< Previous184 SEPTEMBER 2025 SITE SELECTION described the forthcoming stadium as “an amazing structure. It doesn’t look real.” Some would say that makes it perfect for the surreal environment of the Strip. They’d also say the impact of sports on the overall metro area and the state is very real indeed, a current drop in visitors notwithstanding. “Las Vegas is the easiest product in the world to sell,” said Steve Hill, CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, seated on stage next to Badain. “We are a platform for events, for sports teams, but really for people with great ideas to come and make them real. We’ve been doing that for decades, and lately for professional sports. I moved here 38 years ago from Dayton, Ohio, and Dayton was about the same size then. Now Vegas is four times the size it was 38 years ago.” The Raiders and the A’s aren’t the only pro sports teams making headlines in Nevada. The National Hockey League’s Vegas Golden Knights play at T-Mobile Arena, where they had only skated six seasons before winning the Stanley Cup in 2023. Hill reminded the audience that Raiders owner Mark Davis made the Vegas commitment before the Golden Knights hit the ice. “Those two owners making that commitment really launched Las Vegas as a sports community,” he said. “Certainly the NFL and the Raiders provide that ‘Good Housekeeping seal of approval.’ We wouldn’t have gotten Formula 1 if we hadn’t gotten Allegiant Stadium.” The next Las Vegas Grand Prix will take place in November and will feature an F1 Business Summit that explores the intersection of sports, entertainment, culture and economic development. Last year’s race attracted 306,000 attendees. The city’s sports roster also includes the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces. Badain said Las Vegas “really came out of nowhere” as a destination for the team. “Las Vegas was always a great sports town,” he explained, listing off its affiliations with boxing, big-time college sports at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the first generation of the former XFL football league and as the birthplace of UFC. Why did it make sense for the Raiders? “Call it 2 million people,” he said of the region. Around 775,000 people “come here for an average of two-and-a- half days. They stay in a hotel, pay a tax of 13.3%. Just people going to Allegiant [comes to] about $50 million a year. I assume they’re going to eat, assume they’re going to gamble. The math made a lot of sense. It’s exceeded every expectation.” T he biggest economic development policy news in Nevada in recent months may have occurred in Washington, D.C. That’s where President Trump in July signed into law the Apex Area Technical Corrections Act brought forward by U.S. Representative Steven Horsford (D-NV). The law modifies the Apex Project, Nevada Land Transfer and Authorization Act of 1989, which provided Clark County, Nevada, with the option to acquire certain federal land referred to as the 18,000-acre Apex Industrial Park site for use as sites for industries that generate hazardous materials (including the Kerr-McGee site). Under the new law, the Department of the Interior must grant utility and transportation rights-of- way to the city of North Las Vegas and the Apex Industrial Park Owners Association for the connection of existing electric power, water, natural gas, telephone, railroad and highway facilities to the Kerr- McGee site and the other lands conveyed in accordance with the bill. “North Las Vegas now has more autonomy to build the infrastructure we need to thrive without facing hurdles from Washington, D.C.,” said Rep. Horsford. “That translates to more jobs, more industries, and more growth in our local economy.” News emanating from the office of Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo and the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) includes GOED approval of $11.2 million in tax abatements for seven companies — Bitdeer Industrial, Carson Manufacturing, Cintas, Crocs, Emisha Innovations, Mary’s Gone Crackers and Sport Squad, Inc. — who expect to create 696 jobs, invest $144 million and generate $82 million inn new tax revenues over the 10-year abatement period. NEW LAW ALLOWS APEX TO AIM HIGHER U.S. Congressman Steven Horsford SITE SELECTION SEPTEMBER 2025 185 Badain sees baseball and the A’s new ballpark meshing well, noting it has better global reach (especially with Latin America and Asia) than the NFL or NBA. “It also fits a part of the calendar that is relatively slow here. By bringing those events here during the summer, you augment what Vegas needs at the right time.” As for the stadium, he reiterated, “It certainly doesn’t look like any baseball park I’ve ever seen. We’re going to build a spectacular building.” Innovation at Heart Sports and the business of sports was the theme of the SEICon event, where a prominent presence was UNLV, home to the UNLV Sports Innovation Initiative led by COO Jay Vickers. He sees the willingness of all the new teams in town to recruit and hire talent from UNLV. “It took some effort to get them to see us in that light,” he said, but when you’re the fastest-growing university in the nation with 33,000 students, the light bulb comes on pretty fast. “We are working on building better relationships with sports equipment companies too,” he says. “They are all trying to identify ways they can come here and build.” He sees Clark County as ahead of