Products: The City of Milwaukee has been known as “the capital city of beer” for well over 150 years, and with Molson Coors Beverage Company’s recent decision to keep its corporate offices here, that legacy will no doubt continue.

Miller Brewing Company was founded in 1855, and even as it grew one of the world’s most recognizable brands, has remained a local source of pride. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions over the past two decades, the Miller Lite, Miller High Life and Miller Genuine Draft beer brands have become part of the Molson Coors Beverage Company.

As the second-largest brewer in the U.S., Molson Coors also produces Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Blue Moon, Leinenkugel’s and several dozen other beer brands. A major corporate restructuring in January 2020 included changing the company’s name from Molson Coors Brewing to Molson Coors Beverage Company to represent the diversity of its portfolio, which now also includes sparking cocktails, hard coffee, hard cider, hard soda and more.

Location: Molson Coors is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Molson Coors Corporate Center, located in what is still known in Milwaukee as “Miller Valley,” houses many of the company’s support functions.

Employees: Molson Coors currently employs a total of 1,290 full-time workers in Wisconsin. 540 of these positions are at the Corporate Center, and the company plans to add another 377 full-time positions there over the next two years.

Wisconsin expansion: The company’s January 2020 restructuring included consolidating its Milwaukee and Denver, Colorado, offices. Thanks to support from the State of Wisconsin and the designation of its Milwaukee corporate center as an Enterprise Zone, Molson Coors chose to expand its Milwaukee location and close its Denver office.

Wisconsin business environment benefits: Without the tax credits made available through the Enterprise Zone designation, the 540 jobs at the Milwaukee corporate center would have moved to Denver. The 377 additional jobs the company plans to add represents a 70% increase in employees at the location. These new jobs will have an average hourly wage of $56.86. The company also plans to invest $2.8 million in renovating the corporate center and $14.8 million to add a production line at the adjacent Miller Brewery.

Through the Enterprise Zone Tax Credit Program, WEDC was able to authorize up to $25 million in tax credits over eight years to Molson Coors, contingent on the number of jobs retained, jobs created and capital invested at the Molson Coors Corporate Center.