< Previous108 JULY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N industrial property and improve it,” he says from the county seat, Holdrege, located in the south- central portion of the state. “We’ve used that money to fund housing development and also housing renovation. We’ve used it to improve our downtown storefronts in Holdrege and other things to better prepare our community. We think downtowns are important. So, it’s just a very, very important and key economic development tool for us. It gives me the necessary tools I need to help us grow.” Phelps County is really rural, Lincoln being two hours east on the heavily travelled Interstate . e county’s , cattle far outnumber its , citizens. Its six qualifying projects represent $ . million of capital investment and new jobs. “We are an agricultural production community,” explains Tillery. “But if you look closer, many Nebraska communities have much more complexity to their economic makeup than just that single stereotypical image. ere are other economic threads running through the community to bind everything together, and it’s important for us to be able to recognize what our strengths and weaknesses are, play to those strengths, and then try to try to build on the momentum that we’ve built.” Indeed, the Holdrege manufacturing plant of Becton Dickinson, the New Jersey-based medical equipment manufacturer, is one of the world’s largest producers of insulin syringes. Boosted in part by a government contract to make syringes for COVID- vaccinations, Becton Dickinson announced separate investments totaling $ million in . A serial investor in Holdrege of more than $ million over the past ve years, Becton Dickinson arrived in and now is the county’s biggest employer. Likewise, Allmand Bros., a home-grown subsidiary of Briggs & Stratton, is nearing years at the Holdrege manufacturing plant where it makes job-site equipment. Last year, the company announced yet another in a series of expansions that will create jobs. (Briggs & Stratton led for bankruptcy protection in August.) Two indicators, in particular, speak to Phelps County’s strengths. In an era when many rural communities are losing doctors, Phelps Memorial Health Center is a shining star, having completed a $ million expansion in August. e new ,-sq.-ft. ( ,-sq.-m) space includes a rural health clinic, plus cardiac, pulmonary and oncology services, with room to further expand. Of paramount importance, people are not eeing Phelps. From to , the county lost less than % of its population, making it a standout even among other high-performing counties. (Hill County, Texas, with a -year population gain of about , is the only rural county with three or more qualifying projects to register a net increase). Change is not a choice.” — Ron Tillery, Executive Director, Phelps County Development Corporation Change is not a choice.” Change is not a choice.” Change is not PHELPS COUNTY NEBRASKA Population: 9,100 Labor force: 4,857 10-yr. population trend: -90 Associate’s degree or higher: 39% Median age: 45 Broadband coverage: 86.3% 136 136 159 183183 183 2020202626275281281 281283 30 30 34 3853856 6 6 6 75778183 34 77 80 80 29 Calamus RiverCedar CreekElkhorn RiverSnake RiverDismal RiverNiobara RiverMiddle Loup RiverNorth Loup R. Platte RiverLoup RiverSouth Loup River Platte River Big Blue River Little Blue River Republican River Niobara RiverNiobara RiverNorth Loup RiverNorth Platte RiverLodgepole Creek Frenchman Creek Republican River Elkhorn RiverHarlan County L. Hugh Butler L. Merritt Res.Sherman Res.Lewis and Clark L.L. McConaughyADAMS ANTELOPEARTHURBANNERBLAINEBOONEBOX BUTTEBOYDBROWNBUFFALO BURTBUTLER CASS CEDARCHASE CHERRYCHEYENNECLAY COLFAXCUMINGCUSTERDAKOTADAWESDAWSON DEUEL DIXONDODGEDOUGLASDUNDY FILLMORE FRANKLIN FRONTIER FURNAS GAGE GARDENGARFIELDGOSPER GRANTGREELEYHALL HAMILTON HARLAN HAYES HITCHCOCK HOLTHOOKERHOWARD JEFFERSON JOHNSON KEARNEY KEITH KEYA PAHAKIMBALLKNOXLANCASTER LINCOLN LOGANLOUPMCPHERSONMADISONMERRICK MORRILLNANCENEMAHA NUCKOLLS OTOE PAWNEE PERKINS PHELPS PIERCEPLATTEPOLK RED WILLOW RICHARDSON ROCKSALINE SARPY SAUNDERS SCOTTS BLUFFSEWARD SHERIDANSHERMAN SIOUXSTANTONTHAYER THOMASTHURSTONVALLEYWASHINGTONWAYNEWEBSTER WHEELERYORK AnselmoAnsleyArcadiaArthurAtkinsonAyr BartlettBassettBattle CreekBayardBenedict Benkelman Blue Hill Brady BrewsterBroadwaterBrule Burchard BurtonBurwellBushnell ButteCallawayCambridge ChambersChappell Chester Clarks ClearwaterCodyColeridgeCornleaCrawfordCroftonDaltonDanbury