Each year, via data gathered from an annual questionnaire in addition to our staff’s own research into utilities with active economic development departments, Site Selection recognizes the Top Utilities in economic development based on corporate end-user project activity in their regions.
With a few exceptions, job creation totals are down this year from the year before, with most capex figures lower or holding steady. This could be related to the extreme load demand on the U.S. power grid from the surfeit of energy-sucking megaprojects. This year, in addition to asking traditional questions about project attraction, capital investment, job creation and services, we asked one extra question:
“Power provision is vying with workforce as the most pressing issue for industrial companies nationwide amid a glut of major industrial facility projects (data centers, semiconductor fabs, EV/battery supply chain, etc.). How is your utility’s economic development team working with operations and external stakeholders to address these concerns?”
The answers, like the robust day-to-day solutions from this select group of winners, can be compelling. Here is a sampling from their candid, detailed responses (scan the QR code to the left to access bonus content at siteselection.com in early September in conjunction with the posting of this story):
- Consumers Energy: “More electric vehicle (EV) and EV component manufacturers and other energy-intensive industries need more sites quicker than ever. The challenge is identifying and categorizing sites to give prospective energy-intensive businesses a clearer up-to-the-minute picture of available sites and their attributes.”
- Duke Energy: “The company is currently focusing on large load projects that have a customer commitment or advanced stage of engagement, or where the company’s service area is being seriously considered and shortlisted. By utilizing take-or-pay clauses that require new large load customers to agree to pay for a minimum amount of energy upfront no matter how much they end up using, they are also ensuring other customers are protecting from the cost of this demand.”
- Alliant Energy: “Supply chain challenges continue to be seen across the utility industry. Orders for equipment that took six months to fulfill in 2020 now take 24-80 months. We expect delays to continue due to labor, raw material and component shortages. Alliant Energy Director of Supply Chain Management David Watkins said, ‘Alliant Energy is taking significant actions to ensure we have an adequate supply of critical equipment to deliver the energy services our current and future customers rely on.”
In the meantime, here are the 2024 Top Utilities in Economic Development, who keep their project pipelines and channels of community goodwill flowing as reliably as their power.
NORTHEAST
PECO, an Exelon Company
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Casey McCourt, Senior Economic Development Specialist
www.peco.com
Corporate facility investment: $10.1 billion
Jobs created: 4,448
Population & Territory: 4.1 million in the City of Philadelphia and four surrounding counties plus a portion of York County
Highlights: “A new package called “Connecting your Business” includes information for developers on how to request electricity and natural gas service, PECO’s large load process, relocation of existing electric service and making the construction area safe. The PECO team also has instituted a program to proactively reach out to developers of projects in underserved areas of its service territory. “Like many other electric utilities, we have had to adapt to an unprecedented number of requests for large amounts of power, primarily for potential data centers,” the team says. “PECO Economic Development brings together and coordinates all the key functions to address these large load opportunities, including Transmission Planning, Transmission & Substations, Distribution Capacity Planning, Project Management and Real Estate. We have developed a Large Load Process to provide a guide for how to address these projects, which require a connection at transmission voltage. We are also constantly benchmarking and learning from our peer utilities on best practices to meet the needs of these data center developers and end users.”
EAST NORTH CENTRAL
American Electric Power
Columbus, Ohio
Timothy J. Wells, Vice President, Sales, Economic & Business Development
www.aep.com/economic-development
Corporate facility investment: $35,037,575,000
Jobs created: 10,416
Population & Territory: 12.4 million across a 200,000-square-mile service area covering nearly 350 counties in 11 states served by seven electric utility operating companies
Highlights: Job creation was up by more than 1,700 jobs year over year while capex grew by $7 billion. “As a result of several noteworthy projects in 2023, AEP and our communities will impact the world’s economy for years to come,” writes Timothy Wells, including LNG, ammonia and hydrogen from several large investments in Texas; energizing the EV transition with a new large-scale battery production facility in Indiana, a lithium refining operation in Texas, and a battery recycling facility in Oklahoma; new large-scale solar panel manufacturing facilities announced in Oklahoma and Ohio; and vertically grown lettuce out of SWEPCO Texas. “These are just a few highlights from 92 new and existing customer projects from 2023,” he says, whose 10,416 direct jobs will be augmented by an additional 14,900 indirect and induced jobs. “Electricity availability, capacity and cost have become far more significant factors in the location decisions companies are making. Leveraging our local field knowledge, detailed mapping capabilities and analytical insights, we are focused on continually growing and marketing a broad portfolio of available industrial properties. We proactively promote over 150 properties across our footprint, many of which are marketed as development-ready industrial properties.”
