< Previous38 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N to create up to jobs and deliver , vehicles over a fi ve-year period, commencing in late . e P SUV crossover (formerly MX-) will be the fi rst in Mullen’s line of fully electric vehicles that will be manufactured at this facility. Mullen is currently working on mid-stage design eff orts for the P in Southern California. Once completed, Mullen will begin building prototype vehicles at the newly acquired facility in Tunica for initial engineering development and certifi cation. Simultaneously, Mullen will spend the next months creating the necessary infrastructure and installing the required machinery and equipment for the Memphis facility to support large-scale EV production. “Our Tunica and Memphis facilities arrive at a very important time for Mullen,” said Michery. “Tunica is more cost-eff ective and effi cient, with close proximity to Memphis. Ultimately, this will produce signifi cant savings in time and money. e Memphis factory provides us with the necessary manufacturing footprint to take Mullen to the next level while also helping us create an economic powerhouse in the region. is is a critical point for us and will be very mutually benefi cial for Mullen, Memphis and the state of Tennessee,” he added. ‘Microfactories’ to Produce EVs Another emerging EV hub in the Southeast is the Charlotte, North Carolina, metro area. In December , London, UK-based Arrival picked the Queen City for its North American headquarters. e company makes commercial EVs and has partnered with both public and private organizations, including companies like Hyundai and UPS, to drive the adoption of electric vehicles. Arrival also announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the city of Charlotte, which sets out the company’s intention to work with the city on achieving goals set out in its Strategic Energy Action Plan. Arrival believes its approach can provide cities with the solutions they need to create sustainable urban environments and exceptional experiences for their citizens. Charlotte aims to have city fl eets and facilities be % fueled by zero-carbon sources by . Arrival vehicles will be built in “microfactories,” which it says are lower in capital investment, have a smaller footprint than conventional factories and “have the ability to create signifi cant unit economics and can be placed all over the world to serve local communities, bolstering local communities and economies.” Two microfactory locations have been announced so far — in Rock Hill, South Carolina, part of the Charlotte metro area, for production of electric buses, and West Charlotte for electric delivery vans. Arrival is investing approximately $. million in the West Charlotte production center that can assemble up to , electric delivery vans each year. “Our newest microfactory will be producing two diff erent classes of EV vans for our U.S. customers, expanding the zero-emissions options for fl eet operators and accelerating the mass adoption of electric vehicles,” said Michael Ableson, CEO, Arrival Automotive. Many of the vehicles produced at the Charlotte microfactory are expected to enter the UPS North American fl eet as part of its commitment to purchase up to , vehicles from Arrival in the U.S. and Europe. “At UPS, we’re laser focused on fi nding operational effi ciencies,” said Luke Wake, vice president of maintenance and engineering, UPS Corporate Automotive. “Establishing factories that can quickly serve both the European and North American markets is a masterful use of logistics. We can’t wait to see UPS’s new electric vehicles roll out of this factory as this is also one of many paths UPS is taking to reduce its CO emissions.” Our newest microfactory will be producing two di erent classes of EV vans for our U.S. customers, expanding the zero-emissions options for eet operators and accelerating the mass adoption of electric vehicles.” — Michael Ableson, CEO, Arrival Automotive Our newest microfactory will be producing two Our newest microfactory will be producing two S I T E S E L E C T I O N MAY 2021 39 This investment profile was prepared under the auspices of the Greater Richmond Partnership. For more information, contact Jennifer Wakefield at jwakefield@grpva. com. On the web, go to www.grpva.com. INVES TMENT PROFILE: GREATER RICHMOND, VIRGINIA A Capital Idea: Investors Choose Richmond Pop quiz: Name the mid-sized region on the East Coast that has suddenly become the hot destination for corporate facility investment projects. If you didn’t say Richmond, Virginia, then it’s time for a crash course in current events. On April 21, the world’s largest company, Amazon, announced plans to build a robotics fulfillment center on 119 acres next to the Richmond Raceway in Greater Richmond, Virginia. Expected to open in 2022, the multi-story, high-tech complex will encompass 650,000 sq. ft. and put more than 1,000 Virginians to work in good-paying jobs. Amazon joins a rapidly growing cadre of companies choosing to invest in the capital region of the Old Dominion. Among them are Kinsale Insurance, the Pixel Factory Data Center, advanced manufacturers, and pharmaceutical and biotech firms. We talked with several corporate leaders about their recent expansion decisions, and we kept hearing a common refrain: Richmond offers unparalleled access to key Mid-Atlantic markets, affordable housing and costs of doing business, great support from local and state officials, superior logistics and transportation connectivity, world- class broadband, and a business climate that caters to the needs of employers in need of highly educated and highly skilled workers. “People who grow up in Richmond want to stay here or come back after college,” says Bob Neal, senior vice president of Kinsale Insurance, which just built a five-story, 150,000-sq.