Milwaukee Tool promising to bring almost 500 jobs to Greenwood

GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) — Tool manufacturer Milwaukee Tool is bringing a repair hub to Greenwood with almost 500 jobs.

The jobs are open to just about anyone thanks to part of the incentive package which includes a partnership with Ivy Tech to train people how to do the work.

It’s all happening at the Southtech Industrial Park near Main and Graham at a building so new, site work hasn’t even finished.

“We’re really excited to have Milwaukee Tool come to Greenwood,” Mayor Mark Myers said.

The Wisconsin-based company’s service hub will repair heavy-duty power tools and hand tools. It’s a company which has increased its workforce almost 400% in the last 10 years, up to almost 5,000 people.

The Greenwood hub will fix broken tools and then return them.

“They’ll either be soldering them, welding them, fixing the diodes, whatever might be wrong with them,” Myers said.

Myers said the 150,000-square-foot hub is in a great location, within a 24-hour drive of 75% of the population of the United States.

While the company was exploring options before the pandemic, things restarted in earnest in late June.

“The timing is perfect because we’re coming out of the pandemic I hope. We’ll have people looking for jobs again, waiting to get back in the workforce,” Myers said.

A total of 481 jobs are promised by 2025 but Myers said the first 100 or so should be available within 8 months.

Part of the package is $4.5 million in conditional tax credits and $500,000 in training grants from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. There are also abatements on the building and personal property from Greenwood.

Myers said the city has little vacant industrial land left, about 150 acres.

“We’re in a very sweet spot right now,” he said. “So we can be very picky about who comes to Greenwood.”

Milwaukee Tool is investing $6.75 million into the hub. The company also has facilities in Wisconsin and Mississippi.