SOUTH ATLANTIC
Dominion Energy
Richmond, Virginia
Jen Kostyniuk, Director of Economic Development
www.dominionenergy.com/economic-development
Corporate facility investment: $15,215,500,000
Jobs created: 16,692
Population & Territory: 20 million in 16 states (7 million customers)
Highlights: A new economic development website highlights “the robust economic growth, strong demographic trends and advanced infrastructure that make the regions we serve great places for business,” writes Jen Kostyniuk. “Visitors can find the best site for their next project, discover certified sites to help with an expansion and read about recent success stories we are proud to be a part of. It also connects prospective customers to the most important part of the process: the people. We also worked closely with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership to support the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program and refined the narrative to answer: Why Dominion Energy and Why Virginia?” In response to the power provision question, she says, “Getting to the table early and often is key. Our dedicated economic development experts stay in contact with our partners to understand energy needs and develop creative solutions. An ‘all of the above’ mix is needed to close the power gap, and we have successfully navigated similar challenges before. As in the past, the commonsense solution involves a balanced, diverse mix of energy sources that are reliable, affordable and increasingly clean.”
SOUTH CENTRAL
Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives
Winchester, Kentucky
Brad Thomas, Manager for Economic Development
www.DataIsPower.org
Corporate facility investment: $778,125,071
Jobs created: 1,221
Population & Territory: 1.2 million in 46% of Kentucky’s geography (11,840,717 acres) from the Ohio River to the Tennessee state line
Highlights: “Our team has worked very closely with our served communities to develop viable large-scale industrial sites (including the development of four 1,000+-acre Mega Sites) that have had all due diligence performed including insuring all have necessary utility infrastructure in place,” writes Brad Thomas, whose team also stepped up international recruiting with three trips to Germany and Italy last year. Since KTEC restarted its economic development program in January 2015, he says, its cooperatives’ service territories have seen 373 economic development projects bringing more than $12.3 billion in investment, more than 18,100 jobs and a 44% increase in industrial electric load. Last year’s project lineup included a $153 million, 167-job project from EV supplier Hitachi Astemo Americas in Berea; a 200-job, $3 million investment from software company Optomi in Monticello; and a $65 million, 92-job project from aerospace company Safran Landing Systems Kentucky in the northern Kentucky community of Hebron.
LG&E and KU Energy LLC
Louisville, Kentucky
John Bevington, Senior Director, Business and Economic Development
www.lge-ku.com | www.OpportunityKY.com
Corporate facility investment: $2,436,554,845
Jobs created: 4,497
Population & Territory: 3.4 million (1.3 million customers); LG&E serves 333,000 natural gas and 429,000 electric customers in Louisville/Jefferson County and 16 surrounding counties. KU serves 566,000 customers in 77 Kentucky counties and five counties in Virginia, for a total of 98 counties.
Highlights: The team at LG&E (Louisville Gas & Electric) and KU (Kentucky Utilities) helped Kentucky rank third in the nation for capital investment in Site Selection’s 2023 Governor’s Cup rankings with early 4,500 new jobs and $2.4 billion of new capital investment, led by manufacturing, announced in their service territories. “The automotive industry, particularly electric vehicle (EV) battery production, is strong in Kentucky,” says John Bevington. “Other traditional sectors continued to grow in 2023, including health care, logistics and distribution, metals, agri-tech, data centers, and food/beverage production. Lastly, with 95% of the world’s bourbon distilled here, the spirits industry is the toast of Kentucky’s economy.” Last year LG&E and KU launched opportunityky.com as a website enhancement to help site selectors and prospects evaluate communities and business parks with GIS mapping and census data. The Opportunity Kentucky Grant also was established to help communities proactively address land and building inventory shortages and also serve as a deal-closing fund, with grants awarded worth nearly $906,000. Also last year, the Opportunity Kentucky credit, a five-year demand reduction incentive also known as the economic development rider, assisted seven companies with $ 2.7 million in credits.
