Investor Watch: January 12, 2026

GreenPower Motor Company takes advantage of an FTZ for its investment in New Mexico. Joby Aviation announces a second electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) manufacturing site in Ohio. Emirates Global Aluminum expands in Germany.

VALUE-ADDED AGRICULTURE

Historically known as a breadbasket country due to its optimal growing conditions for wheat, Ukraine also has a centuries-old story in cultivating hemp.

PUBLISHER’S VIEW

Site Selection Publisher Laura Lyne pays tribute to the late Prentice Knight.

INVESTMENT PROFILE: VIRGINIA

In September and October 2025, Virginia landed $12.5 billion in biopharma manufacturing investment from three of the industry’s giants.

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One of Alexandria’s most successful developments is Eastlake Life Science Campus in Seattle, Washington.
Archive rendering courtesy of Alexandria

Alexandria Real Estate Equities last week celebrated its 32nd anniversary. How influential is the developer of life sciences innovation clusters and what it calls Megacampus ecosystems? “Among the 44 novel therapies approved by the FDA in 2025, 39% were developed or commercialized by Alexandria tenants,” said Joel S. Marcus, executive chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments. “As we commemorate our 32nd anniversary and look ahead, Alexandria’s mission and differentiated platform have never been more critical and consequential. Our unique Megacampus ecosystems continue to empower scientific advancement and drive the development of new medicines.”

Site Selection has checked in with Marcus and covered Alexandria ecosystems plenty of times over the years, including this 2017 conversation with Marcus about the rise of ag-tech and this 2014 story featuring interviews with Marcus and Accelerator Corp. CEO Thong Q. Le (who joined the Gates Foundation in December 2024 and serves as investment director and managing partner of the Strategic Investment Fund) about the growing number of life sciences startups in New York City, especially along the city’s East Side Medical Corridor.

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Photo courtesy of U-Haul

The annual U-Haul Growth Index released last week found that metro Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, saw the greatest net gain of one-way customers for the second year in a row in 2025. It’s one of three Texas metro regions (followed by Houston and Austin) filling the top three spots in the index. Meanwhile, Ocala, Florida, was the No. 1 growth city for the fourth time in five years — one of eight Florida municipalities among the top 10.

Top 10 U-Haul Growth Metros (last year’s rank in parentheses)

1. Dallas, Texas (1)
2. Houston, Texas (9)
3. Austin, Texas (5)
4. Charlotte, North Carolina (2)
5. Phoenix, Arizona (3)
6. Nashville, Tennessee (6)
7. Charleston, South Carolina (13)
8. Raleigh, North Carolina (7)
9. Atlanta, Georgia
10. Brownsville & McAllen, Texas (21)

Top 10 U-Haul Growth Cities (last year’s rank in parentheses)

1. Ocala, Florida (1)
2. North Port, Florida
3. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (5)
4. Kissimmee, Florida (3)
5. Clermont, Florida (15)
6. McKinney, Texas
7. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
8. St. Augustine, Florida
9. Daytona Beach, Florida
10. Panama City, Florida (21)

Among the observations U-Haul shared in a release: “Some major metros to make the top 25 did so by reversing recent migration trends: San Francisco, Denver and Philadelphia saw more orange-clad moving equipment leaving than arriving in 2024, only to post strong net-gain numbers in 2025.”

The index ranks metros and cities by their net gain (or loss) of customers who rented a one-way truck, trailer or U-Box^® moving containers in one metro or city and dropped off their equipment in another metro or city. Interstate and intrastate transactions are included.

Architect Kishō Kurokawa in front of the completed Nakagin Capsule Tower in 1974
Photo by Tomio Ohashi courtesy of MoMA

Through July 12, 2026, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City continues to present “The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower,” an exhibition dedicated to the 50-year lifespan of the project located in Tokyo’s Ginza District that was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007). “Marketed as micro-dwellings for commuting businessmen, the building was composed of two interconnected concrete-and-steel towers that hosted 140 single-occupancy ‘capsules,’ each fully equipped with prefabricated fixtures and a Sony color TV,” MoMA states in a release, noting that the exhibition includes capsule A1305, once located on the highest floor of the building, and fully restored with the maximum number of original fittings salvaged from other rescued capsules, “including the full array of audio electronics that were offered as add-on features.”

The tower was part of an architectural movement known as Metabolism, with the capsules designed to be “ ‘unplugged’ from a central core and moved to future cores in other locations, appealing to the next generation’s mobile workforce,” explains Alexxa Gotthardt, former assistant managing editor at SFMOMA in San Francisco, which itself acquired the capsule that was the architect’s own dwelling when the tower was dismantled in 2022.