< Previous76 MAY 2024 SITE SELECTION SOUTH CENTRAL 1 Texas 2 Kentucky 3 Louisiana 4 Alabama 5 Tennessee 6 Oklahoma 7 Arkansas 8 Mississippi SOUTH ATLANTIC 1 Georgia 2 North Carolina 3 South Carolina 4 Florida 5 Virginia 6 West Virginia 7 Delaware 8 Maryland EAST NORTH CENTRAL 1 2 Ohio 2 1 Indiana 3 3 Michigan 4 4 Illinois 5 5 Wisconsin BY REGION Source: Conway Projects Database Georgia won by playing the long game and by combining its talent, infrastructure and industrial diversity with recent measures led by Governor Brian Kemp that make the state highly competitive this year and for years to come. It’s also about doing what has worked so well in the past. “We’ve been consistent,” says Georgia Department of Economic Development Commissioner Pat Wilson. “Over the past years, Georgia has been consistently pro-business. It’s about creating a partnership environment where businesses can be profi table and create opportunities for Georgians and making it easier for them to compete and create jobs, to move to Georgia and to expand once they’re here.” Commissioner Wilson points to the GEORGIA MATCH direct- admissions initiative as a recent example of Governor Kemp’s determination to meet challenges — workforce development in this case — head on. Launched in October , the program connects the state’s technical colleges and universities directly with high school students, including those who may not be considering postsecondary education pathways. “When they graduate, students get a letter from the governor telling them the schools they’ve been accepted to based on their grades, their graduation status and their interest level,” says Wilson. “ at activates a network that reaches out to them and hopefully catches them before we lose them to whatever comes next. Companies are fascinated by this because it will help get students into a skills program or a technical college and become an apprentice at companies that supply automotive companies, for example. In Georgia, students can go to a technical school tuition-free.” International Win-Wins Georgia’s international presence gives it a competitive edge, too. Its offi ces in Japan and Europe have been in place for fi ve decades — since Jimmy Carter was governor, notes Wilson. “Every time I go back to Germany, or Governor Kemp goes to South Korea, for example, we meet with companies and create new partnerships that pay off in the form of opportunities on this side of the ocean too,” he says. In FY, foreign direct investment accounted for % of capital investment in Georgia, or over $ billion. And last year was Georgia’s third year in a row for record-breaking international trade. “Many of these international companies investing in Georgia pay very well, they are focused on taking care of their people, and that raises the standard of living in the communities where they invest,” says Wilson. “ ere is a mutual benefi t. e state has worked hard to maintain these relationships, and the companies have paid back by becoming part of the fabric of their communities.” Infrastructure, Transportation and Housing On January , Governor Kemp gave his annual remarks to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s Eggs & Issues legislative preview event. He pledged additional investment in several areas that he says will boost economic growth going forward, particularly in rural areas. “In the budget proposals my offi ce will unveil tomorrow, we will invest $ million of new state funds into the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority for local water and sewer projects across the state,” said the governor. “ ese new investments will raise the fund’s capacity for new projects to $ million and the overall portfolio to nearly $ million. It will also give Georgia a competitive edge in attracting even more job creation to our state, especially in our rural communities. When it comes to attracting new companies to our state or incentivizing existing businesses to expand, the more the state can do from a water and sewer perspective, the more likely we are to land that project. at means more jobs, more growth and more opportunity in zip codes that need it the most.” Another involves transportation infrastructure. e governor’s budget recommendation includes $. billion for transportation projects that move commuters and freight. “With the funds provided in our amended budget, these projects will accelerate GDOT’s existing project pipeline, enabling the agency to work further down its list of priority projects that includes those related to Georgia’s two largest economic development projects in state history,” said the governor. “ is funding will also enable us to establish a new program focused on freight infrastructure projects that improve effi ciency, safety and reliability for the transportation of goods.” Additionally, said the governor, $ million will go to the state’s Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant, doubling the amount available to local governments for Fiscal Year to $ million. e funds are earmarked for local road engineering, construction, paving and maintenance. PACIFIC 1 California 2 Washington 3 Oregon 4 Alaska 5 Hawaii NORTHEAST 1 Pennsylvania 2 New York 3 Connecticut 4 New Hampshire 5 Massachusetts 6 Maine 7 New Jersey 8 Vermont 9 Rhode Island BY REGION 78 MAY 2024 SITE SELECTION80 MAY 2024 SITE SELECTION Aff ordable housing supply factors into site decisions more every year, and lack of it can send location seekers looking elsewhere. In , Georgia created the Workforce Housing Fund with an investment of $. million to help local development and housing authorities prepare land for housing where economic development projects are locating. is year, the governor proposed an additional $ million in the amended budget and $ million in base funding for the FY budget for the Fund. The Secret Sauce Two recent projects are among many that demonstrate Georgia’s competitiveness, says Commissioner Wilson, and for diff erent reasons. “I have to talk about Hyundai, which is a bellwether project,” he says. “It’s generational, and it changes the state.” In May , the South Korean OEM announced a $. billion project to build EV and battery manufacturing facilities in Bryan County. As documented in this year’s list of Top Deals of elsewhere in this issue, the project has since grown to a $. billion, ,-job “Metaplant,” while Hyundai and SK On also are building a $ billion EV battery cell plant in Bartow County between Atlanta and Athens. “You learn more from a loss than from a win,” Wilson says. “We lost the Volvo project to South Carolina, which led