Dawson DuncanElm Creek Elwood EmmetEustis EwingFriend Giltner Glenvil Grant GreeleyCenterHaigler HalseyHarbine HarrisonHaySpringsHeartwell Hebron HemingfordHyannisImperial InmanJulian KilgoreLewellenLitchfield LynchLyonsMadisonMarslandMaywood McGrewMerrimanMiller MitchellMullenNelighNenzelNora Oconto OrchardOshkoshPalisade PetersburgPickrell PiercePlainviewPlatte CenterPlymouth Potter Red Cloud Republican City Riverton RushvilleSargentScribnerSpencerSpringviewStamford StantonStapletonStockville Strang Stratton Stromsburg StuartSutherland TaylorTecumseh ThedfordUehlingUnion Wallace WaterburyWauneta Wellfleet WhitneyWilcox WisnerWolbachWood LakeWymore AinsworthAshland Auburn Aurora Broken BowCentral City Cozad Crete David CityFairbury Geneva GordonGothenburg Kimball Milford Minden O NeillOrdSt. Paul Superior ValentineWahoo West PointAllianceBlairChadronHoldrege Lexington McCook Nebraska City Ogallala Papillion Plattsmouth Seward Sidney WayneYork ColumbusBeatrice Bellevue FremontHastings Kearney NorfolkNorth Platte ScottsbluffGrand Island OmahaLincoln110 JULY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N Tillery says that over the past four years, 350 former commuters to Phelps County have become permanent residents through a program by which the county matches an employer’s contribution, up to $5,000, toward a down payment on the inbound employee’s new home. The county also has funded new rental units targeted toward teachers. “You’ve got to be able to focus on a lot of different things at the same time,” says Tillery, “not just the traditional economic development things like taking care of your existing business base and recruiting new businesses. As just one example, we can’t attract employees, which we desperately need, without housing for them. So, we have to work on all these fronts. It’s kind of like the old Russian plate spinner. One plate starts to wobble and you got to run back and get it spinning again.” Inland Port Fuels Growth in Marion County Julie Norman, the retiring executive director of economic development for Marion County, South Carolina, is even more expansive when it comes to the task of bringing renewed life to rural areas. “You have to take a holistic approach,” says the energetic economic developer. “You have to deal with schools and hospitals and community development things and amenities and hotels, rooftop bars, in addition to all the traditional economic development activities. Our five-year plan includes all of those things with very specific tactics on how we’re going to create this, because communities chase businesses, but businesses chase people. I’ve got to make sure I have people. And no people are coming to rural South Carolina if you don’t have the amenities. I’ve been pushing for a couple of years now how to incentivize people to move here, not just companies.” Wedged between the Myrtle Beach and Florence metros, Marion County has a modest population just north of 31,000. Its six qualifying projects of 2020 accounted for $31.8 million in capital investment and 442 new jobs. In addition to sharing top billing among Site Selection’s rural leaders, Marion ranked fourth for major projects statewide, among counties both metro and rural, according to the South Carolina Department of Commerce. That put it ahead of numerous larger counties, including Anderson, Sculpture at the Phelps County Courthouse by Holdrege native George Lundeen. SOURCE: Phelps County Development Corporation112 JULY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N outside Greenville, whose population is six times greater. Among Marion’s most impressive wins of , Tennessee-based Leisure Pools announced plans in September to invest $ . million in a new facility that’s to create jobs. Leisure Pools purchased a Beneteau boat facility that closed last summer after years in business. “ e state of South Carolina and Marion County economic development teams have been incredible to work with putting together a program welcoming our company to Marion and to help create jobs,” said Leisure Pools CEO and co-founder David Pain. Norman says Marion County, with its agriculture-based economy, has seen a recent uptick in manufacturing and distribution operations. For that, she assigns hefty credit to Inland Port Dillon, opened in neighboring Dillon County by the South Carolina Ports Authority in . e inland port facility provides direct access via CSX to the Port of