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Vertical farming introduces a sustainable and locally sourced substitution for imported produce.
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| FROM SITE SELECTION MAGAZINE, MARCH 2023 ISSUE |
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POWERFUL PROJECTS
Wherein we salute the Top 20 corporate facility investments in North America and Top 20 in the rest of the world. E-mobility and semiconductors rule the day, with a few compelling exceptions.
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INVESTMENT PROFILE: PORTUGAL
Why foreign investment is flowing to Portugal.
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Graphic courtesy of CSRHub
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A new data partner for the index that forms the basis for the 2023 Sustainability Rankings coming to Site Selection’s July issue is The Center for Active Design (CfAD), the global not-for-profit organization that maintains the Fitwel standard and conducts objective third-party assessments that lead to certified Fitwel healthy buildings. So far there are 1,784 certified Fitwel buildings in the world, with nearly 1,400 more in progress.
A sneak preview: Combine all the certified and in-progress projects and California has more than 420 projects — a higher total (barely) than all of Canada. Nearly 170 are in the District of Columbia, an unsurprising result given the wealth of LEED-certified buildings also found in the nation’s capital. The U.S. Green Building Council’s publicly available data on the world’s LEED-certified buildings are another component of Site Selection’s Sustainability Rankings, which will index all 163,000-plus of them.
Also part of the index will be data from our partners at CSRHub, who harmonize ESG data from 882 sources for 51,921 companies in 154 countries. We cross-reference high-ESG companies with recent major corporate facility projects from those companies entered into the Conway Data Projects Database, which also contributes subsets of project data from “green industry” sectors. Other sources include the Energy Star buildings database, as well as the World Happiness Index, Ocean Health Index, renewable energy deployment and more.
It’s a uniquely in-depth exercise in data analysis from a company with data in its name since 1954. — Adam Bruns
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| MASSACHUSETTS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE 2023-24 |
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LETTER FROM MASSECON LEADERSHIP
Pete Abair, executive director of MassEcon, lists a few competitive advantages that you might not know about the commonwealth.
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BUSINESS CLIMATE OVERVIEW
Investors and metrics point to a top business environment.
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Delaware
As reported by multiple news organizations in January, JPMorgan Chase is modernizing its corporate centers in Wilmington and near Newark, Delaware, and plans to create 725 new jobs at the facilities over the next two years, many in tech-oriented roles. The company employs 11,000 people in Delaware. “Despite long-running predictions from in-state pundits that taxes and other issues would send the bulk of worker bee banking jobs elsewhere,” wrote Delaware Business Now! Chief Content Officer Doug Rainey in February, “financial services still employs 47,000 people in Delaware despite waves of cutbacks and restructurings that included Bank of America sharply cutting its headcount in Delaware, post MBNA. Despite the cuts, B of A remains a major employer. It did not hurt that the industry became more technology-driven, with banks in need of a workforce with specialized skills that were available in this region. Moreover, companies were able to quietly move jobs out of the New York metro area to lower-cost locations like Delaware.”
Indiana
Packaging manufacturer Huhtamaki last June broke ground on this expansion of its molded fiber product manufacturing unit in Hammond in order to “better serve existing and new customers in North America with a broad range of sustainable, fully recyclable and compostable, fiber-based packaging solutions, manufactured from 100% recycled North American raw material.” The facility is next to the company’s existing facility in Hammond, where Huhtamaki has operated since 1948. “The investment in this new manufacturing capacity adjacent to our existing site in Hammond represents our strong belief in the future development of the region and in the continued success of our customers – both current and new,” said Charles Héaulmé, president and CEO of Huhtamaki. “The expansion will introduce new sustainable fiber-based products such as egg cartons and cup carriers – manufactured on state-of-the-art machinery developed by Huhtamaki – to our portfolio in the region and drive production efficiency.” The expansion leverages the success of earlier expansions of other Huhtamaki units across North America. Huhtamaki employs approximately 4,400 people across 18 manufacturing units in North America – 17 in the United States and 1 in Mexico. The company in 2022 also announced a manufacturing site in Alf, Germany, would switch its focus from plastics to smooth molded fiber products to meet the growing demand for plastic-free alternatives for food packaging.
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PASCO READY SITES PROGRAM
Pasco County is one of the fastest growing counties in Florida. Companies are locating to Pasco for expansion sites strategically located along major transportation corridors providing access to consumer markets, skilled workforce and vibrant communities near Tampa International Airport, Port Tampa Bay and CSX Rail.
Demand for project-ready industrial properties has never been higher as speed to market puts pressure on companies to make quick and informed location decisions while allocating precious time to design, construct and open a new facility. As such, the site selection process demands entitled sites with large contiguous developable acreage serviced with roads and utilities sized for industrial development.
The Ready Sites Program features nearly 2,000 acres of assessed properties ready for industrial development. Additionally, there are millions of square feet of spec office and industrial buildings under development and ready to meet market demand. Each Ready Site features numerous digital tools for site selectors to utilize and tour the site.
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| KENTUCKY — WHERE TRADITION MEETS INNOVATION |
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION
Intellectual Property is safeguarded in Kentucky with KYIPA.
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| SITE SELECTION RECOMMENDS |
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Nashville-based Silicon Ranch, whose Lancaster Solar Farm (pictured) supports Meta's renewable energy goals in Georgia, was the top VC-funded solar company in Q1 2023 with $375 million.
Photo courtesy of BusinessWire and Silicon Ranch
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Austin-based Mercom’s Q1 2023 Solar Funding and M&A report includes the following findings:
- Total corporate funding in Q1 2023 came to $8.4 billion in 42 deals.
- Global VC funding for the solar sector came to $2.1 billion in 18 deals in Q1 2023,
- Public market financing in Q1 2023 totaled $2.3 billion, an increase of 1,183% from Q4 2022.
- There were 67 large-scale solar project acquisitions in Q1 2023.
- There were 27 solar M&A transactions in Q1 2023.
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Managing Editor Adam Bruns made this photo on Monday from the platform of the MARTA rapid transit station in Doraville, Georgia, as he waited for the train to take him on the 50-minute ride to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Bruns has documented slow but steady redevelopment progress since 2015 on the site of the former GM Doraville Plant. Gray Television’s film and TV production studio Assembly plans to open its 19-soundstage complex there later this year, even as Gray said it would delay construction of a large mixed-use town center phase until macroeconomic concerns eased. Then what about all those nice facades? They are exactly that: In a time when more housing would be more than welcome in so many cities, the facades are part of the backlot that will be available for film and TV productions, mimicking big-city streetscapes from the Big Apple to Europe. The railcars in the foreground? Real.
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