< Previous158 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N 2024. “Axiom’s work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research, and technology demonstrations in low Earth orbit,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “We are transforming the way NASA works with industry to benefit the global economy and advance space exploration.” “Axiom exists to provide the infrastructure in space for a variety of users to conduct research, discover new technologies, test systems for exploration of the moon and Mars, manufacture superior products for use in orbit and on the ground, and ultimately improve life back on Earth,” said Axiom co-founder Michael Suffredini. Houston is home to more than 250 companies involved in aircraft or space vehicle manufacturing, research and technology. Centene Corporation | Charlotte, North Carolina $1 BILLION, 3,200 JOBS As Site Selection Executive Vice President Ron Starner reported in our September issue, St. Louis- based Centene, the largest Medicaid managed care operation in the U.S., in July announced it would build a $1 billion eastern U.S. headquarters in the University area of Charlotte. The move could bring up to 6,000 workers in the long run. A state, city and county incentives package estimated to be worth up to $450 million over four decades was larger than the offer made by Tampa, but smaller than an offer involving York County, South Carolina (part of the Charlotte metro area). In a highly publicized interview, CEO Michael Neidorff said efforts to lure top talent to St. Louis were being stymied by the area’s crime rate and poor image. “Charlotte is an alternative and a viable alternative if we can’t fix things here,” he told St. Louis radio station KMOX. “With that,” Starner wrote, “the $100 billion company, ranked 42nd on the Fortune 500, embarked on its East Coast odyssey. It helped that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper this year signed into law a bill labeled ‘Medicaid Transformation,’ officially turning the Tar Heel State into a managed care Medicaid state, after vetoing a similar bill in 2019.” “They have said that as they scaled up in St. Louis, the size of the talent pool has been a factor,” Chris Chung, the CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina who previously served with the Missouri Partnership, told Starner. “They have just about tapped out the talent they need there. They need to establish other locations to tap into wider talent pools.” Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (Stellantis) | Windsor, Ontario $986 MILLION, 2,000 JOBS A new union agreement agreed to in October with Unifor was a major turning point in confirming this investment by FCA at a location originally constructed in 1928. Investment could climb to between C$1.3 billion and $1.5 billion. FCA has agreed to invest in a multi-energy vehicle platform at the Windsor Assembly Plant that will enable the assembly of both plug–in hybrid vehicles and battery electric vehicles, with at least one new model in 2025. Institutional support helps: FCA Canada recently was named Co-op/Internship Employer of the Year by the Co-op, Career and Employment Services department at the University of Windsor, which is also home to the company’s Automotive Research and Development Centre (ARDC). The Ontario government is investing $9.3 million in 11 training projects at auto manufacturers (Ford and Fiat Chrysler), industry associations, training providers and public universities and colleges to help approximately 2,000 people prepare for auto and advanced manufacturing careers. General Motors | Hamtramck, Michigan $2.2 BILLION, 2,200 JOBS GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck complex will be its first assembly plant to be 100% devoted to electric vehicles, including GM’s first all-electric pickup truck scheduled to begin production late this year. “The support from the state of Michigan was a key element in making this investment possible,” said GM President Mark Reuss. “This investment helps ensure that Michigan will remain at the epicenter of the global automotive industry as we continue our journey to an electrified future.” GM will also invest an additional $800 million in supplier tooling and other projects related to the launch of the new electric trucks. Since the fall of 2018, GM has committed to invest more than $2.5 billion in Michigan to bring electric vehicles to market through investments at Orion assembly, GM battery lab in Warren, Brownstown and Hamtramck. General Motors | Oshawa, Ontario $762 MILLION, 1,400 JOBS “Subject to ratification of our 2020 agreement with Unifor, General Motors plans to bring pickup production back to the Oshawa Assembly Plant while making additional investments at the St. Catharines Propulsion Plant and Woodstock Parts Distribution Center,” said GM Canada President and S I T E S E L E C T I O N MAY 2021 159 Baoneng Motor Co., Ltd. | Xi’an, Shaanxi, China $151 MILLION, 10,000 JOBS Blackhall Studios | Reading, England, United Kingdom $195 MILLION, 1,500 JOBS Britishvolt | Blyth, England, United Kingdom $3.5 BILLION, 3,000 JOBS Brose | Pancevo, Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodinaj, Serbia $129 MILLION, 1,100 JOBS CEAT Ltd. | Kanchipuram (Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India $200 MILLION, 1,000 JOBS Celltrion | Songdo, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea $453 MILLION, 3,000 JOBS Egyptian Cement Group | Sohag, Egypt $285 MILLION, 2,000 JOBS Fiat Chrysler Automobiles | Hyderabad, Telangana, India $150 MILLION, 1,000 JOBS Kalyon Group | Ankara, Turkey $400 MILLION, 1,400 JOBS Koch Industries/SASA Polyester | Adani, Turkey $935 MILLION, 400 JOBS Microvention, Inc. | Alajuela (San Jose), Costa Rica $80 MILLION, 2,000 JOBS Ola Electric Mobility | Hosur, Tamil Nadu, India $320 MILLION, 2,182 JOBS Pepsico | Novosibirsk, Novosibirskaya Oblast’, Russia $159 MILLION, 900 JOBS Pinewood Group Ltd. | Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom $534 MILLION, 3,500 JOBS Porsche | Piešťany, Trenciansky kraj, Slovakia $295 MILLION, 1,200 JOBS Samsung Electronics | Noida (Delhi), Uttar Pradesh, India $700 MILLION, 1,500 JOBS Siemens Healthineers | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India $190 MILLION, 1,800 JOBS Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. | Hsinchu, Taiwan $23 BILLION, 4,000 JOBS Toyo Tire Corporation | Indjija, Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina, Serbia $466 MILLION, 560 JOBS Yageo Corporation | Kaohsiung, Taiwan $631 MILLION, 3,000 JOBS T OP 20 INTERNA TIONAL DEALS OF 20 20 (Visit SiteSelection.com in May to read full descriptions of the 20 International Top Deals listed here.) General Motors President Mark Reuss (right) greets Michigan Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in January 2020 at the GM Detroit- Hamtramck Assembly Plant where he announced a $2.2 billion investment at the plant. Photo courtesy of GM162 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N Managing Director Scott Bell in early November upon reaching a tentative agreement with Unifor in 2020 Contract Bargaining. Construction at Oshawa Assembly includes a new body shop and flexible assembly module, to support a fast response to strong customer demand for GM’s new family of pickup trucks. Oshawa pickup production is targeted to begin in January 2022. “Pickups are GM’s largest and most important market segment in Canada and across the continent,” GM said. “They also help GM fund our transition to the electric, autonomous and highly connected future we see ahead.” The automaker also has made a C$1 billion commitment to make its Ingersoll plant in Ontario its first Canadian plant 100% devoted to electric vehicles. Great Plains MDF | Kneehill County, Alberta $563 MILLION, 1,000 JOBS A couple thousand miles to the west, this fiber board manufacturer is locating a new mill between the communities of Three Hills and Trochu in a county northeast of Calgary, just southeast of Red Deer. Not only will it be the world’s largest medium-density fiber board mill, but it will be the first to use wheat straw instead of wood — 800,000 metric tons of it a year, to be precise. Brian McLeod, president and chairman of the board at Great Plains, has stated the company’s overall plan involves five mills and five value-added centers to accompany them. Water supply was an important factor in the negotiations, according to a report in the East Central Alberta Review, as are relationships with farmers in the region. Plans call for half of the production to be sold in the U.S., and 30% in the rest of the world. Grön Fuels | Baton Rouge, Louisiana $9.2 BILLION, 1,025 JOBS Fidelis Infrastructure, LP and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber announced on Earth Day 2021 a major milestone in the development of this carbon-negative renewable fuel complex at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge: Fidelis’ portfolio company, Grön Fuels, LLC, had received its Minor Source Air Permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The first phase of the project is a 63,000-barrel-per- day Grön Fuels production facility that Fidelis expects will achieve final investment decision in 2021. The total complex is projected to result in more than 5,000 direct and indirect quality jobs and be implemented over an approximately 10-year period. The facility will produce green hydrogen, renewable diesel, arctic spec renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuels and bio-plastic feedstocks. Situated strategically at the crossroads of rail, deep water ports, the Mississippi River and national pipeline connectivity, the Grön Fuels complex will leverage a strong local workforce as global markets continue to increase demand for low carbon energy, materials and consumer goods. Lordstown Motors | Lordstown, Ohio $423 MILLION, 1,570 JOBS “Everything we do is with the worker in mind,” says Steve Burns, CEO of southwest Ohio’s Workhorse and founder and CEO of Lordstown Motors Corp., “both the worker that’s making the truck, and the worker that’s going to drive it.” After shutting its Lordstown plant in late 2018, GM in November 2019 sold it to Lordstown Motors, which will make a version of the all-electric utility and delivery vehicle Workhorse has been working on for a decade, with a potential $5 billion contract with the U.S. Postal Service looming as the ultimate prize. The company also has developed a prototype electric pickup called the Endurance that made its debut in June. Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel has led efforts to support Lordstown Motors with training and engineering programs, abetted by the school’s new $11 million Excellence Center, an advanced manufacturing and workforce education center. Netflix, Inc. | Albuquerque, New Mexico $1 BILLION, 1,000 JOBS The Albuquerque City Council approved two ordinances related to city funding of a $7 million Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) grant and a $500 million Industrial Revenue Bond (IRB) to support this investment by Netflix at ABQ Studios, which were just established in the region in 2018. The expansion will add 300 acres to the company’s existing space at ABQ in Albuquerque’s Mesa Del Sol area, said a release from the state, which is kicking in $17 million in LEDA funding and leasing 130 acres via the New Mexico Land Office. The IRB will partially abate property and other taxes over a 20-year term for the first $500 million investment by Netflix to build out the production facility. “New Mexico provides an outstanding production and business environment in close proximity to Los Angeles with some of the best crews and creative talent in the world,” Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at the November announcement. The megaproject may have hinged on a chance conversation nearly three years ago, when Alicia Keyes, now New Mexico’s Cabinet Secretary for Economic Development, was film liaison for the Albuquerque Film Office and was mulling ways to S I T E S E L E C T I O N MAY 2021 163 better leverage ABQ Studios. Netflix, at the time, was juggling several productions in the area. “I was talking on the phone with a friend at Netflix,” Keyes told Site Selection’s Gary Daughters, “when he mentioned having to fly executives back and forth each week between L.A. and Albuquerque. And I just said to him, ‘Why are you guys not buying ABQ?’ ” Northrop Grumman | Ogden, Utah $380 MILLION, 2,250 JOBS The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) announced this expansion in January 2020. “This project could create jobs for Hill Air force Base for generations to come,” said Val Hale, GOED executive director. Northrop Grumman has more than 5,100 employees across the state, primarily located in Bacchus, Clearfield, Ogden, Promontory and Salt Lake. The company may earn up to 30% of the new state taxes it will pay over the 20-year life of the agreement in the form of a Utah Legislature-authorized Economic Development Tax Increment Finance (EDTIF) tax credit. “Northrop Grumman is the state’s largest private sector employer in aerospace and defense, and they continue to demonstrate their confidence in doing business here,” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “On a broader level, we as Utahns can be proud of what this means in terms of national defense and global security.” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. | Phoenix, Arizona $12 BILLION, 1,600 JOBS Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is making a mammoth bet on U.S. production and competitiveness even without a national U.S. industrial strategy in place. In May, the manufacturing giant announced the project would be in greater Phoenix. By the end of the year, a 1,129-acre tract in north Phoenix had been chosen. As reported by AZ Central, Phoenix was able to secure the deal after Mayor Kate Gallego and Chris Mackay, the city’s economic development director, visited Taiwan in 2019 to pitch the city to TSMC, The Phoenix City Council is supporting the project 164 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N with US$205 million in infrastructure funding to connect the site to city services and amenities such as streets, water and wastewater. on infrastructure to connect the city to the site, including US$62 million for streets, US$37 million for water infrastructure, and US$107 million on wastewater improvements. Tesla Motors | Del Valle, Texas $1 BILLION, 5,000 JOBS In an earnings call in July, Tesla’s Elon Musk revealed that the “stunning” manufacturing campus site in eastern Travis County “right on the Colorado River” would “basically be an ecological paradise,” and produce the Cybertruck and Semi truck, as well as the Tesla 3 and Tesla Y models for the eastern half of North America. Incentives application documents for the project known by the code name “Project Bob Pole” indicated the manufacturing complex will measure between 4 million and 5 million sq. ft. Eight states were in the running originally, with Texas and Oklahoma the finalists. Tesla is investing in the community through workforce initiatives, technical colleges, and programs for K-12 schools in the Del Valle Independent School District, in a historically underserved community. “Tesla opening a factory in southeast Austin will be transformative for central Texas by adding another layer of diversification and resilience to our economy,” Austin Regional Manufacturers Association Executive Director Ed Latson told me. “It will create high-paying jobs that provide opportunity to all educational backgrounds, from PhDs to GEDs. And it should be a magnet for an entire ecosystem of businesses and suppliers that support automotive plants and their employees.” Toyota Motor Corporation | Guanajuato, Mexico $700 MILLION, 1,000 JOBS Toyota already followed up on this project, opened in early 2020, with a $170-million expansion at its assembly plant in Apaseo el Grande, Guanajuato, that will generate another 500 new jobs on top of these 1,000 jobs. The add-on investment came after the summer signing of the USMCA trade agreement among Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. Toyota is moving all Tacoma pickup production to Guanajuato. “Guanajuato economic development director Jesús Fernando Vera Noble noted that although Toyota’s plant is in Apaseo El Grande, all areas of the industrial corridor from Celaya to Silao, including Salamanca and Irapuato, will be favorably impacted by the economic growth generated by the company,” MexicoNOW reported. Ultium Cells LLC | Lordstown, Ohio $1.5 BILLION, 1,100 JOBS GM reported in November that it continues to advance toward an all-electric, zero-emissions future with the construction of its nearly 3 million-sq.