Tennessee Valley Authority
Nashville, Tennessee
John Bradley, Senior Vice President, Economic Development
tvasites.com
Corporate facility investment: $9.2 billion
Jobs created: 12,200
Population & Territory: 10 million across 80,000 square miles in portions of seven states, including most of Tennessee and parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia
Highlights: TVA, writes Marketing Coordinator Joanna Muscatello, is the energy source behind nearly every business venture in its seven-state region. And “behind every new venture is a unique collaboration of specialized services provided by TVA Economic Development. We connect industry experts and custom talent-development solutions with a workforce of over 4 million skilled laborers. Our goal is to support innovative community development and the businesses that thrive here.” The Product Development division continues to prove successful for communities via programs like TVA’s InvestPrep, InvestReady and the Certified Megasite program. “These programs are impactful, as they yield time savings and risk minimization for clients. Companies like Georgia Pacific, which located in Madison County, Tennessee, marking the largest announcement in the city’s history, and Aluminum Dynamics’s announcement in Lowndes Co., Mississippi, the largest economic development project in the state’s history, are both situated on products of TVA Economic Development product development programs.” Workforce development programs include Workforce Invest, a grant-matching program that provides support for education and workforce training to communities through the local economic development organization. In just two years, the program’s impact has reached across seven states with such activities as welding training for justice-involved individuals and English language learning.
EAST NORTH CENTRAL
Alliant Energy
Madison, Wisconsin
Coleman Peiffer, Senior Manager, Economic & Community Development
alliantenergy.com/economicdevelopment
Corporate facility investment: 3,485,212,055
Jobs created: 3,584 new jobs
Population & Territory: 1 million
Highlights: Welcoming nearly as many jobs as the 3,903 it helped attract the year before, Alliant’s team saw project capital investment leap by more than $1.4 billion to nearly $3.5 billion. “In September 2023, we announced Columbia County, Wisconsin, may soon be home to one of the most sustainable, advanced energy storage systems in the country,” writes Coleman Peiffer. “Alliant Energy was selected for a grant of up to approximately $30 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) for a proposed 200-megawatt-hour energy storage system” named the Columbia Energy Storage Project. “This highly efficient, zero-emissions, closed loop battery system could power approximately 20,000 Wisconsin homes … The creation of our Federal Funding office played a key role in securing this project,” Peiffer says. “This dedicated team collaborates with communities and customers to maximize grant opportunities arising from the Inflation Reduction Act.” Alliant Energy also was active in 2023 shaping new legislation to make Wisconsin attractive to data center projects, resulting in the passage of “one of the most aggressive sales and use tax exemption bills in the industry.” With new exemption and incentives in Wisconsin and Iowa, the industrial parks Alliant Energy proactively developed are ready for large-scale utility projects like data centers, he says, specifically Big Cedar Industrial Center in Cedar Rapids and Prairie View Industrial Park in Ames, Iowa, and Beaver Dam Commerce Park in Wisconsin.
Consumers Energy
Jackson, Michigan
Valerie Christofferson, Director of Economic Development
www.consumersenergy.com/econdev
Corporate facility investment: $11,209,863,000
Jobs created: 8,645
Population & Territory: 6.8 million in all 68 counties in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula
Highlights: Noteworthy wins included GM’s $4 billion investment to convert its Orion Township plant to EV truck manufacturing and Hemlock Semiconductor’s $375 million investment in Thomas Township. “In 2023, we launched our Reliability Roadmap, a nearly $9 billion investment in reliability and resilience with the goal of ensuring no customer ever goes more than 24 hours without power,” writes Valerie Christofferson. “We are taking steps to trim trees away from power lines, embrace technology and explore burying power lines, all to reduce the number and length of power outages.” According to Darin Buelow, Global Location Strategy Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP, says Christofferson, ‘One of the largest differentiating factors for Michigan is Consumers Energy. Their proposals are attractive, clear and concisely presented. Consumers Energy answers the next several questions before we can ask them. They listen and allow the customer to drive the conversation. Consumers Energy is one of best in the nation at this process.’ ”
Commonwealth Edison (ComEd)
Oakbrook Terrace (Chicagoland), Illinois
Ed Sitar, Senior Manager of Economic Development
www.comed.com/econdev
Corporate facility investment: $8.62 billion
Jobs created: 4,385
Population & Territory: 9 million people in the northern third of Illinois, including the Chicago metro area. ComEd’s 11,000-square-mile service territory spans over 400+ municipalities and represents 70% of the state’s population
Highlights: “Power remains a critical factor in the site selection process,” writes Ed Sitar. To that end ComEd has collected and analyzed over 150 available large land sites in its service territory and then ranked the sites by proximity to existing transmission corridors to determine ease of interconnecting to ComEd’s system with new onsite substations to support large power projects. The resulting 42 top sites were then shared with key real estate brokers, site consultants, and prospective new customers. “In addition, we supported the second wave of Intersect Illinois’ Vetted Sites program with new locations they evaluated and are marketing,” Sitar says. ComEd joined with allies to launch the Illinois Data Center Energy Task Force to signal to the market that Illinois is positioned to support data center investment and create productive dialogue among key stakeholders. “We want to ensure Illinois’ electric grid stays ahead of the large growth curve of the data center industry and avoid challenges that have plagued other areas of the country,” Sitar says. Among other activities, the ComEd team accompanied Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on a trade mission to the United Kingdom, where they convened a clean energy roundtable.