-ft. headquarters for its 340 employees. “We are blessed with some really good schools. We attract highly talented individuals from the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Richmond, Hampden-Sydney College, College of William & Mary, Old Dominion University, and many other colleges and universities in this state.” Neal notes that his firm’s Richmond location is “great for obtaining and retaining top talent. We are in an up-and-coming area that people are moving to. This is part of a dense, mixed-use development that is growing and adding amenities. A North Carolina developer is putting up a five-story apartment building right next to us.” Scott Brown, president of the Pixel Factory Data Center, predicts that Greater Richmond will become the next frontier of the Eastern Virginia data center market. “The subsea cables to Virginia Beach come right through Richmond,” he says. “The new subsea cables provide low latency to Europe. The confluent network from Florida to New Jersey provides low latency to the key markets of New York and New Jersey.” The trump card for Richmond, Brown adds, is that it offers a huge bargain to end-users compared to Loudoun County in Northern Virginia, the world’s largest and premier data center market. “Land for data centers there now goes for over $1.7 million an acre,” says Brown. “The cost of land here is 70% less, and we are only 115 miles away. Plus, if you decide to locate your business in Richmond, community leaders will roll out the red carpet for you.” He notes that “Richmond is still a developing market where everyone is willing to open the door and think outside the box. We get great cooperation from economic developers.” by RON STARNER ron.starner@siteselection.com Bob Neal Senior Vice President, Kinsale Insurance Kinsale Insurance employs 340 in a new five-story HQ in Henrico County, Virginia. Photo courtesy of Kinsale Insurance40 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N Before digital imaging took over, photography was a chemical-intensive business (often leaving behind toxic traces as well as beautiful photographs). Today the photo industry giants have shifted that chemical expertise to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and other biopharma applications. at shift is gaining further impetus from the pandemic- induced push to reshore to the U.S. some of the biopharma supply chain. A decade ago Site Selection pro led in these pages the $ billion investment decision by Novartis to construct a u vaccine plant in Holly Springs, North Carolina, that would employ people (it now operates as Seqirus). Ten years later, the stakes have doubled in Holly Springs: In March , Fuji lm Corp., the Japanese corporation with $ billion in revenues, announced the town near Raleigh in the Research Triangle Park (RTP) region would be the location for the company’s new $ billion large-scale cell culture production site, scheduled to create jobs by the end of . Fuji lm Diosynth Biotechnologies will operate the facility, which will be the largest end-to-end cell culture contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) facility in North America. It is expected to be operational by spring . e decision came after the company earlier in the year had announced its intent to invest at one of its U.S. sites, without yet knowing where that nal decision would land. I checked in with FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies CEO Martin Meeson before and after the nal decision, and learned that initially all company sites in the U.S. (in states) were on the table, not just the major sites in College Station, Texas, and North Carolina, by ADAM BRUNS adam.bruns@siteselection.com What does the world of photography have to do with the drug business? It’s all about having the right chemistry. ‘Line of Sight’ Drives Fujifi lm Diosynth Biotechnologies’ $2B Project to North Carolina ‘Line of Sight’ Drives Fujifi lm Diosynth Biotechnologies’ $2B Project to North Carolina Fu jifi lm HEAL TH TECH & LIFE SCIENCE CENTERS42 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N where Fuji lm Diosynth has its HQ. e company in January announced production had begun for two COVID- vaccine candidates at its exible biomanufacturing facility in College Station that had just expanded. Fuji lm is a subcontractor of the Texas A&M University System Center for Innovation in Advanced Development & Manufacturing (CIADM). Did the deliberate choice to announce the $ billion intent without having chosen a nal location mean states came courting? “Yes, we are getting contacted by many locations and having discussions with many states within the U.S.,” Meeson told me in February from company o ces located on the borderline between Cary and Morrisville in Greater Raleigh.