Charleston, miles ( km.) to the south. It generates an estimated $ . billion regional impact. “You can get an acre of land here for somewhere between cheap and free, no more than $ ,, compared to a quarter-million dollars in Charleston,” says Norman. “ at means you can be right here in Marion County and get all the bene ts of being at the Port of Charleston for a fraction of the cost. Port Dillon,” she says, “is our greatest asset by far.” e port helped to enable expansions in Marion County by auto parts distributor Dma Holdings ($ . million/ jobs) and Maxwood Furniture ($ . million/ jobs.) Maxwood arrived in the county in with a new distribution center. “ e larger warehouse,” said Maxwood President Stephen Jensen, “will enable us to expand our operations and develop our distribution even further, particularly in the e-commerce ful llment sector.” With an eye toward leveraging Port Dillon, a regional alliance of Marion, Dillon and Marlboro counties is planning a new industrial park on , Marion County acres ( , hectares) connected to the port by rail. e county currently has industrial sites, three of which are certi ed though South Carolina’s Palmetto Sites program, and Norman says encouragement of further speculative development is an on-going priority. “It’s one thing to have Port Dillon right in our backyard,” she says. “It’s another thing to actually use that port as an asset.” Hampton County’s Very Big Deal Strategic thinking similar to that helped South Carolina’s Hampton County, about an hour west of Charleston, to land the $ million Agricultural MARION COUNTY SOUTH CAROLINA Population: 31,308 Labor force: 12,456 10-yr. population trend: -2,027 Associate’s degree or higher: 22.91% Median age: 41 Broadband coverage: 79.1% 1 1 15 15 17 17 176 176 178 178 178 17A 21 21 21 221 221 25 25 25 278 278 29 301 301 321 321 321 378 378 401 501 52 52 521 521 601 601 601 701 76 76 76 78 20 20 26 85 26 385 77 95 95 26 Great Pee Dee River Santee river Brood River L. Greenwood L. Jocassee L. Keowee L. Moultrie Wateree L. L. Wylie Hartwell Res. L. Marion L. Murray ABBEVILLE AIKEN ALLENDALE ANDERSON BAMBERG BARNWELL BEAUFORT BEAUFORT BERKELEY CALHOUN CHARLESTON CHARLESTON CHEROKEE CHESTER CHESTERFIELD CLARENDON COLLETON DARLINGTON DILLON DORCHESTER EDGEFIELD FAIRFIELD FLORENCE GEORGETOWN GREENVILLE GREENWOOD HAMPTON HORRY JASPER KERSHAW LANCASTER LAURENS LEE LEXINGTON MCCORMICK MARION MARLBORO NEWBERRY OCONEE ORANGEBURG PICKENS RICHLAND SALUDA SPARTANBURG SUMTER UNION WILLIAMSBURG YORK Andrews Bamberg Calhoun Falls Clover Edgefield Fairfax Fountain Inn Great Falls Hampton Kingstree Landrum Loris Lugoff Manning Moncks Corner Murrells Inlet Pageland Pendleton Springdale Springfield St. Matthews Walhalla Whitmire Williston Winnsboro Barnwell Beaufort Belton Bennettsville Brookdale Chester Darlington Dillon Hartsville Lake City Mullins Newberry Parris Island Walterboro York Anderson Florence Rock Hill Spartanburg Aiken Berea Cayce Conway Easley Gaffney Georgetown Goose Creek Greenwood Hilton Head Island Ladson Laurens Mount Pleasant Myrtle Beach Orangeburg Seven Oaks Sumter Union Wade Hampton Charleston Greenville North Charleston Columbia I’ve got to make sure I have people.” — Julie Norman, Executive Director,, Marion County Economic Development I’ve got to make sure I have people.” I’ve got to make sure I have people.” I’ve got to make S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2021 113 Technology Campus (ATC), announced in September. e ,-acre (-hectare), intensive indoor agribusiness project, named a Top Deal of by Site Selection earlier this year, is to create more than , jobs over the next ve years within the perennially underserved community. “Manufacturing has not necessarily migrated to this area as it has to other parts of South Carolina,” says Black of the SouthernCarolina Alliance. “ is opens new kinds of opportunities for us. It’s the wave of the future, where every segment of the country will have a dedicated agricultural base. So, when a pandemic hits again or some other natural disaster, you don’t have to wait for your produce to come from Mexico or California. is is where we’re going.” Hampton County, says Black, bested competition for the project from sites in Texas and Arizona, as plans for the campus ballooned to include investments by Canada’s Mastronardi Produce, LiDestri Food and Drink, Clear Water Farms and GEM Opportunity Zone Fund, driven by Aiken County investor Zeb Portanova. Hampton