Investor Watch: November 13, 2023

INCENTIVE UPDATE

A film credit expansion seeks to answer competition from New Jersey and Georgia. Two studio heads tell Gary Daughters what’s literally going on behind the scenes.

INVESTMENT PROFILE: HOOSIER ENERGY

Unprecedented demand drives economic development modernization in Hoosier Energy territory.

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Photo courtesy of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems

DefenseNews last week reported the the U.S. Army is asking for as much as $3.1 billion of the $106 billion emergency supplemental funds being considered by Congress for defense spending in order to boost production of artillery munitions. The production of 155mm shells is mostly carried out in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with packing taking place at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. Another manufacturing plant is under construction by General Dynamics in Texas, with further contracting with a company in Ontario, Canada. General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in September announced a $218 million initial task order from the U.S. Army for 155mm ammunition that would include funding for “facilitization and production” at the company’s operations in Arkansas. “Last month, the Army also awarded $1.5 billion in contracts to nine companies in the U.S., Canada, India and Poland to boost global production of 155mm artillery rounds,” Jen Judson reported.

Since this date five years ago, the Conway Projects Database has documented more than 70 facility investments around the world in the manufacture of ordnance and ammo, most of it for small arms.

Solar is one of several renewable energy sources that can potentially be deployed on abandoned mine lands.

Map courtesy of NREL

Cleanup and redevelopment of abandoned mine land was in the news earlier this month when U.S. Acting Deputy Secretary of the Interior Laura Daniel-Davis traveled to Virginia to visit former mine lands where investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization (AMLER) program are being carried out in multiple communities. Among the AMLER sites she visited were the Wise County Solar Project, which reclaimed formerly mined land adjacent to the existing Mineral Gap Data Center for a 9,000-module solar energy installation, and Project Intersection in Norton, which aims to host more than five building sites — including an EarthLink location —and ”serve as the centerpiece for a regional economic development effort” for four counties.

The news reminded us of a May 2010 article we published — “Back From the Dead” — documenting redevelopment of Superfund, tailings dam, mining and landfill sites as part of the RE-Powering America’s Land program and the Restoration Design Energy Project … itself funded by a previous federal funds injection, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The RE-Powering program recently completed pre-screening of more than 190,000 sites for potential redevelopment with renewable energy. Check out the program’s mapping application here.

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Photo of BAPS dedication ceremony courtesy of BAPS

Today is the second day of the Diwali holiday honored by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and some Buddhists around the world as a celebration of light over darkness and good over evil. One place sure to be in full celebration mode is the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey, where this photo was made during a celebration of its grand opening in October after 12 years of development.

Believed to be the largest Hindu temple in the Western Hemisphere, the site and the diverse population it serves were highlighted in the 2021 New Jersey Economic Development Guide. “With stones quarried from Italy, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, India, and other countries, intricately hand-carved by master artisans in India and assembled in Robbinsville by thousands of volunteers from North America and around the world, Akshardham was truly a global endeavor,” said a BAPS release. Robbinsville Mayor David Fried said the site “has become part of our community, and we are honored that you thought to choose our community and had the vision to turn this piece of land into something that is truly unbelievable and one of the wonders of the world.”