In late 2006, Build-A-Bear will open a 350,000-sq.-ft. (32,500-sq.-m.) warehouse and distribution center in Columbus. The facility, on a 22.6-acre (9-hectare) site in the Groveport Commerce Center, will employ 100.

   In essence, Ohio is both losing automotive (and other industrial) jobs and winning some, competing with states in a variety of measures and ending up in not bad shape, if Site Selection's recent New Plant database rankings are any indication (see the March 2006 issue). The database tracks new and expanding commercial facilities that involve $1 million or more in new investment, create 50 or more new jobs, or require a minimum of 20,000 sq. ft. (1,860 sq. m.) of new construction. Ohio ranked second in the Governor's Cup in 2005, with 598 such projects, behind Texas' 842.
   In other New Plant measures, two Ohio metro areas placed in the Top 10 Metros ranking – Cincinnati (6th place) and Cleveland (8th), and the Buckeye State tied Michigan for second place for the state having the most number of metro areas in the Top 100, with nine. But Site Selection's two-year-old Top Micropolitans ranking puts Ohio at the top, with 18 communities of 50,000 or fewer people attracting enough investment to make the list. Those making the top 20 are the cities of Celina, Wapakoneta, Wooster, Findlay, Cambridge, Norwalk and Sidney.
   Just how does Ohio stack up against the other states beyond the number of projects it attracted? The Ohio Chamber of Commerce wanted to know just that in late 2004, and it commissioned Menlo Park, Calif.-based SRI International (www.sri.com), an independent, nonprofit research institute, to provide some answers. In January 2005, SRI issued its report to the Chamber, entitled "Benchmarking Ohio's Economic Competitiveness." The report looks at Ohio relative to a peer group of 15 states deemed to be competitive for purposes of the benchmarking exercise. SRI collected data for 136 indicators in eight areas identified as being critical to Ohio's competitiveness: human resources, financial resources, innovation resources, infrastructure, business costs, government and regulatory environment, globalization and dynamism and quality of life.
   In short, Ohio ranked 11th out of the 16 states, scoring well in the infrastructure and innovation resources categories of indicators, and average or less than average in most others.