“It’s really just about the way we transact our business. We try to be open about what we do … there’s only so much we can do in secret. Ourselves and the board felt it was best to be open about our desire to be in the U.S., and it sends a good and strong message to our customer base.” After the April decision favoring Holly Springs, he told me, “We had some strong partnership conversations with several locations. As you can imagine, we had quite a strong bid from North Carolina from the start. Governor Roy Cooper has focused on biotech and is maintaining that focus. But there was a strong push from Texas too. North Carolina was always a strong contender, and as we went through the last weeks, we really started to lock in on why that would be a good place for us to choose.” Among the leading questions to be answered: “How easy is it going to be to create this asset and stand it up into operation?” says Meeson. Alignment with future goals was important too, as the company looks years and decades ahead. Sustainability Showcase Part of the wider RTP region, Holly Springs itself has assembled a strong biotech community, he says, with strong links to North Carolina State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University. “ e Holly Springs council really came forward with some strong proposals about how they would help us to run that facility, and make it very attractive,” Meeson says. Factors in the site selection included ease of access to the space by clients; the cost of creating and maintaining infrastructure; time and ease of further development; and the sustainability of the location in environmental, human and asset longevity terms. “You need to see ve to years out to make sure you have the line of sight for infrastructure that has what you need,” he says. For the corporate sustainability pro le, he says, it’s important to Obviously the U.S. is the largest market for this particular class of molecules we make, so it was a natural choice.” — Martin Meeson, CEO, Fujifi lm Diosynth Biotechnologies Obviously the U.S. is the largest States with Fujifi lm operations44 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N determine how the operating environment will help Fujifilm attain its governance goals. “This is becoming an increasingly important factor, and can be a real differentiator.” Now that the location is chosen, it’s an opportunity to put sustainability at the heart of a facility design, rather than trying to inject it into an older complex, Meeson says. “We’re working strongly with the team and local colleges in terms of the actual build,” he says. “The state itself has a push for clean energy as well, so we’re early on having talks with Duke Energy. We’re excited to see how we can really build and showcase some of the sustainability aspects of this project.” Transformation Right Before Your Eyes But back up a minute: How do we trace the threads between photography and life-changing advances in biochemistry? A helpful explainer sent to me by Fujifilm brings the picture to life as clearly as a print in a darkroom tray: “At the turn of the current century, Fujifilm’s ‘photo related’ product lines — including cameras and film — were more than half of its revenue,” says the company. In March 2020 the company reported that figure has been reshaped to less than 20% as part of the company’s diversification strategy.” Fujifilm was already predicting digitalization by the beginning of the 1980s, and by the early 2000s had launched “a rigorous evaluation to determine what ways the company could thrive, if analog film production were to go away. Fujifilm leveraged its centers of excellence, including its proprietary core assets — nanotechnologies in chemistry, mechanics, optics, electronics and imaging — breakthroughs that its film and camera legacies had given the company.” Fujifilm’s expertise in its main product — color photographic films — proved particularly fruitful in the development of businesses in biopharmaceuticals, regenerative medicine, display materials and cosmetics. “Color film requires very advanced technologies for evenly applying as many as 20 different photosensitive layers of different functions into film measuring just 20 microns,” the company explains, “then precisely arranging in each of the layers over 100 types of compounds — including color-sensing and color-producing particles. The disciplines of process control, quality assurance, and microscopic analysis from Fujifilm’s color film advances have proved to be very transferable to the current state of microbiological and pharmaceutical research and manufacturing.” That includes the high-precision world of regenerative medicine R&D, where “Fujifilm now is one of the only companies in the world that possesses the tissue engineering triad necessary for regenerative medicine — cells, scaffolds, and cell culture medium/cytokine.” Like a highly engineered therapy itself, today’s Fujifilm grew from being able to