What is this obsession about cramming everyone into city traffic?
Frankly Franklin campus was the best asset. I smell corruption
29 replies (most recent on top)
Get Real...Former President and CEO John Schlifske hated his predecessor, Ed Zore. In his time as the CEO, he did everything possible to destroy Ed's legacy. Many say it has to do with John's small organ syndrome.
20 intersections overtaken in one night. Talks of the National Guard needing to come in and restore order. I would keep and take Franklin over Downtown any day. TG are you watching what is going on?
Or, was it mutual fund trading. They were in the north bldg.
@2ej+1k1k4ckaw - Actually it started back to at least 2015. One of the first departments to be outsourced was mutual fund accounting.
I believe they are still targeting late 2026.
@2ee NM owns the land across 27th. Wild guess, but Franklin might be easier to push it through than Oak Creek.
The series of decisions that began diminishing the NM culture was the LearnVest fiasco and the layoffs/offshoring that began in 2016/2017. Then in 2017 JES opened the new glass tower proving he didn't give a cr*p about the home office employees.
Who owns the land on the NE corner? It's curious that Costco would pick the NW corner when the NE corner is totally vacant.
Is there a date when the new North tower opens and the Franklin campus is shut down?
@1s4+1k1k4ckaw OP mentioned it in their top-level post.
@1pw Who mentioned corruption? Am I missing a post? If not, I guess we really know who the boot licking id--t is.
Zoning has been approved. Costco is getting a good chuck of the fields.
fox6now.com/news/franklin-costco-moving-forward-after-city-meeting
@OP Having spent a long and rewarding career at the company, I disagree with the idea that Franklin is our best asset. While I understand the appeal of the beautiful buildings and the convenience for those living nearby, I believe the Franklin development marked the beginning of a series of decisions that, for me, diminished the special culture we once had here.
This company has gone from having to class to just trash. Are they serious about Costco?
The Costco hot dogs are better food than what NM serves too.
NM's worried Costco pays more plus free parking.
How tacky is this going to look. NM’s class is out the door and TG is another JES.
@13k it’s not clear to me, would Costco just buy the prairie and NM would still need to unload the buildings?
Well, all yall wanted to know what they're going to do with Franklin, it'll be a Costco.
fox6now.com/news/1st-costco-milwaukee-county-franklin-eyes-site-leaders-discuss
10 year lease signed right before the pandemic. We're there for 5 more years. Nm also spent around 30 million building out the 3 floors.
@n6+1k1k4ckaw It's very likely that TG wants to try, especially with this whole "focus and double down on Milwaukee" campaign, but as someone else mentioned, it's likely the company is tied into a lease for quite some years.
If TG wants to show employees and policyholders that he isn’t another JES, he will announce plans to keep Franklin and close NYC. TG needs to show everyone that he has morals and business acumen. Do the right thing TG.
Franklin is ghost town because teams are forced into the city.
@e8 They aren't keeping Franklin, after spending a cool half billion on the north building project Franklin will be abandoned. But you already knew that. What I'm wondering is who would want to buy it? We were told everyone wants to work downtown so wouldn't that be true for other companies that are looking for office space?? (as an aside the parking structure is ridiculously large even when both buildings were filled)
@as+1 Franklin was driven by post 9-11 disaster recovery but it wasn't for the data center, it was for people redundancy. There were firms located in the towers that lost so many people they barely survived, there weren't enough remaining people skilled for the various jobs necessary to run the firms. NM leadership realized that everyone was concentrated downtown and decided to build Franklin so that key business functions such as trading could continue should there be a disaster at one of the campuses. This was in the era before working remotely was viable, now the redundancy can be achieved via WFH.
Prior to Franklin, IT achieved redundancy by having backup servers within the downtown data center, and data center disaster recovery was through a warm site contract with IBM. Just a little history if you care, I began my career in the downtown data center when Franklin was being built.
How much space is unused in Franklin? Last time I was there, it was a ghost town. What’s the point of keeping it?
JES needed to have a distraction for all of his sc--wups and this was his best attempt at having something of a legacy. NYC is what should be shutdown but JES signed a lengthy lease prior to leaving. If TG was smart he would keep Franklin. Very few people actually want to go downtown.
JES' ego still needs massaging. Simple as that. The Franklin country club was a great hideout. So much wasted space.
A combination of multiple factors.
IT decided they want out of the data center business. We'll see how that plays out, but original 2 campus model was all driven post 9-11 disaster recovery.
Franklin tax incentives were over. Franklin didn't want to continue those breaks and milwaukee was more than willing to give away tax breaks for a huge downtown investment.
Could be some legacy scrubbing of EZ by JES but that's completely speculation.
No idea if they'll find a buyer anytime soon.