< Previous158 MARCH 2025 SITE SELECTION I n a move that will mark the largest grant awarded under California’s Long-Duration Energy Storage Program, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has approved $42 million in funding to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego for an energy storage project that aims to provide up to 14 days of electricity to the statewide grid and backup power to the base in case of power outages. Camp Pendleton is the Marine Corps’ largest and the Department of Defense’s busiest West Coast expeditionary training facility, sitting on over 125,000 acres in San Diego County. The program, which is funded under Governor Gavin Newsom’s multi-billion-dollar commitment to combat climate change, invests in demonstrations of non-lithium- ion technologies to build a portfolio of 8-hour-plus energy storage technologies. This will be the seventh project to receive grant funding, totaling $170 million to date. “Long-duration and multi-day energy storage technologies will help California achieve its clean energy goals by enhancing how we store power generated by renewable resources,” said CEC Chair David Hochschild. “This landmark energy storage project continues a long collaboration between the Energy Commission and the Camp Pendleton provides training facilities to the U.S. Marine Corps, Army and Navy and supports over 17,000 military families and personnel. Photo courtesy of Camp Pendleton POWERINGPOWERING CAMP PENDLETON SITE SELECTION MARCH 2025 159 military to bring emerging clean technologies to maturity and help reduce pollution, support grid reliability and advance climate solutions.” International Electric Power will lead the project, which is slated to be installed at Camp Pendleton’s Haybarn Energy Reliability Center. It will use zinc hybrid cathode aqueous battery technology that will provide an initial 6 megawatts (MW) or 48 megawatt hours (MWh) with plans to increase capacity to 50 MW or 400 MWh of long- duration energy storage. The project will not only support the state’s goal to move to 100% clean electricity but integrates the necessary infrastructure to support grid reliability and move away from fossil fuel-powered backup electricity generation. This installation will add to the over 13,000 MW of battery energy storage currently available in California. “Since the beginning of my administration, California has been on the front lines of the global battery revolution. We’ve ramped up battery storage capacity by more than 1,600%, bringing us a quarter of the way to meeting our projected need,” said Governor Newsom. “Battery storage projects like this one at Camp Pendleton are vital to building a reliable and resilient electric grid in the face of climate extremes.” The project is expected to become operational by mid-2027. — Alexis Elmore160 MARCH 2025 SITE SELECTION biomanufacturing in Vacaville,” said Mayor John Carli. “The acquisition of the Genentech manufacturing facility by Lonza marks a new chapter in our city’s history.” Don Burrus, economic development director for Vacaville, says that “Vacaville has developed a large cluster of life science firms over the last 30 years.” He welcomes the new investment by Lonza, he says, because “the pay scale there is good and competitive. Over the past four years, we have been implementing an advanced manufacturing strategy, and we have been pretty successful.” Besides Lonza, recent wins include Mettler-Toledo Rainin out of Oakland, which is establishing an instrumentation production operation and headquarters facility in Vacaville, says Burrus. “Being centrally located in the Bay Area between Sacramento and San Francisco helps,” he says. “We have about 102,000 people in the city and about 500,000 people in the county. We are part of the nine-county Bay Area MSA, so finding workers is not a problem for companies that locate here.” Burrus says investment into life sciences projects slowed during and after the pandemic but is now picking up. “The industry has been slow since 2022 due to the cost of money. With the capital markets being in the condition they’re in, almost all projects were put on hold,” he notes. “But we will probably see more activity this year. There is still a lot of interest in the development (continued from p. 157) SITE SELECTION MARCH 2025 161 of production facilities in advanced manufacturing and biologics.” A factor driving growth in the community is pricing. “Our costs are so much lower than being in the Central Bay Area,” says Burrus. “About 40% of the homes sold here are to people moving out of San Francisco to Solano County due to our lower cost of housing and lower cost of living. It is much more affordable all the way around here. We will see continued growth in Solano County and Contra Costa County. Those are the only two areas where there is still room to grow.” California: A Manufacturing Mecca In many ways, the Vacaville biotech sector is emblematic of the rest of the Golden State. A recent study by Biocom California shows that the economic impact of life sciences in California in 2023 was $414.2 billion. The report adds that the sector directly employs 466,888 workers and accounts for $64.3 billion in total labor income. Other leading indicators include: • 16,576 life sciences establishments paying an average annual salary of $146,088 • $59.6 billion in annual private investment into biotech • $34.1 billion in venture capital raised • 7,343 patents filed162 MARCH 2025 SITE SELECTION T he state that ranked No. 2 in Site Selection’s 2024 Sustainability Rankings is only burnishing its green credentials. At the end of January 2025, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the developer of the global LEED green building program, released its annual list of the Top 10 States or Territories for LEED based on LEED-certified gross square footage per capita during the previous calendar year. California came in No. 6 behind per-capita leaders such as No. 1 District of Columbia and No. 2 Massachusetts. But nearly lost in the shuffle is the state’s 437 LEED-certified projects during the year, dwarfing the next closest competitors Texas (205) and New York (170). As of last summer, the state was No. 2 (behind Texas) for total LEED-certified projects at 11,155. It appears to be two-horse race: The next closest competitor — Arizona — had just under 4,400 projects. — Adam Bruns Green Building LEEDer One of the more than 11,000 LEED-certified projects in California is this California Department of General Services building near the state capitol in Sacramento. Photo courtesy of DGS Newswire SITE SELECTION MARCH 2025 163 The manufacturing component of life sciences is one of the state’s largest. Biopharmaceutical firms in the state employ 329,198 direct and indirect workers, per Biocom. Medical device and equipment makers employ another 244,610 people in the state directly or indirectly. The California Manufacturers and Technology Association (CMTA) notes that the total annual output of all manufacturing statewide is $300 billion, or roughly 10% of the total economic output of the state. Manufacturers employ 1.3 million Californians, says CMTA. On average, these factory workers take home $25,000 a year more than the average non-farm workers statewide. Besides biotech, two of the fastest- growing sectors in California now are energy and semiconductor manufacturing. Last July, California won a world-leading Hydrogen Hub investment from the U.S. Department of Energy, supported by $1.2 billion in federal funds. More recently, Fresno State University announced a new partnership to bring semiconductor manufacturing to California’s Central Valley. The partnership among FSU, SEMI, the City of Fresno, the City of Clovis, Fresno County EDC and Silicon Farms aims to bring the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain to Central Valley. 164 MARCH 2025 SITE SELECTION NORTHEAST U.S. P olitical observers might not expect New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and President Donald Trump to agree on much of anything. But neither can hide his distaste for the New York City congestion pricing that went into effect at midnight on January 5, 2025. New U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced in February his department was revoking approval of the just-launched tolling scheme, to which New York Gov. Kathy Hochul responded, “The MTA has initiated legal proceedings in the Southern District of New York to preserve this critical program. We’ll see you in court.” As for Gov. Murphy, “There could not be a worse time to impose a new $9 toll on individuals who are traveling into downtown Manhattan for work, school or leisure,” he said on November 14, 2024, the very day Hochul announced the plan would be implemented. Nine dollars is the charge for a passenger vehicle entering the “Congestion Relief Zone” of the city between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. The charge for a truck or bus is anywhere from $14.40 to $21.60. Taxis and black cars pay $0.75 per trip and app-based for-hire vehicles pay $1.50 per trip “on journeys to, from, within or through the Congestion Relief Zone,” says NYC 311, the city’s official website. The $9 toll is reduced from an original plan to charge $15. The overall MTA Board 2025-2029 capital plan approved in September would spend a total of $68.4 billion, including $47.8 billion for NYC Transit, Staten Island Railway and MTA Bus Company, $6 billion each for Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road, $5.3 billion for major proj- ects and expansion, and $3 billion for MTA Bridges and Tunnels. Site Selection analysis of commuter flow data from the U.S. Census Bureau for the years 2016 to 2020 shows that of the 34 U.S. counties showing flows of more than 1,000 commuters into New York County alone, 21 of them are out of state and 14 of them are in New Jersey, led by 92,561 commuters from Hud- son County and 67,924 in Bergen County. The Commute Matters by ADAM BRUNS adam.bruns@siteselection.com New York Governor Kathy Hochul rides the New York City Subway on November 14, 2024, the day she announced her intention to implement congestion pricing in the city in January 2025. Photo by Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul New York’s new congestion pricing factors into a larger matrix of office location criteria.166 MARCH 2025 SITE SELECTION Altogether, those New Jersey counties account for more than , commuters into New York County. at’s a big reason why the state in January announced a campaign to promote the New Jersey Re-assigning In-State Employees Program (NJ RISE), administered by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) since . e $ million pilot program provides grants to businesses principally located out of state that re-assign New Jersey residents currently assigned to work in a state that