steer legacy assets and capabilities toward new targets. Busy Portfolio It’s just one project among many for the Japanese giant, whose investments over the past several years include expansions in both College Station and Raleigh; Billingham on Teesside in the UK; Tilburg, Netherlands; Madison, Wisconsin; Tokyo and Hillerød, Denmark, where the company last fall pledged to invest $928 million after acquiring the site for $890 million from Biogen. Ground was broken for the new Denmark expansion earlier this year. Meeson says the team is leveraging that work in Denmark for its U.S. project with the goal of a globalized standard for how the facilities are operated. In January, Fujifilm Diosynth announced a $40 Eastman Business Park is where Kodak will invest in growing its pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities, thanks in part to new company financial support announced in early March. Photo courtesy of Eastman Business ParkAMAZINGLY WITTY SIDEBAR HEADLINE Officae cumque quis magnatempore nos con pliquo eneture hendem sequamus alibusam que parum la conem esed que pror sitatemqui undemporeste eum dolecae endi audi audiatat dissusdae ni cum iur, utatquid quideli genimagnime repero conemporibea que pliqui con proratem et plab int aborro minto etur magnis aliaepe rferovidus et est, cusandaes corrovi ducieni asinum inverrovit exceat la sam que sitassi ium nectur aut faceaquia sam fuga. Et landicae pore comni con re ereius ut asperum lab in porerorum que prate parciliquat. Rati sintus eum quisqui ad quiatem quibus, corum aut fugia cus, serum ea voluptat aut quiat. To dent voloresero iur atquiaessi doluptur sint dolorecta quas idesequiatur simagnis iduciassi ut fugita des escipsam dolum aut elitat. Olor aut fuga. Ro voluptae velecatquat ommodit facea veni culparum int qui vellore odist dem repudita cor reperro imporibus dolorepera quatqui dolessi tatur? Qui cus ni ut laboreiciis aces ernam dolupisim ut re vollabore cus doluptam qui alitatu rectatis am, corum inum re nobis ex et dolorio. Orerchil 46 MAY 2021 S I T E S EL E C T I O N million investment in a new process development and manufacturing facility for viral vectors and advanced therapies in the growing Boston-area life sciences magnet of Watertown, Massachusetts. The company secured $76 million in financing and signed a lease for a 40,000-sq.-ft. site in at The Arsenal on the Charles, owned and operated by Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. Fujifilm and Alexandria are two of many prominent partners in the new Massachusetts Center for Advanced Biological Innovation and Manufacturing (CABIM) located at The Arsenal. “I’ll take a risk and say it’s quite unique in the world,” Meeson says of the life sciences ecosystem in Greater Boston, though he says there are pockets in Europe and the UK in particular, and clusters are building in other areas that are similar in density. Fujifilm’s Holly Springs project is not the only life sciences facility landing in North Carolina either. Recent investment announcements include medical genetics company Invitae’s April decision to open a 350-job lab and production facility in Wake County; pharmaceutical process development and manufacturing services company Raybow USA’s decision to triple capacity and workforce in Brevard with a 74- job, $15.8 million expansion; Thermo Fisher Scientific’s j500-job expansion in Greenville; Biogen’s newly announced $200 million, 90-job gene therapy facility at its 1,700-employee RTP campus; and San Diego-based contract manufacturer Abzena’s decision this spring to open a new 325-job facility in Sanford with a $213 million investment. The 1.2-million-sq.-ft. pre-filled injector gigafactory from Apiject is rising in RTP as well, with 15 isolated S I T E S E L E C T I O N MAY 2021 47 production lines, a potential $785 million investment and 650 new jobs. All told, says NC Biotech, expansions announced in 2020 will bring more than $2.3 billion in investment and 2,800 new jobs in biopharma manufacturing to the state in coming months and years. De-Risking the Supply Chain Meeson says all investment decisions are based on demand evaluation. “That always has to be the place you start,” he says. “We get line of sight on demand, line of sight with the way the market is growing,” then evaluate the capabilities of the company and its supply chain partners against that. The Denmark decision came first because it leverages the capabilities of that site as the company looks to build its ability to do large-scale antibody manufacturing. “But as you make that first decision,” Meeson told me in February, before the final U.S. decision was made, “it springs into your mind what the next will be. The conversation around that has been ongoing for several months. There was a lot of evaluation,” which led to a slightly more difficult decision. “Do you go again in Denmark? Or do you start to push out into other locations? Obviously the U.S. is the largest market for this particular class of molecules we JLL’s diagram for what makes a successful life sciences cluster accurately describes many of the places Fujifilm and other companies have chosen to grow their operations. Chart courtesy of JLL Next >