Actually, not so little. The big drugmaker is in the throes of creating a 500-acre corporate campus that can accommodate some 12,000 employees in a quiet little slice of Wisconsin called Pleasant Prairie, which is adjacent to Kenosha and south of Milwaukee.

The local planning commission has unanimously recommended approval of a zoning request for a specialized planned development zone, which will guide creation of a sprawling community of offices, research and development buildings, distribution centers and manufacturing buildings.

No word yet on exactly how soon Abbott hopes to complete the site, which borders farmland, or whether the drugmaker intends to occupy the entire acreage or lease portions to others. But the project is expected to be valued at about $1.2 billion when completed.

“It’s still a work in progress,” Marilyn Kasko, divisional vice president of corporate real estate for Abbott, told local officials, adding that the Pleasant Prairie project has been one of the largest and most complex of her more than three years with the company.

Full story in The Kenosha News;
And this is Pleasant Prairie. [tags]Abbott Laboratories[/tags]