North American Reports

Fiserv in metro Kansas City; Fermaca Dreams in Durango, Mexico; GE Aerospace in North Carolina; a $4 billion ammonia JV in Louisiana; a $23 billion U.S. investment plan from Novartis; the Top 10 most innovative states (No. 1 is not a state).

Apple’s $500 billion bet on the United States; GlobalFoundries in New York; a new lithium refi nery in Oklahoma; CBRE’s 100 largest o ce leases; Diageo in Alabama; Novva Data Centers in Arizona

Clemens Food Group is investing $250 million in a new, 550,000-sq.-ft. (51,000-sq.-m.) pork processing facility in Coldwater, Mich., that will create about 800 jobs.

Travelers flying over North Dakota at night will soon see fewer lights from natural gas flares.

Philips Lighting will expand their operations at the company’s Tupelo, Miss., facility, creating a manufacturing hub.

Agribusiness contributes more than $1.5 billion to the regional economy of western Michigan, and the new Michigan Hop Network hopes to assist hop farmers in adding to that total.

International Speedway Corporation announced a multi-year partnership with Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc., making Toyota the first Founding Partner at Daytona International Speedway, part of the $400-million DAYTONA Rising redevelopment project.

Apple Inc. announced the opening of a new plant in Mesa, Ariz., that will create 700 jobs, as well as 1,300 construction jobs, for a region hard hit during the recession.

Chinese investors spent $12.2 billion in foreign direct investment in the first three quarters of 2013, on the way to a record-setting year, according to Rhodium Group’s Thilo Hanemann.

While economists fret over bubbles of another kind, the leading maker of bubble drinks is stretching its wings. Lollicup USA Inc., the specialty beverage manufacturer, supplier and retailer, is moving from 140,000 sq. ft. (13,000 sq. m.) in two separate locations in Walnut and Industry, Calif., to one shiny new 300,300-sq.-ft. (27,898-sq.-m.) facility in the San Bernardino County community of Chino. The company plans to add to its payroll of 150 once the relocation is complete in mid-third quarter 2013.

The Menlo Park City Council in late March approved all requested land use entitlements and agreements for the Facebook West Campus Project, and introduced ordinances approving the development agreement and rezoning the property to accommodate design requirements surpassing existing height limits.

Three early 2013 rankings and reports offer some guidance from the fringes of the site selection matrix.

Following up on two separate projects whose feasibility studies were announced just over a year earlier, South Africa-based energy and chemicals company Sasol announced in early December it will combine them into one complex. This and other stories from around North America

College students are no different from the companies that one day will hire them in looking for their own best return on investment, which is why the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) this fall released its 2012 AIER College Destinations Index (CDI), which examined a dozen factors in evaluating the 227 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with student populations of 15,000 or more.

University spending on research (R&D) in all fields increased 6.9 percent between FY 2009 and FY 2010 to US$61.2 billion. University of Florida Innovation Hub, Tijuana, Mexico tax incentives.

Data on repurposed automotive plants, the U.S. vs. the world in compensation levels, energetic trends in state GDP, Nissan in Mexico, EB-5 and visa trends, and worldly schools and students.

What Goes Around Comes Around; Carolinas Grow Finer; Whatever You Do, Don’t Compare These Numbers; Inside and Outside Indicators Stoke Optimism, Caveats

North American Reports: Blu Homes To Build Prefab Eco-Homes By Deep Blue Sea; ‘They Were There Last Time We Checked’; Billion-Dollar Bounce In South Carolina

North American Reports: Quick-Fill Capability; Honda Diversifies; Northeast Aces ACT; Looking West;Where’s the Building?; New Digs for Novo