SOUTH CENTRAL
Alabama Power Company
Birmingham, Alabama
Shane Kearney, Director, Economic Development
Amazingalabama.com
Corporate facility investment: $1.7 billion
Jobs created: 1,832
Population & Territory: 3.2 million across 74,000 miles of distribution and 10,722 miles of transmission lines covering 45,000 acres in the southern two-thirds of Alabama
Highlights: “Continuing our commitment to site development, Alabama Power’s Economic & Community Development team supported the passage of the state’s Site Evaluation and Economic Development Strategy (SEEDS) Act,” writes Shane Kearney. Over 30 communities were awarded grants of $28.3 million in SEEDS for a total investment of $64 million toward site development, improvement and acquisition. The utility’s Strategic Analytics Team used GIS and drones to review and assess thousands of acres of land to identify potential sites and establish marketable sites. Alabama Power has engaged four of 12 startups from nine states, Latvia and Italy that were in the fourth cohort of the Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator for pilot and commercialization opportunities post-program. Over 70 businesses benefited from the team’s new Make Ready program to provide financial assistance for the infrastructure work required to install EV charging stations at their facilities. In 2023, Alabama Power leased fiber that will enable rural broadband deployment in Brewton, Demopolis, Monroeville, and Selma. Partnering with Alabama Talent Solutions, the workforce arm of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Alabama Power’s workforce development team met with eight industrial customers, resulting in the creation of the Alabama Experience (ALEX) Mobile Career Trailer in 2023.
PowerSouth
Andalusia, Alabama
Taylor Williams, Vice President, External Affairs
www.powersouth.com/economic-development
Corporate facility investment: $3.2 billion
Jobs created: 4,706
Population & Territory: 3,361,419 across 39 counties in south Alabama and 10 counties in northwest Florida
Highlights: Project wins included a 50-job, $3.7 million investment in Elba, Alabama, from Sunbelt Solomon Services; a $9 million, 21-job investment from Colclasher Enterprises in Selma, Alabama; a $393 million, 837-job investment in Opelika, Alabama, from Miele; and a $30 million, 250-job investment from Premier Aviation in Panama City, Florida. In addition to playing an integral role in local, state and regional economic development organizations across two states, PowerSouth’s economic development team continues to pursue the Strategic Sites Identification Program it launched in 2018. Since that launch, the program has identified 598 new sites and 185,862 acres for potential megasite, heavy industrial, light industrial, heavy agribusiness and general agribusiness uses. In 2023, the team’s business retention and expansion efforts include 15 northwest Florida visits, 29 Alabama visits and 22 existing industry expansions in both states. Last year, PowerSouth also celebrated the completion of new generation assets: the Lowman Energy Center and Plant Vogtle Units 3 & 4, increasing its capacity to serve its 20 distribution members and new industry. In December 2023, the PowerSouth Board of Directors voted to increase Business Development Loan Program funding from $2.5 million to $5 million per project to cover increased construction costs.
