JANESVILLE, Wis. -- A suburban Chicago manufacturer will move its operations to Janesville, providing a boost to an area that's suffered some recent economic losses.

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LiquiPur Holdings Inc. plans to invest $20 million in Janesville, bringing its bottling work to an existing building on the city's south side and constructing a new facility nearby.

LiquiPur won't open its facilities until 2009, but already there's a buzz about the company's two new bottling plants.

This is good economic news for a change, in a community that hasn't had much to look forward to lately.

The number of jobs created isn't much compared with what will be lost when General Motors leaves.

Even before GM announced plans to leave Janesville, city and county officials had been working to diversify the local economy. Once GM leaves, it's unlikely another employer of its size will take its place, WISC-TV reported.

"What we see in our economy is a lot of smaller projects that come into the southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois economic market, and try to exploit a unique market niche", said Janesville Economic Development Director Doug Veneble during a June 4 interview with WISC-TV.

That is exactly what LiquiPur will be doing, when it opens for business in January.

The facility will house a state-of-the-art beverage bottling operation, employing 40 workers.

Construction will begin on a second facility later this year, creating another 50 jobs.

"A lot of the raw materials for these drinks are going to be dairy and the fruit orchards and the corn, coming from Wisconsin and Iowa area, so Janesville is appealing from that perspective", said John Zolikoff, marketing director for LiquiPur.

The fact that Janesville has a motivated and experienced workforce looking for jobs was also a draw.

"We certainly intend to hire from the local community and make it," said Zolikoff.

Every new job created represents growth, and officials all along have hoped projects like LiquiPur will help sustain the economy.

"When some of these companies come in, they might be a 10,000-square-foot company that employs five workers. Ten years from now, they might be a 100,000-square-foot company that employs 50 workers. The strategy has been to capture those opportunities when the come a long and to look at that as a way to diversify our economy," said Veneble.

LiquiPur estimates that 90 percent of the 90 new jobs will be filled by local workers.

As for wages, the company said workers could make up to $19 an hour plus benefits, with room to advance locally. Once operational, the bottling plant will be using the latest technology to make drinks that don't need to be refrigerated and using pouches instead of bottles to prevent waste.