In approximately 3,800 days, the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games will
come to Brisbane and the state of Queensland, Australia. Company leaders
from a range of industries tell Site Selection why Queensland is the
perfect location right now for their growing operations.
The Milton S. Eisenhower Library and the Beach at Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore, Maryland
Photo courtesy of Johns
Hopkins
Two days after Christmas, the National Science Foundation’s National
Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) released FY2020
data from its annual Higher Education Research and Development
(HERD) Survey showing an increase in academic institution
spending of $2.7 billion to $86.4 billion, representing a 3% increase
from FY2019, the lowest increase since FY2015.
Below is the survey’s list of the top 30 institutions for R&D
expenditures, led by Johns Hopkins University. California accounts for
three of the top even and five of the top 30, while Pennsylvania and New
York come in with three apiece. The top 30 institutions accounted for
42% of total R&D spend in the higher education sector in FY2020. A total
of 21 institutions reported at least $1 billion in R&D, up from 14 in
FY2018. And 26 of the 30 had medical schools.
Among upward movers the strongest was Texas A&M University, College
Station and Health Science Center, which rose eight positions to No. 14
“due in part to a substantial contract with HHS for its Center for
Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) to provide
for delivery of a safe and effective vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic,”
the HERD team explained in a release. “CIADM was part of Operation Warp
Speed. In part due to these activities, Texas A&M University’s
expenditures funded through received subawards increased by $138 million
in FY 2020. Their expenditures passed through to subrecipients also
increased in FY 2020 by $150 million.” The next-strongest upward mover
was Georgia Tech at 9.3% (see below).
The survey also collected data on R&D personnel from the 655
institutions reporting at least $1 million in R&D, tallying headcounts
of researchers, R&D technicians and R&D support staff.Across the three
functions, an estimated 956,000 university personnel accounted for
440,000 R&D-performing FTEs (full-time equivalents). — Adam
Bruns
Data courtesy of National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics,
Higher Education Research and Development Survey, National Science
Foundation
After receiving permits last March, this long-simmering rare earths
mining project (rare earths were first detected at the location a decade
ago) is set to move forward in La Paz, located 105 miles northwest of
Phoenix. “With a contiguous footprint of over 218 federal lode mining
claims over approximately 4,503 acres plus an Arizona state exploration
permit for 640 acres, the increasing energy surrounding the La Paz Rare
Earths Project has resulted in an assemblage that has the potential to
be the largest rare earths project in North America,” says the website
of the project, which is being pursued by American Rare Earths Ltd.
(ARR, based in Australia). The full acreage and considerable surrounding
area lie fully in an Opportunity Zone and a New Market Tax Credit Zone.
The company projects hiring 75 at a Phoenix HQ, more than 100 for a
material processing plant and more than 200 at the mine itself. The
company last year also acquired a second U.S. rare earths asset, the
Searchlight Rare Earths project in Nevada, and then a third, the Halleck
Creek project in Wyoming.
This project is one of several being pursued in St. Cloud by AWG, the
Kansas City, Kansas-based cooperative that is the largest independent
grocery store supplier in the U.S. It will serve St. Cloud-based
Coborn’s and other member stores in the upper Midwest. According to
reports, this facility could expand to as much as 500,000 sq. ft. of
demand warrants. AWG’s other projects in the region include a dry goods
warehouse in the I-94 Business Park (at a location formerly occupied by
Creative Memories) and a new fresh-and-frozen facility just to the south
of that location, between I-94 and the Mississippi River. AWG serves
over 1,100 member companies and over 3,100 locations throughout 28
states from eight full-line wholesale divisions. The consolidated sales
for AWG are approximately $10.6 billion.
Transactional data compiled for the annual U-Haul Growth Index shows Texas narrowly beating
out Florida for net gain in one-way U-Haul trucks in 2021. Tennessee,
South Carolina and Arizona round out the top five. Migration trends data
is compiled from well over 2 million one-way U-Haul truck customer
transactions that occur annually. California is 50th and Illinois 49th
on the list for the second consecutive year, “indicating those states
once again witnessed the largest net losses of one-way U-Haul trucks,”
said U-Haul, before piling on with an additional observation:
“California remained the top state for out-migration, but its net loss
of U-Haul trucks wasn’t as severe as in 2020. That can be partially
attributed to the fact that U-Haul simply ran out of inventory to meet
customer demand for outbound equipment.”
“We see a lot of growth coming from the East and West Coast,” said
U-Haul Area District Vice President of the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex
and West Texas Matt Merrill. “A lot of people moving here from
California (and) New York. We also see a lot of people coming in from
the Chicago markets. I think that’s a lot due to the job growth — a lot
of opportunity here. The cost of living here is much lower than those
areas. Texas is open for business.”
The top 10 also include big upward moves from such states as Maine,
Idaho and New Mexico, perhaps indicating a pandemic-fueled appetite for
wide open spaces as much as new job opportunities. — Adam Bruns
2021 Top U-Haul Growth States (2020 Rank in Parentheses)
Texas (2)
Florida (3)
Tennessee (1)
South Carolina (15)
Arizona (5)
Indiana (12)
Colorado (6)
Maine (29)
Idaho (30)
New Mexico (39)
PHOTO OF THE
DAY
Photo courtesy of the Architect of the
Capitol
This image of the U.S. Capitol framed by snow-covered trees is from the
website of the Architect
of the Capitol. The U.S Congress first met in the building on
November 17, 1800. The U.S. Capitol Building is located in a 58-acre
park originally landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1874 that was
named an accredited arboretum in 2017. The Capitol campus is made up of
more than 18.4 million sq. ft. of facilities, and 570 acres of grounds.
