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| FROM SITE SELECTION MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 2022 ISSUE |
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SOUTH AMERICA
The “Lithium Triangle” of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile is believed to contain roughly half of the world’s known lithium. If you want to apply to extract it, as one company learned in Bolivia this year, you’d better turn in your homework on time.
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MISSISSIPPI
Years of diligent planning pay off as the Magnolia State solidifies a new training program based on eight micro regions.
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Site Selection readers are already familiar with the headquarters location strategy insights of The Boyd Company. This week I ran across another deep, data-based analysis from Vega Economics, which in August released a report on U.S. relocations of corporate headquarters between 2009 and 2021. The in-depth report is based on examining financial statement data sets from SEC filings and doing the math to find the net flow of HQs (arrivals and departures) over that time period.
Texas is the somewhat predictable winner over those 12 years, with a net gain of 117 headquarters. Next come Massachusetts (36), Florida (30) and Arizona (24), with Illinois, Virginia and Georgia also showing well. HQ loss leaders include California, New York, Nevada and Utah. And yes, the data show a gradually increasing outflow of HQs from California over the past five years, even as other recent data from Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association show more than 55,000 VC deals there since 2014 worth nearly $800 billion.
Conway Data’s Projects Database has recorded more than 6,000 corporate facility projects involving a headquarters component since 2015 (we do not track HQ departures). Below are the Top 10 states for HQs. An important distinction jumps out from the numbers: The Vega numbers, already smaller due to their being a net value, concern relocations only. Site Selection’s numbers count all HQ-affiliated projects, including those from new companies and from those who did not relocate, but reinvested where they were planted. Three cheers for prioritizing economic gardening and business retention. — Adam Bruns
| State |
No. of HQs |
| Texas |
610 |
| Ohio |
375 |
| Illinois |
373 |
| Florida |
285 |
| New York |
220 |
| Pennsylvania |
214 |
| Virginia |
211 |
| North Carolina |
197 |
| California |
190 |
| Indiana |
165 |
Source: Conway Data Projects Database
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OVERVIEW
From talent gap to remote work and childcare, employers have their hands full.
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LABOR SHORTAGES
Tracey Hyatt Bosman says the effects of labor force disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are still with us today and will be well into 2023.
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| SITE SELECTION RECOMMENDS |
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Map derived from USDA data courtesy of Decision Innovation Solutions
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A late November blog from Aaron Gerdts of Iowa-based economic research and analysis firm Decision Innovation Solutions documents state-by-state foreign ownership of agricultural land. Based on 2020 data, Maine has the highest percentage of foreign-owned farmland at nearly 19.5%. Foreign ownership of U.S. ag land increased by 14 million acres from 2011 to 2020, Gerdts reports. Expressed as a percentage of total ag land in the state, the states with the largest growth in foreign ownership were Maine, Oklahoma, Michigan, Illinois, and Kansas. As of 2020, of the 1.3 billion acres of privately held agricultural land in the U.S., 38 million acres, or 2.9%, were held by foreign ownership.
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| ARKANSAS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 2022-23 |
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FILM INDUSTRY
The Natural State offers a unique and beautiful setting for a growing number of film and TV productions.
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DEPENDABILITY
The results speak for themselves.
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Arizona
Two days ago Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Paul Charles, President and CEO of American Battery Factory (ABF) announced that 267 acres at the Aerospace Research Campus home to Raytheon in Tucson had been selected as the site for the first in a planned series of battery cell gigafactories in the United States. At 2 million sq. ft., “the site will serve as ABF’s official headquarters and will be the country’s largest gigafactory for the production of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells,” the announcement stated, with an initial 300 jobs expected to scale to 1,000 jobs eventually. Pima County took steps 10 years ago to acquire the campus. ABF says its battery cell chemistry, which avoids the use of cobalt and nickel, means materials are more ethically sourced and the batteries last twice as long. “With this first factory, we will secure a strategically positioned company headquarters while taking the critical first steps in making it possible to one day move the country and the entire world to 100% renewable power,” Charles said. Project partners include Governor Doug Ducey, Arizona Commerce Authority, Sun Corridor Inc., Pima County, City of Tucson, Pima Community College and Tucson Electric Power.
Germany
Last Friday plastics and rubber production machinery maker KraussMaffei took delivery of the keys to its new plant and HQ in Parsdorf. After more than 80 years, the Munich-based company is leaving its site in Allach and moving to this new location in the Ebersberg district just outside Munich. “Not only does this mark the start of one of the largest relocation projects in the greater Munich area since the airport was moved from Riem to Erding in 1992,” said the company, “but the commissioning is above all the final and decisive building block in the modernization of the almost 185-year-old traditional group. Since 2018, the company has invested a three-digit-million-euro sum in four new sites in Germany and China. Covering over 200,000 sq. m. (more than 2.1 million sq. ft.), the new site brings together the corporate headquarters, injection molding and reaction process machinery, additive manufacturing, mechanical production and automation, which was previously based in Schwaig. The new buildings in Parsdorf are part of a new location and modernization strategy that includes the relocation of four plants to modern, larger production facilities. Already in operation are new plants in JiaXing (near Shanghai) and in Einbeck near Göttingen. The relocation of the KraussMaffei Extrusion plant from Hanover to Laatzen has also been successfully completed.
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| Photo courtesy of Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP, Takenaka Corporation and v2com newswire
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This new headquarters building for ZOZO, the company behind fashion e-commerce site ZOZOTOWN, is located in Chiba, Japan. Designed by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP, Takenaka Corporation, the award-winning “regionally integrated office” is inspired by woven fabrics and designed to “grow with the city,” say the architects, with many quality-of-life amenities located nearby. “The fibrous roofs and walls consist of three woven layers of slender lumber, and drape voluminously like large pieces of fabric that gently envelop people,” the architects say. “The air conditioning/ventilation ducts and sound insulation material, made of paper installed behind the fibrous roofs and walls to create a pleasant thermal and acoustic environment, render this ‘a comfortable clothes-like architecture’ worthy of ZOZO.”
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