us to get that mega site ready by purchasing the property, working on utilities and workforce. It gave us the initiative we needed to become very solutions oriented. And we won the Hyundai project, which is a legacy project for Governor Kemp.” e second, says Wilson, is Italian pasta sauce producer La Regina Atlantica, which invested $ million in a food processing facility in Alma, Georgia, in southeastern Bacon County, creating jobs. e facility is a former baking plant that had employed and closed. “During COVID with people working from home, the demand for pasta sauce went through the roof,” he relates. “I went to Italy to recruit them at that time, wearing a mask, and they picked Alma, the largest blueberry-producing location in the country. e beauty of this project is that while they’re importing their tomatoes through the Port of Savannah, they’re purchasing onions, peppers, mushrooms and basil from Georgia farmers — over of them have been touched by this location.” How did the state provide solutions during the process of siting a plant in southeast Georgia? “It was an interesting time — they needed help getting into the United States,” says Wilson, “to come see the facility, for visas, getting fl ights. e building needed attention and updates, and the state partnered with them on that. It was truly a partnership approach, and it highlights very well that our goal always is to help companies get to where they need to be as quickly as possible. at’s what drives us, and it’s what will continue to make the state successful.” WEST NORTH CENTRAL 1 Kansas 2 Missouri 3 South Dakota 4 Nebraska 5 Iowa 6 Minnesota 7 North Dakota MOUNTAIN 1 Arizona 2 Nevada 3 Utah 4 Colorado 5 New Mexico 6 Montana 7 Idaho 8 Wyoming BY REGION82 MAY 2024 SITE SELECTION O ntario makes a lot of cars. Québec does not. But the French-speaking province is getting into the global EV sweepstakes by pursuing an end- to-end EV battery strategy that begins with its abundance of critical minerals such as graphite, cobalt, lithium and nickel and has come to include U.S.- style incentives. e strategy hit max paydirt in September, when Sweden’s Northvolt committed to one of Québec’s biggest-ever investments, a $ billion EV battery hub in Saint-Basile-le-Grand and McMasterville, just east of Montréal. Québec’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Francois- Philippe Champagne characterized the news as “more than just a battery cell manufacturing project. It is the culmination,” he said, “of our desire to attract the world’s biggest players” in the green economy. He said Northvolt chose the Québec location from among more than prospective worldwide sites. While Northvolt offi cials touted Québec’s evolving supply of critical minerals, its abundant green hydropower and “world class talent,” the deal only came to fruition after the federal and provincial governments off ered a package of incentives that roughly matches what the company might have received in the United States through the Infl ation Reduction Act. Northvolt will qualify for up to $ billion* each from Canada and Québec, with “operating support provided” only available for as long as IRA incentives remain in place. e Northvolt facility, which is to employ up to , people, would be one of the largest battery plants in North America when it begins production in . Offi cials say its range of capacities will be nigh unmatched outside of Asia. An Untapped Abundance of Critical Minerals Karim Zaghib, professor of chemical and materials engineering at Concordia University in Montréal, has served as a senior advisor to Québec’s EV strategy group. Proclaiming in an interview that one “cannot fi nd another place in the world” that has Québec’s concentration of critical minerals for battery production, Zaghib off ers a vivid illustration of the potential behind that. “Take Tesla,” he says. “ ey order the battery from Panasonic in Nevada. e lithium for it is coming from Chile, it’s processed in China and then it goes to Japan. e nickel comes from Indonesia and it’s processed in Japan with materials from China. e cobalt is coming from Congo and goes through Norway, China and Japan. en all of it goes to Nevada.” It’s a process, he suggests, that’s both logistically backwards and environmentally suspect, in particular given the carbon emitted in transit. e challenge for Québec and the rest of North America is setting up a supply chain the whole of which western governments and automakers have been content to cede to China. At least until now, as export restrictions threatened by Beijing combined with the new North America assertiveness have eff ectively changed the game. President Joe Biden states fl atly that “we greatly need Canada” for critical minerals to support EV production. e acquisition in January of a prolifi c deposit in eastern Québec by Montréal based Nouveau Monde Graphite is among the latest steps in that direction. NMG plans to develop it toward a targeted annual production of , tons of graphite concentrate, which would make it “one of the world’s largest graphite projects in development.” It’s NMG’s second graphite project, the signifi cance of that being that currently there is one operational graphite mine in all of North America. NMG’s initial Matawinie mine in southern Québec is far enough along that the company has engineered off take agreements with Panasonic and GM to cover about % of its projected production, according to Julie Paquet, NMG’s vice president of communications and ESG strategy, who says the two companies have committed to investments totaling $ million. by GARY DAUGHTERS gary.daughters@siteselection.com Northvolt investment affi rms aggressive battery strategy. Québec Makes an EV Play QUÉBEC *Unless otherwise noted, dollar fi gures in this article are in Canadian dollars. At press time, the exchange rate was C$1 = US$0.7356.84 MAY 2024 SITE SELECTION by ADAM BRUNS adam.bruns@siteselection.com L ike fl ickering lights, intermittent doubts put some folks on edge about the viability of the EV revolution. Judged by the capital investment, job creation, turning dirt and rising steel at projects around the world, however, the current is strong and steady. TOP DEALS Employees from Hyundai got in on the action at the 200th anniversary St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Savannah in March. The start of production at the $7.59 billion, 8,500-job Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America rising alongside I-16 has accelerated to the fourth quarter of 2024. Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant AmericaNext >