the curve with the fledgling Clark County Innovation District that extends from the campus to UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park, not far from the unique live-work-play district Uncommons and from the always-expanding, high-security data center campus of Switch. In a panel discussion with Vickers and Matt Holt, a sports betting pioneer who serves as on the board of directors of NVenue, Clark County Director of Community and Economic Development Shani Coleman said that after studying best practices across the country in places such as Research Triangle Park, Denver, Silicon Valley and Austin, “We think sports and the growth of sports in Clark County is really something we can tap into. There is no community in the U.S. right now that can plant a flag regarding sports innovation and sports technology. Think about places we have already like the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health from Cleveland Clinic, doing research around head injury and combat sports. Then the establishment of the sports institute Jay is heading up. This is going to be the premier place to get information about sports technology and innovation.” Vickers sees an opportunity for sports diplomacy as well, building relationships with the 29 members of Nevada’s consular corps on the natural affinity people have to universities and to sports. “I envision having a building that welcomes international companies,” he told me. “They can have a shared space where they can work and say, ‘Hey, Las Vegas is home to me. We’re open for business, but what is your business?’ The diplomacy piece allows us to have these types of conversations. “A lot of times when new companies come into a community, the challenge is how to engage with the new community quickly,” Vickers said. “It’s not about how much money you shell out. It’s the relationships. Are you building relationships or buying friendships?” Universities can be the glue that cements those relationships. “As a public institution, we understand the pulse of the community,” Vickers said. “That’s something we can translate to the companies. When the community sees a company really embracing their pride and joy, they tend to open up their hearts a bit differently.” Holt, who as an executive at Cantor Gaming played a pivotal role in launching Nevada’s first-ever regulated mobile sports betting app, points to May 14, 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated decision that struck down the federal ban on state authorization of sports betting. Vegas became the test lab for regulated betting on pro and college sports teams. “Now we have 40 states with gaming with professional and college sports, and they come here and use Vegas as the prototype,” he said. “It’s led to more and more growth there. You see job creation — more teams, more fans, more marketers and advertisers. We need to continue to lean into that. Not only can we do it safely now [i.e., maintaining sports integrity] but do it better and bigger.” Which is something Vegas does very well. Could the NBA be next? NBA Commissioner Adam Silver last year said Vegas was on the league’s list for expansion locations. I got a more visceral hint when I was leaving Las Vegas myself to come home to Atlanta on the red-eye. The NBA summer league was in town and the parking lots were full at the venue. That night featured a game with Bronny James squaring up against rookie phenom Cooper Flagg. The Uber driver for the 10-minute ride from the Strip to the airport was transfixed by the game’s radio broadcast. The forthcoming $1.5 billion A’s stadium on the Strip “certainly doesn’t look like any baseball park I’ve ever seen,” said A’s President Marc Badain. A related resort next door is in development by Bally’s and GLPI. Rendering by BIG and HNTB courtesy of the A’sWhy Big Investors Love Small Towns in W hen Green Bay Packaging broke ground June on a $ billion paper mill expansion in Morrilton, Arkansas, the event confi rmed what many corporate executives already thought about the Natural State: e best things come in small packages. Morrilton, with just , people, may be small, but it is mighty. e county seat of ,-resident Conway County in central Arkansas, Morrilton has been home to Wisconsin-based Green Bay Packaging for years. e latest investment by the -year- old company — which is valued at $. billion and employs more than , people across locations in states — adds acres and jobs to the workers already employed at the fi rm’s Arkansas Kraft Mill in Morrilton. e expansion is the largest capital investment project in the history of central Arkansas. Code-named Project PowerPack, the expansion will occur over several years and is designed to increase both sustainability and operational effi ciency, said Matt Szymanski, vice president of mill operations at Green Bay Packaging. GBP is no stranger to Arkansas. In addition to its paper mill in Morrilton, the company operates other facilities in central Arkansas including two plants in Plumerville, one in Conway and a separate facility in Morrilton. e Arkansas River Valley between the Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains has lured corporate facility plant investments for decades and is indicative of the economic growth taking place in small towns across the state, says Clark Cogbill, marketing and communications Arkansas STATE SPOTLIGHT Corporate America is following the movement of younger workers. BY THE