-ft. Ultium Cells LLC battery cell manufacturing facility in Lordstown. Ultium Cells LLC is a joint venture with LG Chem that will mass-produce Ultium battery cells for electric vehicles and create more than 1,100 new jobs in Northeast Ohio. This spring the JV, in the middle of a battery market battle with SK Innovation, announced a sister site in Spring Hill, Tennessee. The Lordstown plant, which will be about the size of 30 football fields, will have annual capacity of more than 30 gigawatt hours and room for expansion. It’s also in the same community as the Lordstown Motors project listed above. Urban Outfitters | Kansas City, Kansas $350 MILLION, 2,000 JOBS Kansas Governor Laura Kelly in August announced that Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters’ Inc. (URBN) new 880,000-sq.-ft. omni-channel distribution center will be located on ancillary land at Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte County. “Our priorities in identifying the home for our new omni-channel distribution center focused on people, and it was the quality of the local workforce and the commitment of their representatives in the state that convinced us this is the right place to be,” said URBN Chief Development Officer Dave Ziel. “This facility will enable us to support continued digital growth at all our brands, and it will allow us to reach our digital customers faster and more efficiently than ever before. As the center of our distribution network this facility makes Kansas a home for us for the long term.” Reporting by the Kansas City Star late in 2020 revealed that Kansas won the project even though its incentive package was less than half of what was offered by a bid from neighboring Kansas City, Missouri. Walmart Inc. | McCordsville, Indiana $600 MILLION, 1,000 JOBS In July Walmart said it will build its biggest distribution facility on farmland outside McCordsville in Hancock County, just north of an I-70 interchange and not far from Indianapolis Regional Airport. The Hancock EDC reported that real estate transfers showed Walmart Fulfillment Services LLC bought more than 200 acres for the site for more than $9.8 million from Century S I T E S E L E C T I O N MAY 2021 165 Soil LP and Brock Farms Inc. The facility will total 2.2 million sq. ft., and include a 2,000-space parking lot. Plans call for the facility to open in fall 2022 and reach full capacity in spring 2024. The site is just two miles from an 800-employee Amazon operation that opened in the fall. Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Walmart up to $1.25 million in conditional tax credits based on the company’s job creation plans and up to $4.75 million in conditional tax credits from the Hoosier Business Investment tax credit program based on the company’s planned capital investment. Hancock County Council approved tax abatements for Walmart’s planned investments of $150 million in real estate and $456 million in personal property equipment. The county is committing to road improvements in the area, and Duke Energy has also offered additional incentives. West Coast Olefins | Prince George, British Columbia $5.6 BILLION, 800 JOBS Founded in 2018 to develop a petrochemical project in B.C., West Coast Olefins (WCO) is on the brink of doing just that, after an initial plan to invest in Prince George’s BCR Industrial Park was temporarily abandoned for a site to the north. But after negotiations with the McLeod Lake Indian Band broke down, the company reversed course and returned to its BCR plan in December. The plan has been opposed by some First Nations (indigenous peoples) and environmental groups. It calls for production of 1 million metric tons a year of polymer-grade ethylene, and would include natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery, extraction and separations plants, as well as downstream polyethylene (PE) production, and potentially a monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant, both to be built by third parties. The business strategy is built on exporting to Asia, not the U.S. Lheidli T’enneh First Nation leaders in the Prince George area have said they do not support the project. But West Coast Olefins president and CEO Ken James has said the negotiation process continues. “This will be the biggest project the city has ever seen,” he said at the original announcement in 2019. 