Quick-hitting news stories cover the “gut renovation” of the James
R. Thompson Center in Chicago; the new Center for Global Health
Innovation in Midtown Atlanta; electric bus maker Proterra’s
expansion in Upstate South Carolina; where tech is leading office
market recovery; and an agreement in the Pacific Northwest to
prioritize high-speed rail.
Last week the American Transportation Research Institute released
its 2022 Top Truck Bottleneck List, topped for
the fourth year in a row by the intersection of I-95 and SR 4 in
Fort Lee, New Jersey. (Remember Gary Daughters’ up-close-and-personal look at that
intersection in Site Selection’s March 2020 issue?) ATRI
uses truck 2021 GPS data from over 1 million freight trucks along
with terabytes of data from trucking operations to produce a
congestion impact ranking for each location, producing a top 100
most congested locations list from the 300 freight-critical
locations it continuously monitors.
Even as consumer-driven e-commerce continues to consume highway
space, more people have returned to the workplace, meaning average
rush hour truck speeds were down more than 11% from 2020, to 38.6
miles per hour. Here are the rest of the top 10:
2. Cincinnati: I-71 at I-75
3. Houston: I-45 at I-69/US 59
4. Atlanta: I-285 at I-85 (North)
5. Atlanta: I-20 at I-285 (West)
6. Chicago: I-290 at I-90/I-94
7. Los Angeles: SR 60 at SR 57
8. Dallas: I-45 at I-30
9. San Bernardino, California: I-10 at I-15
10. Chattanooga, Tennessee: I-75 at I-24
ATRI says its report serves to remind national, state and regional
leaders of urgent infrastructure needs, including bridge
replacements. If Site Selection’s home state of Georgia needs any
further motivation for infrastructure investment, leaders can
consider the fact that Greater Atlanta accounts for six (28%) of the
top 21 bottlenecks. Texas, however, has the most among the top 100
with 14, followed by Georgia and Tennessee with nine each and
California with eight. Some might see these states’ congestion as a
symptom of economic development success, as they not only routinely
rank at or near the top in Site Selection rankings, but continue
(especially in Texas) to attract new residents to some of the
nation’s fastest-growing metro areas. — Adam Bruns
While the company has yet to issue an official announcement, several
press accounts report the Vietnamese government has announced this
investment by Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. Ltd in northern Vietnam.
“The investment will boost the company’s existing production in Thai
Nguyen province of printed circuit boards and other phone
components,” said a Reuters report, “and will raise the company’s
total investment $2.27 billion, the government said in a statement.”
Site Selection and our friends at Tractus Asia have documented the
economic progress of Vietnam (as well as Samsung in Vietnam) closely
over the past decade, including this prescient analysis from nine years ago,
and this recent analysis of the country’s
industrial real estate conundrum.
Australia-based Syrah Resources earlier this month reported that its
board had approved a final investment decision on this expansion of
its active anode material (AAM) facility as the company seeks to
become a vertically integrated natural graphite AAM supply
alternative for U.S. and European battery supply chain and OEM
customers. The investment distinguishes the operation as a first
mover in this arena outside of China. Construction is scheduled for
completion in Q2 2023. The company announced in December an offtake
agreement with Tesla to supply natural graphite AAM from Vidalia,
located just across the Mississippi River from Natchez, Mississippi.
Bitcoin mining operations continue to proliferate around the
country, including a new operation and regional HQ in Fayetteville,
North Carolina, from Plan C Crypto, which already operates three
other mining facilities in the state, including two in Tarboro.
“Plan C Crypto expects to create 19 jobs in 2022, with more to
follow, for skilled professionals in the electrical, security, and
information technology fields, featuring yearly salaries that are
significantly higher than the county average,” reports the
Fayetteville Cumberland County Economic Development Corporation
(FCEDC). “The company is targeting military veterans and spouses as
potential employees for the positions.”
“Fayetteville has everything we want to see for a world-class
facility, including a business-friendly climate, strong existing
infrastructure and talented workforce,” said Plan C Crypto CEO
Antonio Bestard. “We will use demand response proof of work mining
to bring zonal grid stability at the substation level and bring
high-paying jobs to the region.”
Site Selection readers last September gained insights
into the hyperactive cryptocurrency marketplace from Duke
Energy’s John Geib in the Duke Energy Investment Report. You’ll gain
a different sort of bitcoin insight from this
fascinating story in The New Yorker documenting one
Welshman’s dogged attempts (including the promise of economic
development) to dig up a hard drive containing his bitcoin key from
a town landfill, with hundreds of millions of dollars hanging in the
balance.
Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, a career educator and highly
decorated high school basketball coach, is transforming the state’s
approach to cradle-to-career workforce development.
Three years after the death of oilman, corporate raider and late-life renewable energy advocate T. Boone
Pickens at the age of 91, his renowned Mesa Vista Ranch in Texas has
gone on the market for $170 million, down from the $250 million he
was asking when he put it on the market in 2017.
TopTenRealEstateDeals.com, which provided this image among many of
the 64,672-acre property, noted that Pickens “amassed his fortune
via a concept he figured out as a paperboy. He expanded his paper
route from 28 customers to 158 customers by buying out other
delivery boys’ routes. It was the same proven theory he used to grow
his oil and natural gas business that in time brought him a net
worth of $950 million.”
The property, which includes a 6,000-sq.-ft. family home,
12,000-sq.-ft. lake house and 33,000-sq.-ft. lodge, also features a
chapel, pub, vet lab, golf course, tennis courts and airplane runway
and hangar complete with a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment for the
pilots.