employs the “convenience of employer” income taxation rule to work in a New Jersey location. “ e grant is equal to the amount of New Jersey Gross Income Tax withholdings of the re-assigned resident employees during one tax year of the business, not to exceed $, in the aggregate per business,” explains an NJEDA release. “Our fi ght against congestion pricing isn’t over,” said Gov. Murphy in January “and we won’t allow another state to line its coff ers with our hard- earned money.” Insights from Brandywine In early February, fi nancial services fi rm FS Investments, which has over $ billion in assets and nearly employees, announced it had entered into a -year lease for a new global headquarters in Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Yards, owned and operated by Brandywine Realty Trust. “Brandywine’s West Tower in Schuylkill Yards off ered FS state-of-the-art facilities, modern amenities that support attracting top talent and easy access to Amtrak’s William H. Gray III th Street Station, facilitating seamless travel between FS’ headquarters and its second and third largest offi ces in Connecticut and New York, respectively,” Brandywine said. I asked Brandywine Realty Trust President and CEO Jerry Sweeney for his thoughts on congestion pricing in the site selection matrix. “As companies continue to reassess their workplace real estate strategies, we’re seeing a dedicated fl ight to quality, with employers prioritizing locations that off er modern, highly amenitized work environments and seamless access to transit,” he says. “Congestion pricing adds another layer to the decision-making process, reinforcing the value of transit-oriented developments that provide employees with multiple commuting options.” Transit access is one of the major factors that must be integrated into the mixed-use, highly connected workplace of the future, Sweeney says. Meanwhile, “the return-to-offi ce movement is gaining traction,” he says, “and being led by employers who recognize that the right location — one that reduces friction in the daily commute and enhances employee experience — can be a competitive advantage.” A recent INRIX report on global traffi c congestion found New York showed a % increase in commuter transit between and and a % drop in working from home. “ is is likely to increase,” the report stated, “as some major employers have announced plans in to resume a fi ve-day work week.” New Place to Play Ball Also in February, MLB Network, the Major League Baseball content platform, announced that after years in Secaucus, New Jersey, it was moving its operation and offi ce space to Crow Holdings’ newly delivered ,-sq.-ft. building at Market Street in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, on the site of a former paper warehouse that stood for years before it was destroyed by fi re in . An MLB Network offi cial familiar with the location decision says the organization explored more than sites in the tri-state area, including sites in New York and Connecticut as well as New Jersey. Commuting was an important factor. “Knowing where our workforce is centrally located and the feasibility of how they would get to work defi nitely played a role in choosing this site,” the offi cial said, “in addition to fi nding the right infrastructure/technical requirements needed to service MLB Network and our partners well into the future.” Congestion pricing adds another layer to the decision-making process, reinforcing the value of transit-oriented developments that provide employees with multiple commuting options.” — Jerry Sweeney , President and CEO , Brandywine Realty Trust SITE SELECTION MARCH 2025 167 A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)- led study estimated between million and million tons of lithium reserves are located beneath southwestern Arkansas, the agency announced in October . Participating in the study was the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment’s Offi ce of the State Geologist. If commercially recoverable, the amount of lithium present would meet projected world demand for lithium in car batteries nine times over. “Lithium is a critical mineral for the energy transition, and the potential for increased U.S. production to replace imports has implications for employment, manufacturing and supply- chain resilience,” said USGS Director David Applegate. “ is study illustrates the value of science in addressing economically important issues.” e lithium reserves are in a geological unit known as the Smackover Formation, a relic of an ancient sea that left an extensive, porous and permeable limestone geologic unit that extends under parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, according to USGS. “Our research was able to estimate total lithium present in the southwestern portion of the Smackover in Arkansas for the fi rst time,” said Katherine Knierim, a hydrologist and the study’s principal researcher, in a USGS release. “We estimate there is enough dissolved lithium present in that region to replace U.S. imports of lithium and more. It is important by MARK AREND mark.arend@siteselection.com High Hopes for Huge Lithium Reserves SOUTH-CENTRAL Two miles south of Smackover you can fi nd this replica of an oil derrick from the 1920s oil boom at the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources. Now the area is welcoming a lithium boom. Photo courtesy of Arkansas Museum of Natural ResourcesNext >