NUMBERS ARKANSAS Higher Ed. R&D Expenditure in $000s: 425,398 Number of NCRCs: 117,677 | Percent Improved 2023–24: 11.79% Business Tax Climate Rank Change 2024–2025: +2 Industrial power cost per kWh: $6.87 Total Rev. as Share of Total Expenses, FY 2008-22: 102.79% 2024 Workers’ Comp Index Rate: 0.65 Selected Top Projects by Capital Investment COMPANY CITY INVESTMENT $M Green Bay Packaging Morrilton 1,000 Amazon.Com Little Rock 151 General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Camden 110 Messer North America Berryville 70 Sanderson Farms Danville 43 Source: Conway Projects Database Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks at the groundbreaking for Green Bay Packaging in Morrilton. Photo courtesy of Arkansas EDC 186 SEPTEMBER 2025 SITE SELECTION ARKANSAS by RON STARNER ron.starner@siteselection.com188 SEPTEMBER 2025 SITE SELECTION director for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. “Weyerhaeuser at $500 million was the biggest deal of 2024 in Warren. We just did a groundbreaking for them,” Cogbill says. “L3Harris Technologies is investing $193 million to build new rocket motors in Camden. A lot of these investments are going to our smaller communities like Danville, Batesville, Warrenton, Berryville and Wynne. Over the last 18 months, we have landed close to 15 large capital investments in small towns.” Cogbill says companies find great value in these locations. “Arkansas has a very low cost of living. It is very affordable to live in our small towns,” he says. “It also ties in with people moving to Arkansas for livability and quality of life.” A recent data analysis conducted by Hamilton Lombard of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia shows just how steady this influx of new residents has been in Arkansas in recent years. “The number of counties attracting new residents has risen substantially among Arkansas’s 75 counties, from 17 counties attracting new residents in 2014 to 45 counties attracting more residents than they were losing last year,” notes Lombard. “In Arkansas, growth has in recent decades been concentrated in the northwest corner of the state in the Fayetteville area. Though in recent years, growth has radiated out with increased migration to Little Rock and most MSAs, such as Batesville and Searcy, as well as to rural counties.” Two demographic trends bode well for the Arkansas economy, says Lombard: One, the people moving to Arkansas are gravitating toward the more rural and mountainous areas in the western part of the state, “fitting into a national trend of Americans increasingly relocating to communities with high levels of natural amenities.” Secondly, Arkansas is experiencing a surge in newcomers among 25-to-44- year-olds. That age group is increasing in Arkansas at over three times the rate of the early 2010s, and this increase has become much more widespread across the state during the current decade, says Lombard. The Fayetteville area is the leading gainer among this cohort, rising 13% since 2020, giving it the eighth-fastest growth rate for this age group among the 111 U.S. metros with over 500,000 people. This ranks Fayetteville ahead of Dallas (No. 9) and Raleigh (No. 10) and just behind Austin (No. 7). “Some other Arkansas MSAs have seen strong growth in the younger half of their workforce, including Fort Smith and Jonesboro, whose populations between 25 and 44 have both grown at a faster rate than in the rest of the country,” Lombard says. Correspondingly, Arkansas is showing up highly ranked in several metrics. Arkansas recorded the nation’s highest GDP growth rate in the third and fourth quarters of 2024 and had the fifth highest in the first quarter of 2025. Atlas Van Lines ranked Arkansas the No. 1 destination in the nation by percentage of movers who were inbound at 65%; and U.S. News & World Report ranked Arkansas No. 1 in affordability. Factors like these were a big reason why Commercial Café ranked northwest Arkansas as the No. 5 location in its list of “Top U.S. Metros Where Millennials Can Put Down Roots & Thrive in 2025.” With a millennial population rising 12.8% in the last five years, this region is the third-fastest-growing among the top metros, Commercial Café said. “Clearly, it is a region that has kept its growth manageable and its quality of life high — making it increasingly attractive for millennials who want economic upside without big-city prices,” the report noted. How the Upper Midwest Was Won I f you want to know where the tech-driven industries of the future are heading, look for places gaining ground in the growth of younger, highly educated talent. at is exactly what we did, and the results may surprise you. According to demographic data compiled by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, we now know where the younger half of the U.S. workforce is moving to in the Upper Midwest and why. e biggest takeaways from this study are as follows: 1. Michigan and Indiana are the two states that are adding the most people in the -to--year-old demographic group within the region that includes Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. 2. Des Moines, Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis and Madison are the top fi ve Upper Midwest metros adding the most people in this age range. 