There’s no doubt where Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe’s sports allegiance lies.
Photo courtesy of Missouri Office of the Governor
Twelve days ago Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed into law Senate Bill 3, which among other things updates two tax credit programs related to amateur sporting events; creates a tax credit of up to $5,000 for home or renter insurance deductibles incurred due to severe weather damage in a declared disaster area in 2025; and creates the Show-Me Sports Investment Act, which “authorizes the state to partner with professional sports teams to help finance stadium construction through bond payments and one-time tax credits with built-in protections for taxpayers.” Translation: We want to keep the Kansas City Chiefs’ and Kansas City Royals stadiums on our side of the state line and not let them be lured to Kansas by that state’s incentives (passed last year and with a deadline for acceptance of June 30).
The battle over the KC teams is the latest chapter in a long-standing economic development rivalry between the states that Site Selection has chronicled over many years, including “Which Side Are You On?” in 2017 and “New Day Dawning,” a Missouri Investment Profile that featured an incentives truce in addition to progress on new workforce development alignment.
Minnesota’s economic landscape is as diverse as its workforce, which has created a solid foundation for companies to start, grow and prosper. In fact, CNBC recently ranked Minnesota the #6 best state for business.
President and COO of Minnesota-based Polar Semiconductor Surya Iyer detailed what sets Minnesota apart: “If you have a state that has a good education system, which has a pipeline that can supply engineers and technicians to you, and you have infrastructure and an economy that’s booming … a place which is growing tremendously fast, attracting young people, attracting the future leaders of the country — that’s where you want to be.”
Minnesota is also consistently ranked one of the happiest and healthiest states in the U.S.
Whether a new company is choosing a Minnesota location or a long-standing business is looking to expand its production — more companies are seeing transformational results and discovering why Minnesota is the Star of the North.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has launched an update to a remarkable data tool called the Community Investment Explorer, (CIE) which can be used to examine the distribution of community and economic development capital at the state, regional and neighborhood levels. The CIE includes more than 3 million transactions totaling over $2.2 trillion in community and economic development capital from nine federal programs over a five-year period, primarily 2018-22.
“Nonprofits, government officials, reporters, developers and many others can use the Community Investment Explorer to track the level of investment in their communities and benchmark them over time and against other geographic locations,” said Michael Eggleston, developer of CIE and community development strategist at the St. Louis Fed. “We’re excited that rural stakeholders will now be able to track investment in their communities. I believe it will be highly useful to a wide range of users.”
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Photo by Jozsef Molnar courtesy of NAPUR Architect Kft. and v2com newswire
The Hungarian State last week commissioned the National Athletics Centre as the starting building for the long-term urban design of the Budapest Southern City Gate development. The stadium was designed by architectural firm NAPUR Architect Kft., whose news release explained that the stadium was built in the center of a park in competition mode for the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, with a capacity of 35,000 people. “After the World Championships, the basic mode design of the Athletics Stadium building was completed in 2024. The stadium’s temporary upper stands were removed and replaced by a 15,000-square-meter covered open and illuminated leisure park called the ‘Open City Ring,’ which included a running track, a family jogging track, a street workout, a training area and a street food service. The goal was to create a stadium that would have a large capacity for the duration of the World Championships, but in the following periods it would be an open building that serves mass sports and athletics youth as much as possible, accessible to everyone 365 days a year.”
The Open City Ring leisure park was presented as a new recreational place in September 2024.