Southeast Gas
Andalusia, Alabama
Vince Perez, Director of Economic Development
www.southeastgas.com
Corporate facility investment: $2,099,120,636
Jobs created: 2,796
Population & Territory: 1,059,750, including over 32,000 customers, across 19 counties and 36 communities along 1,700 miles of distribution lines and 575 miles of transmission lines in southeastern Alabama
Highlights: :“In 2023, Southeast Gas underwent a transformative realignment of its Economic and Community Development Department, leading to remarkable achievements across southeast Alabama,” writes Vince Perez. “Demonstrating a commitment to regional growth, Southeast Gas hosted an educational summit on industrial site development, uniting economic development partners from across the region. This summit, coupled with strategic support, empowered four Southeast Alabama communities to secure nearly one-third of the $30 million AL SEEDs Act Program funding, including the program’s largest single award of $5.7 million. Southeast Gas’s dedication to infrastructure and site enhancement was evident in its partnership with Farpoint Development, aimed at boosting the REAL Industrial Park’s competitiveness. The Economic and Community Development team further showcased its support for local growth by distributing $164,000 in Community Betterment Funds to local developers. Southeast Gas also worked with member cities to develop and implement a pioneering retail development and recruitment strategy, a first for Southeast Alabama … The biggest challenges have been finding tracts of land with minimal landowners willing to sell and no fatal flaws. That being said, our successes have not only led to more project activity in areas that are traditionally overlooked, but also provided motivation and confidence for local leaders to pursue other community development initiatives they wouldn’t have normally attempted.”
SOUTH ATLANTIC
Duke Energy
Charlotte, North Carolina
Stu Heishman, Vice President, Economic Development
www.locationdukeenergy.com
Corporate facility investment: $22,434,800,000
Jobs created: 15,047
Population & Territory: : 25 million across 90,000 square miles of service area in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky
Highlights: : “Duke Energy remains committed to delivering affordable, reliable and increasingly clean energy to the communities it serves, which are some of the fastest growing areas of the country,” says Stu Heishman. “As the energy landscape continues to change in remarkable ways, this next decade represents a critical execution phase in the energy transition. The company’s generation transition is well underway, and its system is changing and expanding — doubling its capacity over the next decade — to deliver on its ambitious targets … In the last 12 months, Duke Energy has delivered on value with an influx of new economic development wins, including manufacturing and technology projects. The company has filed an updated Carolinas Resource Plan, a proposed roadmap for North Carolina and South Carolina to deliver clean energy through an ‘all of the above’ approach that does not compromise grid reliability, energy affordability or the energy demands of a growing region.” In 2023, the company also announced plans to build and operate the nation’s first solar-to-100% hydrogen-fired turbine in DeBary, Florida.
South Carolina Power Team
Columbia, South Carolina
James A. Chavez, President & CEO
www.scpowerteam.com
Corporate facility investment: $2,313,370,000
Jobs created: 1,953
Population & Territory: 1.6 million in South Carolina
Highlights: Project wins last year included QTS Data Centers’ $1 billion investment in York County; FN America’s 176-job, $33 million project in Pickens County; and Latitude Corp.’s 200-job, $29 million investment in Clarendon County. All in all, new projects added 700 megawatts of new electric load to the system. “Highlights for 2023 include continued implementation of our Upskill Incentive to offset training costs for commercial members investing in new equipment requiring existing employees to learn new skills,” says James Chavez. “We approved eight Upskill Incentive grants in 2023 totaling over $95,000. We work with local community leaders to foster an understanding of their role in economic development, build support for growth and develop local workforce strategies. In 2023, we hosted these workshops in five different counties in South Carolina. In addition, we have committed significant resources to site development through our Site Advancement Fund and through our Site Readiness Fund which commits at least $6 million annually to fully develop industrial properties. To date, our $63 million SRF commitment has leveraged more than $224 million in matching dollars.” Three 2023 project announcements occurred on SRF sites, accounting for $1.87 billion in capital investment and 137 new jobs.
