Investor Watch: December 23, 2024

Toyota keeps building in Georgetown. In Mississippi, Rockwool expands one of its four (soon to be five) North American insulation factories. Novo Nordisk brings a major investment to its home territory in Denmark.

WYOMING

For the fifth time in as many years, Wyoming ranks first in the nation in the Tax Foundation’s annual ranking of state business tax climates.

RAIL PARKS & INLAND PORTS

By permission, we present excerpts from a September report by the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) presented at a hearing in the nation’s capital in September that illustrates the impact of the nation’s 600 Class II and III freight railroads.

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Archive image courtesy of Netflix

Last week the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved Aspire tax credits for a new Netflix studio that will redevelop the vacant campus at Fort Monmouth. Site Selection’s Alexis Elmore reported on this project and others in the March 2023 issue of Site Selection.

“We are grateful to receive support from Governor [Phil] Murphy, the local officials in Oceanport and Eatontown, and the NJEDA to help build Netflix Studios at Fort Monmouth,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “This new studio will catalyze job creation and economic growth, contributing to a vibrant production ecosystem in New Jersey.” The company’s forthcoming flagship East Coast campus is “considered a transformative project under the Aspire Program and was approved for an award not to exceed $387 million,” the NJEDA said in a release. “The studio campus will be over 1 million square feet and sit on a 292-acre parcel at Fort Monmouth. The state-of-the-art production studio campus will include 12 soundstages, backlot areas, an office building and other production support facilities. Netflix plans to open the full facility in 2028.”

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Image by imaginima: Getty Images

Winner of a 2024 National Magazine Award in the design category, the digital publication Rest of World, launched just four years ago, continues to fill that design with sterling substance, including stories that were part of their award submission such as 40 Companies that are Beating the West, How AI Reduces the World to Stereotypes and, in November, an insightful piece on global logistics by Viola Zhou called “The U.S. Chinese immigrants running Temu shipping centers from their homes.”

Why’s it called “Rest of World”? “Companies use it to lump together people and markets outside wealthy Western countries,” the nonprofit explains. “We like the term because it encapsulates the problems we fight head-on: a casual disregard for billions of people, and a Western-centric worldview that leaves an unthinkable number of insights, opportunities, and nuances out of the global conversation.”

In November, the 275,000-sq.-ft. LEED-Platinum Northlake Commons building in Seattle built in collaboration with Swinerton affiliate Timberlab received the award for 2024 Office Development of the Year from NAIOP Washington. Characterized by some as part of an AI corridor in the region, the building’s tenants include the Allen Institute for AI, which leases a full floor.

“Swinerton’s early commitment to mass timber began in 2016,” the company said in a release last week, “with the design, permitting, and construction of the then-largest mass timber office building in the U.S. — First Tech Federal Credit Union Oregon Corporate Campus — which was delivered four months faster and four percent cheaper than structural steel.”

“Mass timber supports regional economies, saves time on the speed of construction, and is a renewable resource — with the added benefits of improved daylighting and interior aesthetics, which benefits the health and well-being of the end-user as well,” said Swinerton Builders (Swinerton) Pacific Northwest Regional Director of Preconstruction William Silva.

Last March, Timberlab revealed plans to construct and operate a cross-laminated timber (CLT) manufacturing facility in the mid-Willamette region of Oregon. Over the last four years, the company added two CNC facilities in Portland, Oregon, and Greenville, South Carolina, focused on expanding the supply chain for mass timber, with the Greenville facility in August reaching its capacity of 1 million sq. ft. of mass timber fabrications annually. “The increase in mass timber demand,” said Timberlab President Chris Evans last March, “coupled with our successes over the last seven years, is driving us to continue to expand the supply chain by adding our new CLT manufacturing facility in Oregon.”