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Read – September 2012 IssueTwo massive projects target the city’s vulnerability to earthquakes. The 1950s-era viaduct was showing signs of age and deterioration before the 2001 earthquake further weakened the structure, but the earthquake heightened the need for its replacement. corporate real estate, economic development
Read Cover StoryBioplastics, while still comprising a tiny percentage of overall global plastics production, are growing at a rapid clip. Demand is growing because major consumer brands such as Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola are focusing on sustainability in packaging.
Shale oil and gas deposits have cast energy-related site selection and the oil and gas supply chain in a new light. It now turns its transformative power to inland logistics and transportation networks. Shale plays around the country are requiring mass quantities of commodities and equipment that must be transported by rail or highway. The thousands of wells being drilled in places ranging from Pennsylvania and Ohio in the northeast to Mississippi and Louisiana in the south, to North Dakota and Wyoming in the west require extensive resources to drill and produce.
Why would a company locate its business in a small town, far from the economic activity of large cities? Such a decision doesn’t make sense for every company. But for some it makes perfect sense.
Consumer demand patterns are shifting rapidly, affecting shipping requirements, order cycle times, retail formats and service level requirements. Rising fuel and utilities costs, burdensome regulations, changes in tax laws and sustainability requirements, labor supply and union issues, municipal and state economic incentives and so many other cost considerations are volatile and challenging today.
The Top Utilities of 2012 transmit positive energy and connect better than most. Utilities today grapple with such thorny issues as EPA regulations, data center demand, customer demands for renewables and lower costs, the on again/off again comeback of nuclear power, catching up with infrastructure investment, and increasing power demand from increasingly populous territories.
In a country where the skill set required to perform precision manufacturing is often passed down from generation to generation, Torsten Brumme knows the exact kind of work force needed to keep his company competitive and profitable.
When DuPont needed to make a plant location decision between Luxembourg and Circleville, Ohio, in the Columbus Region, the site selection ultimately came down to one factor — who wanted it more.
Reliable, reasonably priced electricity and natural gas drive economic growth. But as any corporate customer or economic developer will tell you, a utility’s devotion to its territory can usually be measured by actions unrelated to selling more power.
Governor Mitch Daniels leaves office in early 2013, leaving behind a job description that should be of keen interest to new governors taking office that want their states on a firmer fiscal footing. His formula works.
A sequence of infrastructure projects is positioning Georgia for the future. But it’s the people of Georgia who will get you there. Collaboration and teamwork are typical, rather than surprising. Take Baxter International’s billion-dollar biologics manufacturing plant that broke ground this summer at the Stanton Springs site in Covington developed by a four-county coalition. Or Caterpillar’s decision earlier in the year to locate a manufacturing plant at a longstanding candidate site at the juncture of two counties near Athens.
From household brand names like Westinghouse Electric Co., U.S. Steel and Alcoa to emerging energy technology leaders like Aquion Energy, BPL Global and kWantera, Pittsburgh is well on its way to being known as the new center of American energy.
Ingenuity, access and a surprisingly diversified economy make for a bountiful business harvest in North Dakota. It’s a place where seeding the future still means something quite literal. Energy may rule the headlines, but ag still rules the roost, employing 24 percent of the state’s population in related industries and driving some $4 billion in cash receipts.
How did Malaysia outperform South Korea in a recent global competitiveness ranking? How did it perform better than Germany, Japan and Taiwan in another, measuring ease of doing business? In the first case, Malaysia ranks 21st in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, beating South Korea by three places.
New energy and a new mission aim to complete the picture in Greater Metro Atlanta.
That pro-business climate of San Bernardino County has spilled over into many industries, resulting in San Bernardino ushering in a wave of manufacturing and logistics projects in recent months.
Now that the last medal has been awarded, the crowds have gone home and the stadium lights have been extinguished, what will determine if the 2012 London Olympics were truly a success will be the legacy the Games leave behind for the U.K. According to market intelligence firm Euromonitor, an estimated £25 billion (US$39 billion) was spent preparing London for the Games, including stadium construction, regeneration, infrastructure projects and marketing — is this money well spent?
KONE, a Finnish maker of escalators and elevators is flowing people in various directions in the Quad Cities municipality of Moline, Ill., where the company and its partners in August celebrated the grand opening of the nearly $40-million KONE Centre on the Mississippi River waterfront.
South Korea, China or Malaysia? If you were forced to bet on which of these three ranks highest for global competitiveness, which would you choose? Without knowing the subject of this piece, few would have picked Malaysia, but this beautiful nation in Southeast Asia habitually beats its higher-profile neighbors to the north in some key statistics.
Can a nation be stable and dynamic at the same time? The answer from Canada is a distinct “Yes.” A look at the corporate projects unfolding across the nation reveals both Canadian stability and Canadian outreach.
The Mid-Atlantic is seeing an uptick in location-related activity, much of it with existing buildings rather than greenfield development.
Staying close to the supply chain of skills guided recent expansion and consolidation location decisions for at least three technology companies in the northern Boston, Massachusetts suburbs: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Red Hat, and Entegris.
Portion control has become a big business for cheese manufacturing company Bel Brands USA. Sales have more than doubled over the past four years and sales of the company’s Mini Babybel products have tripled during that time period. Bel Brands USA also has plants in Leitchfield, Ky., and Little Chute, Wis.
Wisconsin has a history in the aviation supply chain. But it now appears poised to grow into a significant center of aviation manufacturing as two companies with ambitious plans, but only mockup aircraft thus far, hope to develop major assembly facilities
Nevada leaders rethink their economic development efforts as the state adjusts to a changing economy.
Logistics offers an economic beacon for the region.
Today’s pathways to financial success lie in innovative, intellect-driven fields. In the South, our heroes are frequently found on the college gridiron. But can entrepreneurs and technological innovators be heroes too? Can our brightest techies make it here at home, or must they travel to California or Massachusetts to seek their fortunes?
Winston-Salem blends its tobacco past with a biotech future. After an 18-month, US$100-million makeover, two former R.J. Reynolds tobacco warehouses in downtown Winston-Salem re-opened in February 2012 as a 242,000-sq.-ft. (22,482-sq.-m.) state-of-the art biotech center that houses medical research departments affiliated with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and an incubator for fledgling biotech firms.
‘Community Fit’ seals a bottling plant deal.
In 1859, a well was drilled in quiet farm country in northwestern Pennsylvania for the express purpose of finding and extracting rock oil from the ground. This was to be the fuel for lamps. It became much, much more.
Some tech companies are eschewing Silicon Valley for the quality of life a few miles north. Newly hired software engineers are already busy crafting code for the “Industrial Internet” in GE’s new Global Software Center in San Ramon, Calif. When GE announced its plans for the center late last year, it planned to hire 400 software professionals. The project is going so well that the iconic company is considering doubling that number in the coming years.