Georgia Power
Atlanta, Georgia
Charlie Moseley, Statewide Economic Development Manager
www.selectgeorgia.com
Corporate facility investment: $18,160,168,493
Jobs created: 26,474
Population & Territory: 10,912,876 in 155 of the state’s 159 counties,
which includes more than 2.7 million customers
Highlights: Major wins included Qcells’ $2 billion, 2,000-job solar module investment in Cartersville; a 1,400-job, $750 million manufactured building and home products facility from Finland’s ADMARES; a $4 billion investment from data center developer QTS in three mammoth facilities in metro Atlanta; and life sciences manufacturer Meissner’s $250 million, microfiltration and therapeutics manufacturing facility in Athens that will create nearly 1,800 new jobs. Led by South Korea due in large part to Hyundai’s EV supplier efforts to support its “metaplant” near Savannah, foreign-based companies represented 40% of total locations in 2023, 44% of jobs and 41% of capital investment. Driven by EVs and clean energy, “2023 was the second-best year on record for Georgia Power Economic Development,” says the utility, as the team also met “soaring demand for data center investment … 2023 proved to be a year focused on continued momentum to meet the site, energy, and workforce needs of these megaprojects.” One asset helping in that quest was the delivery of the first newly constructed nuclear unit to be built in the United States in over three decades, Plant Vogtle Unit 3, which was followed by Unit 4 in April 2024.
WEST NORTH CENTRAL
Evergy
Kansas City, Missouri
Ebony Clemons-Ajibolade, Manager, Economic Development
EvergyED.com
Corporate facility investment: $6,093,833,980
Jobs created: 6,430 new jobs
Population & Territory: 1.7 million customers across the greater eastern one-third of Kansas and Western Missouri
Highlights: :“We drafted legislation for a new program offering in 2023. It has come to fruition in 2024,” writes Ebony Clemons-Ajibolade. “The Evergy service area has become a hotspot for data centers, EV/battery supply chain and advanced technology facilities. We are committed to the journey of finding smart solutions to attract, expand and retain these industries. Thus, the Eco devo team went on a listening tour to better understand our community assets for said projects and took a deep dive to understand our generation and infrastructure capacity needs. Evergy built a coalition of economic developers throughout Kansas to help pass legislation allowing us to build new generation facilities for future projects, respond quicker to investment needs in our local communities and strengthen our large user economic development program. By bringing stakeholders together to create a path forward we are leading the charge to bring business to our communities. Internally, we have kicked off a process to examine ways of making sure that we can meet the power demands and needs of the large data center boom. By preparing innovative solutions and commonsense rules that appeal to data centers and our communities, we can build on our successes of landing major data centers.”
SOUTH CENTRAL
Entergy Corporation
New Orleans, Louisiana
Shantel Johnson, Senior Manager, Entergy Corporation
goentergy.com
Corporate facility investment: $33,360,000,000
Jobs created: 5,158
Population & Territory: 7,718,110 across 63 counties in Arkansas, 58 parishes in Louisiana, 45 counties in Mississippi and 27 counties in Texas
Highlights: : Entergy Louisiana’s recruiting effort in 2023 led to 65 qualified leads and five active projects. ”Entergy Texas has implemented new internal mapping capabilities to identify areas of load growth, thereby realizing possibilities in other markets where opportunities may exist,” writes Shantel Johnson. “Using this information, we have been able to identify sites that may be ideally situated to serve future customers with minimal upgrades as well as exclude sites that require significant system improvements.” Meanwhile, “Entergy Louisiana and Texas partnered together to target six international companies through a foreign direct investment initiative with Research On Investment,” resulting in two strong leads. Entergy Arkansas partnered with the Metro Little Rock Alliance in their central Arkansas site search, including evaluation and ranking of Entergy-served sites. Entergy Arkansas also issued grants for site development and/or recertification for a site at the Port of Little Rock, the Wynne Hwy 1 Site and the West Memphis Mega Site. After adding five new sites in 2023, Louisiana now has 145 certified sites of which 116 are certified within Entergy’s service territory. Entergy Mississippi awarded five economic development organizations with Excellerator Competitive Communities Grants, bringing the program’s lifetime contribution to $587,000 across 20 counties.
