The proposed redevelopment of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's former printing plant into a manufacturing site with around 1,000 jobs has received local zoning approval.

Global Power Components wants to buy the building, at 4101 W. Burnham St., West Milwaukee, and construct a large addition for its growing operations.

That project was approved by the West Milwaukee Plan Commission at its May 13 meeting. It doesn't need Village Board zoning approval, said Theresa Anniuk, zoning administrator.

Global Power has outgrown its main facility at 2300 S. 51st St. Known formally as BHP Inc., the company builds fuel tanks, enclosures and other equipment for the power generation industry.

Global Power currently operates in five Milwaukee-area facilities with more than 1,200 employees, according to the Plan Commission documents. The West Milwaukee plant would have up to 1,000 employees on three shifts.

Global Power plans to buy the 476,316-square-foot building and construct a 230,000-square-foot addition to provide more manufacturing space.

The company hopes to begin constructing the addition in spring 2026 − if a cleanup of the site's contaminated soil is approved by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Anniuk said.

The Journal Sentinel's corporate parent, Gannett Co., closed the production facility in 2022 as a cost-savings move − eliminating 180 jobs. The newspaper is now printed at a Gannett plant in Peoria, Illinois.

The property was sold in 2022 for $26 million to an affiliate of New York-based Alden Global Capital LLC − an investment firm that owns newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune.

But Alden Global's apparent plans to print the Chicago Tribune in West Milwaukee never materialized.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram , Bluesky , X and Facebook .

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ex-Journal Sentinel plant's conversion to Global Power site approved