The massive Foxconn Technology Group factory that backers say could employ up to 13,000 people will be built in the far southwestern corner of the Village of Mount Pleasant, local government and company officials confirmed Wednesday.

But Foxconn and its government partners in Racine County are seeking to acquire far more land than the roughly 1,200 acres that the factory will cover. They are seeking another area of perhaps 600 acres for construction staging, and a third of about 1,000 acres for future Foxconn expansion.

Some 90% of that total area — nearly 2,900 acres in all — is under contract, Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave said in an interview Wednesday.

Most of Foxconn's sprawling industrial complex — covering 20 million square feet, it will be by far the largest manufacturing campus in the state — will spread over 1,198 acres largely bounded by I-94 on the west, Highway KR on the south, Highway H on the east and Braun Road on the north.

The project will include upgrades of the I-94 interchanges at Highway 11 and Highway KR. Officials also are seeking to buy another 1,073 acres between Braun Road and Highway 11, and an area of 622 acres east of Highway H.

Real estate brokers have been working for months to put properties under contract for sale for the project.

The unveiling of Foxconn's site choice came at an elaborate presentation at the S.C. Johnson iMet Center in Sturtevant. About 200 people were present, and rooms featured displays of the ultrahigh-definition screens that Foxconn plans to build in Wisconsin.

"This is truly an historic day for Racine County," Delagrave said during the announcement.

"We are talking about a cutting-edge operation that will redefine how mass manufacturing is done in America. We are talking about the future of technology by a company that sets the standard for how to adapt to the changing times."

Delagrave said three informational sessions will be held in coming weeks to seek public comments.

"We are committed to making sure that your input is part of this process,” he said.

"We want everyone to have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the many aspects of this project moving forward in Racine County."

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Scores of landowners hold property within the Foxconn area. Property owners have been offered $50,000 an acre for open land — several times the going rate for agricultural land in the vicinity.

How the purchase of homes will be handled is not yet known. The area targeted includes scores of homes.

Rudy Baker, a retired tavern keeper who lives on Braun Road, is upset about the project and what it could mean for his residence.

"I hate it. I don't even want to think about it. I have my forever home that I have been living in for 40 years, and this is where my wife and I planned on spending the rest of our lives. Now we are just absolutely sick about the whole damn thing," Baker said.

Shawn Mayer also lives along Braun Road, on the north side, in a new house that he and his wife, Sarah, moved into less than six months ago.

"We are in limbo," he said, not knowing what's going to happen.

"Do we sit for a year and pay more taxes, and pay for water, sewer and road work being done while we wait for somebody else to decide whether they want to land on top of us? We can't sell the house now because who the hell wants it?" Mayer said.

While some have questioned whether Foxconn will truly follow through on its ambitious plans — pointing to proposed projects in places such as Pennsylvania and Brazil that didn’t get built as originally announced — a key Foxconn executive reiterated Wednesday that the project here will go forward.

Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, said the company will hire 13,000 people directly and create “tens of thousands” of additional jobs at suppliers.

Later Wednesday, in a brief interview, Woo said Foxconn could have “at least a few hundred” manufacturing workers in Racine County by the end of next year.

But they very well could be working in leased space while Foxconn develops its main manufacturing campus — a process that could take four to five years.

Interviewed after the formal presentation, Woo sketched a rough timeline of the company’s plans to ramp up electronics production here.

First up, possibly, would be finishing work on televisions, monitors or other devices started in Japan and perhaps further processed in Mexico before being sent on to Wisconsin. That production likely would be in a plant Foxconn leases in Racine County.

“And by then how many people would be there?” he said. “At least a few hundred — not up to 1,000 — by 2018.”

Among the early facilities Foxconn actually builds in Mount Pleasant will be a “high-precision tool and die” plant that will make housings for the screens the company produces.

The heart of the Racine County complex, however, will be a factory — what Foxconn calls a “fab” — that will build screens even more advanced than the “Generation 10” units produced in the Japan factory toured earlier this year by state and local officials. That “Generation 10.5” plant “is going to take about four to five years to complete,” Woo said.

Woo’s presence here signals the importance of the Wisconsin project to Foxconn. A former Apple executive (in the 1980s and '90s) who holds a PhD from Stanford University, Woo is viewed as the No. 2 executive at Foxconn, under Gou.

Asked about other places where Foxconn initially announced major projects but then didn’t follow through, Woo said Wisconsin is different.

Suggesting that plans in Brazil and Pennsylvania didn’t come to fruition in part because of issues with government partners, he offered an analogy: “When you clap your hands, you require your left hand and your right hand to clap together to make it work,” he said.

A planned $15 million, 300-employee plant in Pennsylvania got put on hold following a change in the state’s governorship, Woo said.

“Which is very different from our experience in Wisconsin, with Governor Walker and the state cabinet and with the Racine County executives,” Woo said. “I think it’s a very different kind of experience.”

Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said he's confident the deal will come to fruition.

"We would not have made this announcement (Wednesday) if we weren't confident that the land was assembled and that they were ready to get going in the spring," Sheehy said.

"With 10,000 construction jobs, there won't be a dump truck left unattended for the next four years," Sheehy said.

For every 10 jobs at the Foxconn facility, officials said, 17 more will be created in the state as the company establishes a supply chain estimated to be worth $1.4 billion in Wisconsin.

Officials said that's three times bigger than the combined supply chains for Quad/Graphics Inc., Oshkosh Corp. and Marinette Marine Corp., which are some of the state's largest manufacturers.

Sheehy said economic development officials have begun courting Foxconn's suppliers to locate here.

"This is a technology that is not in the U.S. today. It offers opportunities for the medical field, sports, homeland security, entertainment and the auto industry. This is not old ladies in hairnets snapping iPhones together," Sheehy said.

The company still needs to finalize a contract with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., in order to receive up to $3 billion in taxpayer incentives, but Sheehy said he thinks that's coming soon.

"I would absolutely say, at this point, that there is nothing going to hold this project back in terms of its space and construction," he said.

Work is still underway to acquire land needed for the complex.

"We are expecting that we will begin closing on land purchases very early next year," said Mount Pleasant Village President David DeGroot.

DeGroot did not say whether officials would exercise eminent domain, which is the right of government to expropriate private property for public use, with payment to the owner.

"We are trying our very level best to have negotiated purchases for everything that we are doing," DeGroot said.

"Our offers have always been very generous. We have tried to be very consistent in what we have been offering. ... The $50,000 (per acre) number is right where we wanted to be," he said.

Thomas Fliess Jr., who owns land in the area, said he's encouraged about the economic growth the project will bring to Racine County.

"Foxconn is only going to be a fraction of what happens here in the next two to five years," he said.

As for property owners: "I know there were people who were unhappy about this right from the start, but from the sounds of it, I think everybody's going to be taken care of," Fliess said.