3. Manufacturing jobs, aff ordable housing and the rapidly rising cost of living in overheated Southern states are the biggest factors driving the growth of younger workers in the Upper Midwest’s most vibrant metro areas. by RON STARNER ron.starner@siteselection.com UPPER MIDWEST By attracting talented young workers, this 6-state region is shaking off the rust. SITE SELECTION SEPTEMBER 2025 189 How the Upper Midwest Was Won Michigan and Grand Rapids in particular are leading the way in the Upper Midwest in attracting a younger population. Image courtesy of Experience Grand Rapids190 SEPTEMBER 2025 SITE SELECTION CEDAR RAPIDS, FORT WAYNE TO PROFESSIONALS: O f the fi ve communities that recently joined the MakeMyMove initiative to attract new residents, four are in the Upper Midwest: Cedar Rapids, Fort Wayne, Southwest Michigan and Switzerland County, Indiana. MakeMyMove is an online relocation marketplace that partners with cities to incentivize people to move there. We interviewed leaders in Cedar Rapids and Fort Wayne to learn more about their talent attraction eff orts. Jodi Schafer, director of talent attraction for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, says that the early returns are positive. “We just launched the program in July, and already we have seen some candidates come into our pipeline,” she says. “Everybody we talked to was very enthusiastic. They are software engineers, auditors, accountants and other high-level professionals who are applying to the program.” Cedar Rapids, which has 134,758 residents, off ers a $5,000 relocation incentive for qualifying movers. They also receive a parks and recreation voucher and a Cedar Rapids MEA membership for one year. The local minor league baseball team, the Kernels, is pitching in a 5-game package deal to the ballpark. On top of that, a Community Champions welcome program helps new residents integrate into the area. “This is part of a larger talent attraction initiative,” says Schafer. “The mayor brought in a placemaking fi rm from New York City. We think this is worth the investment. It is part of our branding campaign for the Cedar Rapids region. Phase two will be an even bigger digital campaign. Our goal is to achieve 15 new movers by the end of the year.” Schafer says a surprising fi nding is that a lot of the inquiries come from people in California, Florida and the Northeast. She says they are attracted to Cedar Rapids because “we are a very family-friendly place with lots of activities for kids. The type of people who will thrive here could be a young professional or a working family. Plus, there is not much of a commute, and people fi nd it easy to get to know others in the community. Sometimes, it feels like we are a throwback to the 1960s.” Ron Turpin, an Allen County commissioner in Fort Wayne, says the goal is simple: “Grow our population.” Fort Wayne has 273,736 residents, while Allen County as a whole has just over 400,000. “We want to attract more people with degrees,” says Turpin. “The program is just now starting to show fruit. The real work will take place over the next year.” Turpin says the three main goals for the region over the last 10 years have been to grow the population, increase wages and improve attainments rates for degrees and credentials. “We are already one of the fastest-growing regions in the Midwest, but we want to keep that going and attract more professionals,” he notes. Each community in the county decides what level of stipend to off er. The City of Fort Wayne off ers a 5% downpayment plus closing cost assistance on a new home, a one-year coworking membership and one week of groceries, among other benefi ts. “We want to get them acclimated to our leadership structure, and we want them to experience our high quality of life, which includes over 150 miles of trails, lots of lakes and watersports, aff ordable homes, short commutes and world- class schools,” Turpin says. “Our bottom-line message to newcomers is: This is a dynamic and thriving community. Come check it out for yourself.” CEDAR RAPIDS, FORT WAYNE TO PROFESSIONALS: Cedar Rapids on the Fourth of July and Market After Dark are two big events in this community of 135,000 people in eastern Iowa. Image courtesy of Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance SITE SELECTION SEPTEMBER 2025 191 Demographic researcher Hamilton Lombard of the Cooper Center conducted this data analysis exclusively for Site Selection by comparing population changes among 25-to-44- year-olds from the 2010s to the 2020s. What he discovered bodes well for the future economic prospects of a once- beleaguered region of the country. “A decade ago, all six states were losing more residents to other states than they were attracting,” Lombard reports. “Last year, four of the six states were still losing more residents than they were attracting, but the losses had shrunk for every state. In 2024, the six states lost close to 55,000 more residents to other parts of the country than they attracted.” A decade ago, the region was shedding 150,000 people a year. Several factors explain the turnaround, says Lombard. First is the stabilization and recovery of some of the key manufacturing industries in the Upper Midwest. “Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin make up four of the five states with the largest shares of their workforce employed in manufacturing jobs; and Minnesota and Illinois also have relatively large manufacturing industries,” he notes. Why Young Workers Like the Midwest Secondly, the biggest demographic shift has come in the change in population of 