Hype and hyperbole flowed as abundantly as water puns Thursday afternoon as Gov. Scott Walker, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and area business leaders ceremoniously opened a seven-story, $22 million water technology and business incubator.
“We’re making a big splash here today,” Walker told a crowd of 400 that pressed up against the converted brick warehouse, newly renamed the Global Water Center. “Economic ripples” will flow beyond Milwaukee and into the wider world, where issues of water scarcity and water disease have created a global economic opportunity for Milwaukee’s existing stable of water technology companies, said Reed Hall, chief executive of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.