.

In the application, the Foxconn entities agreed “to the best of their ability” to investing $10 billion from 2018 through the end of 2022.

Tables in an attachment to the application show estimated investment of $3.3 billion by the end of 2019. Included in that is an estimated $2.1 billion in construction spending.

Foxconn’s own statements suggest it isn’t close to hitting those numbers.

In recent news releases, including one issued Thursday, Foxconn says it so far has awarded about $370 million in construction contracts at the Mount Pleasant project site. That would be about 17% of the $2.1 billion construction spending estimate contained in the application referenced by the state contract.

The road projects rescheduled at Foxconn’s request involve improvements to Highway 11 east of I-94, and to Racine County Highway H between Braun Road and Highway KR. Foxconn asked the state and local governments to flip the order of the two projects and complete the Highway H work first.

Highway H runs immediately east of Foxconn’s main factory site. In a request to the state Department of Transportation, Racine County and Mount Pleasant, company executive Alan Yeung cited construction in the main site that was running ahead of schedule and the desire to ease deliveries of material and heavy equipment there.

He also said the company was planning the Foxconn Institute for Research in Science and Technology on land east of Highway H. With Foxconn planning to finish the building for occupancy in January 2020, title to the land “will need to be transferred to Foxconn, and improved roadway access will be required by that date,” Yeung wrote.

But the land where Yeung said the institute would be built, southeast of the Braun Road-Highway H intersection, still stands vacant. And according to Racine County real estate records, Foxconn hasn’t yet acquired the land.

Plans for the institute surfaced in August 2018 as part of the unveiling of Foxconn’s partnership with UW-Madison, a partnership best known for the company’s pledge of $100 million to the university.

Foxconn’s donations to date stand at the previously reported $700,000, university spokesman John Lucas said Tuesday by email. He directed questions about the research institute to Foxconn.

Asked why the institute hadn’t yet been built as planned, and the status of the company’s $100 million pledge, Foxconn said in a statement:

"To date, $700,000 has gone toward a sponsored engineering research project — one of many steps in our long-term commitment to investing in engineering and innovative research at the University of Wisconsin. Foxconn will continue to engage stakeholders at UW-Madison and develop projects and the strategic plans to collaboratively formulate the interdisciplinary research and education for students and faculty to contribute to the future development of Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park."

Foxconn also has yet to receive title from Mount Pleasant for about 244 acres at the west end of its project site, although a November 2018 agreement between the village and the company called for the land to be transferred by July 2, 2019.

Asked why Mount Pleasant hadn’t transferred the land as called for in the agreement, Claude Lois, the village’s project director for Foxconn, said in a statement that the land would be conveyed to the company “as it is needed and once we’re sure they are prepared to improve it.”

Foxconn, responding to inquiries about the land transfers that haven't yet been made, its investment to date and its employment level, said in a statement:

“Foxconn is proud to have hired hundreds of hardworking employees over the last year while investing millions of dollars in the State of Wisconsin. Foxconn will continue to make investments in the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology park as prescribed in the ‘Development Agreement’ with the Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County.”

Another indication that the Foxconn development is unfolding more slowly than public officials expected: Last month, a bill was introduced in the Legislature giving Mount Pleasant 15 years to use tax increment money to pay for such expenses as the cost of a new fire station near Foxconn, rather than the original seven-year limit.

Given Foxconn’s original promises to spend $10 billion on its Mount Pleasant project and employ thousands of people there, officials had expected the area might need a new fire station.

Now, DeGroot has said the proposed legislation “would provide the Village additional flexibility in determining when this investment should be made to best meet the needs of the Village.”

Contact Rick Romell at (414) 224-2130 or rick.romell@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RickRomell.