25-to-44-year-olds in the region. “This data shows the reversal in trends even more clearly,” he says. “The six states’ populations age 25 to 44 fell by 93,000 in the first four years of the 2010s but have risen by 237,000 since 2020. The younger half of the workforce is growing in all six states, with the fastest growth rates in Michigan and Indiana.” International immigration is a big factor in the Upper Midwest turnaround, says Lombard, as young, talented workers gravitate to metros offering good-paying jobs. Des Moines has seen the fastest growth rate in younger workers since 2020, followed by Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis and Madison. “In most of the Midwest, the workforce isn’t growing faster than the rest of the country today, but it is growing, which is a significant shift from a decade ago,” Lombard says. “Michigan’s acceleration in the younger half of its workforce is one of the largest in the country, nearly tying Georgia since 2020. Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois are among the 20 states with the largest increases in their younger adult population since 2020.” The job market and housing affordability contribute. “The improvement in the region’s economy has certainly helped, but the combination in the growth in remote work and the runup in housing prices after the pandemic has encouraged more younger adults to stay or relocate to the region,” adds Lombard. “Today, the Midwest has some of the most affordable housing relative to income in the country.” What used to drive people south is now shifting them north. In 2010, the median home price in Chicago was a third higher than Atlanta’s. Today, home prices in Atlanta are 20% more than in Chicago while Atlanta’s income levels are lower. These prevailing shifts — the manufacturing renaissance and rising housing affordability — are propelling knowledge talent to either remain in the Upper Midwest or relocate to it. A recent Brookings Metro study of the most AI-ready metros in the country revealed pockets of knowledge capital in the region. “Geography matters,” says Mark Muro, senior fellow at Brookings Metro. His study measures every U.S. metro on 14 metrics such as talent levels, innovation infrastructure and business adoption to determine the AI readiness of regional economies. Familiar places stand out as the two “Superstar” metros: San Francisco and Silicon Valley.192 SEPTEMBER 2025 SITE SELECTION After that, however, the Upper Midwest boasts two metros deemed by Brookings to be “Star Hubs.” ey are Chicago- Naperville-Elgin and Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington. e third tier, called “Emerging Centers,” includes Madison and Detroit. Where AI Readiness Is Increasing “Key metros in the Sunbelt and the Upper Midwest now matter in the artifi cial intelligence sector,” notes Muro. One reason these cities stand out is because they are among the earliest adapters to the digital infrastructure needed to power the AI hyperscale computing of the future. Places like Chicago, Madison and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are leading the way. Chicago ranks as the ninth-largest data center hub in the world, while Madison and Cedar Rapids climb the charts. QTS Data Centers recently announced major capital investments in these Wisconsin and Iowa markets. On July , the Sterling, Virginia-based QTS announced plans to construct a -building data center campus in the Wisconsin state capital. Each facility will require an investment of $ million to $ million. Yahoo Finance estimates the value of Blackstone-owned QTS at around $ billion. A QTS executive said the fi rm started looking at Wisconsin while working with Alliant Energy on a separate project in Iowa. at turned out to be a $ billion project announcement in Cedar Rapids on August . e -year-old company plans to build a giant data center campus on a - acre site in the Big Cedar Industrial Center. Investments like these are emblematic of improving economic fortunes in the Upper Midwest. In CNBC’s Top States for Business for , Michigan reached its highest mark ever at No. , while Indiana placed No. and Minnesota No. . Illinois checked in at No. , while Wisconsin placed No. . Iowa is No. . Source: Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia Change In 25-to-44-Year Old Population 2020- 2024North Carolina STATE SPOTLIGHT Economic recovery and rebuilding take hold in Henderson County, North Carolina. SITE SELECTION SEPTEMBER 2025 193 O ne year after Hurricane Helene killed 108 people and caused $59.6 billion in damage across western North Carolina, signs of rebuilding and recovery are everywhere in places that lost everything. From Pigeon Forge to the Black Mountains, Helene swept through the lower Appalachian region last September 25-27 like a liquid freight train in the I finally stopped thinking about the life I left behind and began to focus on the adventure ahead. My body was energized, and my optimism quickly carried me down the trail. I longed for the challenges that awaited me, and I raced down the path to find them.” — Jennifer Pharr Davis, longtime resident of Hendersonville, North Carolina, in her book, “Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail” Hurricane Helene dumped a record 31.33 inches on the highly mountainous terrain of western North Carolina. Image courtesy of Henderson County Government Heroes Helene’s by RON STARNER ron.starner@siteselection.comNext >