SOUTH ATLANTIC
Florida Power & Light (FPL)
Juno Beach, Florida
Cathy Chambers, Director, Economic Development
www.poweringflorida.com
Corporate facility investment: $1,865,000,000
Jobs created: 6,326
Population & Territory: : More than 12 million in 43 counties across the state
Highlights: Projects included two manufacturing sites in northwest Florida expected to employ 550 people and attract a combined $75 million from Central Moloney, Inc., a manufacturer of distribution transformers and transformer components. Other projects came from Leonardo Helicopters in Milton and Plant Agricultural Systems, which is building a 600-job, $750 million hydroponic farm in Baker County. In addition to its project attraction work, in 2023 FPL completed the launch of its “WonderFL” regional website, part of a talent attraction campaign. “Each regional site promotes the unique work/life balance, employment opportunities and quality of life found there,” writes Cathy Chambers. “All funding for the statewide and regional sites is provided by FPL. The statewide site serves as a funnel to direct new transplants, potential boomerangs and remote workers to regional WonderFL sites. The statewide site includes a cost-of-living calculator, an interactive regional map, information on housing, education, and employers, as well as information for entrepreneurs and veterans. Each regional site includes specific information about local communities, culture, dining, housing, schools and more.” Florida in October 2023 repeated as the No. 1 state for talent attraction in the Lightcast 2023 talent attraction scorecard.
SOUTHWEST
Arizona Public Service
Phoenix, Arizona
Kelly Patton, Economic Development Manager
www.aps.com
Corporate facility investment: $13.2 billion
Jobs created: 3,000
Population & Territory: 2.7 million across 11 of the Arizona’s 15 counties
Highlights: In 2023, APS Economic Development partnered with Next Move Group to provide tools for communities to address multifaceted economic development needs such as prospecting, talent attraction, building and site development, and board training. Next Move Group’s services are available free of charge to local communities as a resource, courtesy of APS. APS continues to offer SizeUp Arizona and Arizona Prospector as valuable resources for local stakeholders. SizeUp Arizona provides small-to-medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs around the state with the market research and data analytics necessary to better understand competition and fine-tune their business model for success APS has partnered with the Arizona Commerce Authority to provide the statewide license for Arizona Prospector, a commercial real estate database that provides up-to-date community and region specific data on labor force, demographics, education levels and more as well as available building and sites for commercial use.
Salt River Project
Phoenix, Arizona
Karla Moran, Manager, Economic Development
www.powertogrowphx.com
Corporate facility investment: $2,224,000,000
Jobs created: 3,134
Population & Territory: 2 million across central Arizona
Highlights: SRP Economic Development offers a seminar series on the topics of water and power infrastructure geared at educating and empowering its partners to be ambassadors for the region and SRP. “The better the cities understand water and power infrastructure the better SRP and the communities can work together to address future challenges,” says Karla Moran. “In 2023, a total of four seminars were offered.” In 2022, SRP launched the first cohort of the SRP Sustainable Cities Program, which was completed in 2023. This program recognizes Arizona cities that exemplify these traits and continue to push their sustainability efforts forward. “SRP Sustainable Cities are key in the continued economic development of the Valley of the Sun,” Moran writes. “Businesses and site selectors seek out communities that aren’t just looking toward the future but are actively planning for it.” (For more, see the Greater Phoenix Intelligence Report in this issue.)
SOUTH CENTRAL
El Paso Electric
El Paso, Texas
Eric Montgomery, Director of Economic Development & Government Affairs
www.epelectric.com
Corporate facility investment: $421 million
Jobs created: 1,834
Population & Territory: 1,098,541 in a 10,000-square-mile from Van Horn, Texas, to Hatch, New Mexico (El Paso-Las Cruces CSA)
Highlights: Among more than 20 projects in the region were a nearly $300 million investment from EDF Renewables in Santa Teresa, New Mexico; a 350-job office from KECH and a 300-job office from Sentry Insurance in El Paso; and the 770-job HQ of Electronic Caregiver in Las Cruces. “The creation of the New Mexico Economic Development Fund and the Texas Economic Development Fund through a $100 million commitment to the El Paso Electric service territory over the next 20 years has proven pivotal to projects,” writes Eric Montgomery. “The funds are independently and locally controlled and provide locating and expanding companies added incentive assistance. In both states, these funds have been the catalyst to closing deals when traditional state incentives were unavailable for companies, filling a gap in our region’s economic development plans.” The utility, long considered one of the most reliable investor-owned utilities in Texas, is also doubling down on renewable power deployment. “We have ‘cut the ribbon’ on the largest solar and battery storage facility in New Mexico with approximately 450,000 panels stretching almost 2 square miles,” Montgomery says. “We have more renewable options coming online in the next two years to support the growing interest for green and carbon-free power options demanded by our customers and locating companies.
