Southeastern Wisconsin is in the running to land a behemoth electronics manufacturing facility that could bring 10,000 jobs, a potential game-changer for the region if the deal goes through.

Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, a major electronics manufacturer well known for making Apple’s iPhones, has announced plans to invest $10 billion to expand U.S. operations, and although it has not announced where or how that money will be spent, Wisconsin officials have let slip that their state is a top contender.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner reached out to Foxconn earlier this year to make his own pitch for the project and the state “will continue to stay in contact as Foxconn works to consider locations and opportunities in the Midwest,” according to an emailed statement Friday from governor’s spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis.

But Foxconn appears to be zeroing in on a swath of Wisconsin just north of the border, which would still likely benefit Illinois as the company builds its workforce and supply chain.

“This would be not just a win for the state of Wisconsin, it would send a strong signal to the world that the Midwest as a region is a force to be reckoned with,” said Ron Starner, executive vice president at Atlanta-based Conway, a corporate expansion and relocation consultancy that publishes Site Selection Magazine.

Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, had annual revenues last year of $136.38 billion, according to Nikkei Asian Review, a business journal based in Tokyo. More than half its sales come from Apple.

Speculation about Foxconn’s plans has been building since Foxconn chairman Terry Gou announced in January that it was considering building a $7 billion U.S. factory to make LCD display panels in partnership with Japan-based Sharp, which Foxconn purchased last year.

Last month Gou said Foxconn’s U.S. expansion efforts could total $10 billion and that he would announce investment plans by early August for at least three states and might add at least three other states later, according to the Associated Press.

Exactly which states are under consideration isn’t clear. The Associated Press said Gou listed Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, but the Nikkei Asian Review, did not list Texas and reported that Gou later named North Carolina instead of Illinois.

“Our investment in the U.S. will focus on these states because they are the heart of the country’s manufacturing sector,” Gou told investors at a company shareholders meeting June 22, according to the AP. He later told reporters that “we are bringing the entire industrial chain back to” the region and the work “may include display making, semiconductor packaging and cloud-related technologies.”

The prospect of adding thousands of manufacturing jobs in the Rust Belt has some dreaming of a renaissance for the region.

“It will create a domino effect wherever it goes,” said Brad Migdal, senior managing director in the Rosemont office of Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate brokerage.

Illinois stands to benefit if the plant is just across the Wisconsin border, as O’Hare Airport could get more traffic, workers living in Lake County could make the hourlong commute and small businesses could step up to cater to workers’ needs, Migdal said. Most important, he said, is the potential for Foxcomm’s suppliers to set up shop in the vicinity.

“The biggest question more than anything is, if they come, who comes with them?” Migdal said.

Mark Denzler, chief operating officer at the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, said while the hope would be for such a plant to land in Illinois, having it nearby also is beneficial.

“You would hope that you would have a number of suppliers that would locate around that facility,” he said.

Illinois made its case to Gou in a February letter from Rauner that invited him to visit. The letter, provided by the governor’s office, said Illinois ranks fourth in the nation for electronics and computer manufacturing and detailed various other assets: the universities’ top engineering programs, low energy costs, transportation infrastructure and innovation hubs for advanced manufacturing. Rauner also promised to cut red tape and potentially offer “corporate tax credits, electricity and sales tax exemptions, workforce grants, infrastructure grants and property tax abatements.”

But signs suggest the company is interested in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos and two other state legislators wrote in a July 5 memo that Foxconn “has indicated its desire to locate in southeastern Wisconsin with up to 10,000 jobs.”

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose district covers southeastern Wisconsin, said July 7 that he met with Foxconn officials at the request of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and was working to find a “good fit” for the factory, according to the Associated Press.

President Donald Trump fueled the Wisconsin speculation mid-June when he said during a trip to Milwaukee that “just backstage we were negotiating with a major, major incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions, and I think they’re going to give the governor a very happy surprise.”