County was ready with a big piece of property, having purchased or optioned more than , acres ( hectares) of local timberland from Weyerhaeuser. “If we hadn’t had control of that large piece of property, we wouldn’t have been able to locate these folks,” Black tells Site Selection. e campus is expected to be operational in with full buildout expected by . While Hampton County is rich in agricultural history, the jobs to be created at ATC lean in the direction of agricultural technology — a prospect, says Black, that could challenge the local workforce. “ ese are not minimum wage jobs,” he says. “ ey’re going to require some advanced skills and knowledge of how to operate some very sophisticated equipment.” To that end, local o cials are working with Clemson University to build an on-site training facility, as well as a research center. Parallel to that e ort, ATC is seeking partnerships related to seed technology, robotics, arti cial intelligence and blockchain technology. e campus also plans to make available packaging space to local farmers. “It has been a team e ort all around,” says Black. “ e community has been supportive of investing money into infrastructure and looking for opportunities such as this, where we’re converting a pine forest into a project of this scope. And it all starts with the vision that we’ve got to be something bigger than we are today.” 114 JULY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N Source: Site Selection State of the States Report, January 2021 Higher Ed. R&D Expenditure in $000s: 2,475,305 Number of NCRCs: 115,416 | Percent Improvement 2019–2020: 0.31% Business Tax Climate Rank Change 2020–2021: 0 Industrial power cost per kWh: $7.11 Total Revenue as Share of Total Expenses, FY 2004-2019: 104.7% 2020 Workers’ Comp Index Rate: 1.81 M IS SOU RI by SAVANNAH KING savannah.king@siteselection.com S T A TE SPO TLIGHT MISSOURI Selected Top Projects of 2020 by Jobs Created COMPANY CITY CAPEX $M Accenture Federal Services LLC St. Louis 1400 Chewy, Inc. Belton 1200 Amazon.com, Inc. Republic 500 Benson Hill Biosystems, Inc. St. Louis 300 White River Marine Group, LLC Bolivar 300 Fedex Ground Package System, Inc. Kansas City 300 Source: Conway Projects Database Kansas City, Missouri Photo: Getty Images E-commerce Companies Find ‘Prime’ Locations in the Show-Me State Amazon’s presence in Missouri has been growing since , when it opened its fi rst fulfi llment center in St. Peters. At the time, the e-commerce juggernaut expected to hire around , people to man the facility. Today that fulfi llment center has , employees and is still growing. Amazon must like what it sees in the Show-Me State, because it has made several new investments in recent months. In November , Amazon opened a new .-million-sq.- ft. distribution and fulfi llment center in Republic, located on the outskirts of Springfi eld in the southwestern part of the state. By creating new full-time jobs, the investment makes Amazon the largest employer in the city and is expected to have a massive economic impact. A few months later, Amazon announced plans to open a new ,-sq.-ft. “sort center” in St. Louis to sort packages before they’re sent to delivery stations and partner carriers for last-mile delivery to customers. e company expects to create hundreds of new jobs at this facility as well. In April, Amazon invested in Missouri again with a new delivery center in Blue Springs in the Kansas City area. e new facility is expected to begin operations later this year. “ is facility will not only bring jobs to Blue Springs, but it also fi lls a vacant industrial building in our community,” said Blue Springs Mayor Carson Ross. “We are proud to see companies like Amazon investing in our community and creating more opportunities for our residents.” “We look forward to becoming part of the fabric of the Blue Springs community and are thrilled to be able to expand our operations in Missouri,” said Amazon spokeswoman Nikki Wheeler. “Amazon is a great place to work and grow professionally. We’re grateful for the support we’ve received National Rankings Source: Site Selection State of the States Report, January 2021 Higher Ed. R&D Expenditure in $000s: 1,183,608 Number of NCRCs: 137,334 | Percent Improvement 2019–2020: 7.21% Business Tax Climate Rank Change 2020–2021: +3 Industrial power cost per kWh: $7.38 Total Revenue as Share of Total Expenses, FY 2004-2019: 101.9% 2020 Workers’ Comp Index Rate: 1.68Next >