Posted on 08/01/2005 4:44:29 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
A company moving its operations from China to Manitowoc is having a big impact on small communities like Manitowoc and Two Rivers.
As Action 2 News reported first this weekend, the Tramontina Company of Brazil is partnering with Koenig & Vits, opening the production lines at the former Mirro plant to make pots and pans. The production could eventually create more than 200 jobs.
More jobs means more people looking to buy homes. That's a trend Lakeshore communities haven't seen much since Mirro left in 2003.
Two years ago, just months after Mirro left town, Action 2 News found houses for sale almost everywhere, including six for sale in one three-block area.
Today it's hard to find more than one "For Sale" sign in an entire neighborhood.
"We have a very good market," Joe Palmer of Coldwell Banker said, "people out there that are buying houses, moving up from one level to the next."
The number of homes for sale may not be dropping drastically but their time on the market is much shorter and the homes are going for higher prices. Palmer says in Manitowoc they might be up eight percent.
He calls it "the best market I've had ever."
"It's good news for us. People are working, they want to buy homes," Palmer said.
Coldwell Banker has a list of houses for sale in Two Rivers and Manitowoc but it's much shorter than it was two years ago.
"I think it's the confidence level in the community that changes from this," he says.
He can't credit new jobs at Koenig & Vits specifically but he says the mere news that more jobs are out there gives a boost to the Manitowoc real estate market. People are more eager to buy and sell if they know others are getting jobs and making money, he says.
"I think they're more positive so maybe somebody that was thinking about purchasing a home or car now might go do it."
With the fact that it is a foreign owned company coming in and operatiing the facility. It is good to see the manufacturing picking up again in that area. I remember growing up in that area of wisconsin and it is heavy farming and manufacturing area and all the factories moving out of the area really hurt. Hope this good for the area. Just wish it was an American owned and operated country that ran it.
From an article about this company and more, Journal Sentinel On Line
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/jul05/345073.asp
Sorry, "free traders" but sometimes America climbs back into the ring.
They also used to make little fishing boats at Mirrocraft.
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