Michigan also is gunning for a piece of the Foxconn action, with some lawmakers using the prospect of a Foxconn deal to push for a new $200 million tax incentive program. The program, backed by Gov. Rick Snyder and approved Wednesday, allows companies to keep some or all of the income taxes their employees would otherwise pay to the state, provided the company meets certain job creation and worker wage requirements.

Foxconn, for its part, is only confirming that it is “conducting an evaluation of the conditions and potential locations for establishing manufacturing facilities in the U.S.” and said it won’t announce plans until negotiations are complete and it has gotten approval from its Board.

In announcing plans for a $7 billion display-making plant in January, Gou said Pennsylvania was a leading candidate. The site selection would depend partly on land and power costs and whether states could offer terms that make it cheaper than shipping from China or Japan, Gou said, according to the Associated Press. The status of the Pennsylvania plant — and whether or not it is the same facility that could now be constructed in Wisconsin — is unclear.

Foxconn’s chairman met with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development’s Taiwan/China investment office representative this January and expressed a desire to invest further in Pennsylvania, but the meeting did not address any specificproject and there are no updates, according to David Smith, the agency’s director of communications.

Foxconn has been known to promise big investments that don’t pan out.

The company in 2013 announced it would invest $30 million and hire 500 workers for a new factory in central Pennsylvania, but that investment never happened, Smith said.

What kind of manufacturing jobs Foxconn could create in Wisconsin remains to be seen, but given the significantly lower labor costs at Foxconn’s huge assembly plants in China it’s likely a U.S. facility would be highly automated and focus on higher-skill jobs, Conway’s Starner said.

“I don’t think they would even be looking at the U.S. if they weren’t for some automation solution,” Starner said. “To me it has to be driven by technology and access to a higher skilled workforce, which is exactly what Wisconsin provides in droves.”

Wisconsin has several advantages that could have drawn Foxconn’s attention, Starner said, including abundant and inexpensive water and electricity and a well-educated, hardworking population. The state’s community college and state university systems rank among the best in the country in the minds of corporate business leaders, he said.

What the state doesn’t have is a lot of people, so to fill 10,000 jobs it would have to recruit from a wide swath, which could easily include Illinois, Starner said. More than 5,100 people living in Illinois, most in Lake County, commuted to work in Kenosha County in the southeastern corner of Wisconsin, according to a 2013 report from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. Nearly 22,000 people living in Kenosha County worked in Illinois.

The size and quality of the labor force are typically the most important factors companies consider when they are choosing locations, said Steve Weitzner, president of Silverlode Consulting in Cleveland. They look at demographics, educational institutions and population change patterns to see how the available workforce will evolve over time.

Other factors companies take into account include real estate, transportation access, utility costs and state and local tax burdens — the latter of which puts Illinois at a disadvantage compared to Wisconsin, Weitzner said. But while some companies want the lowest costs they can find, others care more about the quality of the place. Incentive packages can be a factor but they are temporary, he said.

Foxconn employs about 1 million people across China who make and assemble smartphones and other devices for brands like Apple, Samsung, Sony and BlackBerry. Some of its factories have been criticized for low wages that push workers to work hundreds of hours in overtime to make ends meet; in 2010, a series of suicides at an iPhone factory drew negative publicity.

After that the company significantly lifted wages but progress has “gone backward” as competition among Apple suppliers rose, Li Qiang, director of China Labor Watch, said through a translator. The base monthly salary for a worker at a Chinese Foxconn plant is 2,200 Chinese yuan, or about $325, he said.

Qiang said he does not expect such labor conditions in the U.S., where laws are tighter.

While the prospect of Foxconn’s entry to the Midwest is positive, Bob Weissbourd, president of Chicago-based economic development firm RW Ventures, said the big showy get is often not most important to job creation, especially if it comes with the expense of incentives.

“Day to day if you want to grow your economy the best thing you want to do is invest in your existing companies,” Weissbourd said.

aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @alexiaer