166 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N INVES TMENT PROFILE: SALT RIVER PROJECT, ARIZONA Would Intel invest $ billion in new manufacturing plants at a location where long-term water supply was at risk? Not likely. at’s why the microchip giant picked its -acre Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona, as the location for its newest chip plants. Intel has invested billions of dollars since the s at the southeast Phoenix metro location, which happens to be in the Sonoran Desert. And Intel’s latest projects — and those of other manufacturers in the Valley of the Sun — are moving forward despite the region’s -year megadrought. Doesn’t desert plus drought equal water shortage? Not in Phoenix. “Since , we have been in a megadrought, which researchers tell us is the worst in years,” says Charlie Ester, Manager of Surface Water Resources at Salt River Project (SRP), one of the Phoenix area’s primary power and water providers. “Yet the Phoenix area has not run out of water, and we have had no water restrictions. We request that people conserve water where they can and use it wisely, but that’s it.” at’s because the Phoenix metro has such a reliable and dependable supply of water from a number of sources — the Salt and Verde Rivers, groundwater that underlies the entire Phoenix area and Central Arizona Project water Roosevelt Dam Photo courtesy of SRP Charlie Ester, Manager of Surface Water Resources, Salt River Project Where Water Resiliency Is at Full Pool by MARK AREND mark.arend@siteselection.com S I T E S E L E C T I O N MAY 2021 167 from the Colorado River. “Since the mid-’90s, we’ve recharged more water into the underground aquifer than our reservoirs can hold,” Ester relates. “Effluent can be used as well. All those supplies together and the way we manage our reservoir system results in Phoenix having one of the best and most reliable water supplies of any large western city in the United States. Our reservoirs are 75% full, and there is no reason to believe there will be a water shortage in the near future.” Planning Ahead Since the Early 20th Century After the National Reclamation Act of 1902 was passed, the Salt River Valley Water Users Association (one half of which is today’s Salt River Project, the other half being the Salt River Power District) contracted with the federal government through reclamation for a loan to build Roosevelt Dam. “Once that was built, water became more plentiful,” says Ester. SRP then developed six additional reservoirs — three more on the Salt River, two on the Verde River and one on East Clear Creek in the north. Combined, these reservoirs hold about 2.3 million acre feet of water. Will climate change alter the region’s future water supply? “Even as we look at climate change scenarios out into the future, we cannot find a set of reasonable assumptions that would cause us to have water issues,” Ester relates. “Droughts may become harsher — not longer, but they may become drier. We’ll continue to have these wet and dry cycles we’ve had for hundreds of years. In the coming years, we could change into a wet cycle, and those wet years are likely to be wetter than in the past due to climate change. Overall, we’ll probably see a small but manageable decrease in water supply in the next 50 to 100 years.” But SRP is ahead of even that possibility with measures Ester calls “creative and rather bold steps to bolster our water supply.” One is using a portion of the available 63 feet of flood control space at the top of Roosevelt Dam. “We are embarking on a program to optimize flood control and water management capabilities to ensure that we are able to safely put to use water provided by the large flood events natural to the Salt River. We’re also preparing the infrastructure on the Verde River for the next century of service. This includes looking at ways to improve management of the Verde River to bolster central Arizona’s water supplies.” SRP has three significant water-recharge programs they rely on to boost groundwater levels during drought conditions. Those programs combined have recharged almost 3 million acre feet of water since the mid-90s. These underground reserves serve as support for when the reservoirs go down. The bottom line for industry, says Ester, is this: “Those that might be planning to come here should have confidence that the Salt River Project is planning for the water future of the Phoenix area. The future is bright for the water supply in our area, even with the uncertainty that comes with climate change.” This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of Salt River Project. For more information, go to www.powertogrowphx.com. PROTECTING THE WATERSHED Elvy Barton (pictured) is SRP’s Forest Health Management Principal, specializing in forest restoration projects that protect the 13,000-square-mile watershed, spanning four National Forests. The goal is to ensure a resilient water supply for customers and businesses to grow in the future. “Arizona is not unique in facing challenges many western states are facing when it comes to drought conditions, longer fire seasons and the impacts of those large wildfires,” she relates. “One way SRP is helping manage that risk is being very aggressive in seeking partnerships to ensure we are increasing the pace and scale of restoration in Arizona.” In 2019, for example, SRP worked with the U.S. Forest Service, the Arizona Commerce Authority, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to develop an RFP for awarding contracts to strategically thin over 500,000 acres of forest in the next 20 years to protect against catastrophic wildfire and ensure the quality of Arizona’s watersheds. Contracts for the work are expected to be finalized this summer. “Along with SRP’s leadership and the Governor’s office, state legislature and the federal government, Arizona has put itself in a very unique position where we are ahead of the curve relative to a lot of western states when it comes to restoration,” says Barton. “All the pieces are coming together now so we can tackle these challenges head on and provide a reliable and sustainable water supply to the Valley for the long-term future.”Next >