Two of Site Selection’s signature annual rankings are its Top Metros and Top Micropolitans, which are recognized each May for their capital investment success the previous calendar year. Counties, too, play a role in those areas’ success, which is why in recent years this Top Counties ranking appears in each July issue.
Plenty of overlap can be found, to be sure. The top counties by total points tend to be dominated by their largest metros — Phoenix in Maricopa County, Arizona, or Houston in Harris County, Texas. The same can be said of many of the top counties per capita, where micropolitan communities typically are the largest cities in their county.
The recent addition of Top Counties, regardless of overlap with other rankings, recognizes the often behind-the-scenes contributions county officials make in facilitating both project attraction and project retention. No project will move forward very quickly without permitting, zoning, traffic planning and other county-specific inputs typical of new or expanding project activity.
These rankings are based on total points awarded to counties based on number of projects between January 2024 and March 2025, capital investment and jobs created according to project data resident in Site Selection’s Conway Projects Database.
Top Counties Per Capita Highlights
Four Kentucky counties make the top 20 list for this year’s ranking, including Muhlenberg County in western Kentucky, which finishes in third place. It’s where Tampa, Florida–based Repkon USA – Defense LLC was awarded a U.S. Army contract worth over $108 million to design, construct and commission a TNT facility in Graham. It’s the first such facility built in the U.S. since the 1980s.
In mid-June, Biomass Engineering and Equipment (BE&E) broke ground on a new $20 million facility in Muhlenberg County, creating 250 jobs. The company makes equipment for the agriculture, forest products and biomass industries. The project is the first to be located in the Paradise Regional Industrial Park, a 430-acre regional business park located at a new interchange on the Western Kentucky Parkway near Greenville. The park was approved for $745,000 in state support in 2023 as part of the Kentucky Product Development Initiative, the state’s site development initiative.
“BE&E is a global company and as such can choose anywhere in the world as the most advantageous location to expand,” said Dane Floyd, CEO of Floyd Holdings, BE&E’s parent company. “Many factors go into such a major decision as this investment and all things considered, Greenville, Kentucky is the right choice. I am grateful to everyone involved; the dedicated employees, the local government, the community and Gov. [Andy] Beshear’s office for making this decision so easy for us.”
Top ranking Defiance County, Ohio, in January 2025 secured a 180-job project worth $253 million from MetalX LLC, an independent metals recycler. The project will include two components, says the company — an aluminum rolling slab manufacturing plant that will convert scrap into large aluminum slabs and an aluminum scrap shredding and advanced sortation facility.
In second-place Boone County, Indiana, Eli Lilly and Company announced in October 2024 a $4.5 billion investment to create the Lilly Medicine Foundry, a new center for advanced manufacturing and drug development. The facility “will give Lilly the ability to research new ways of producing medicines, while also scaling up manufacturing of medicines for clinical trials. The first-ever facility of its kind, combining research and manufacturing in a single location, the Medicine Foundry will be located in Indiana›s LEAP Research and Innovation District in Lebanon, Indiana, and will expand the company’s investment there to more than $13 billion,” the company reports.
The Foundry will be built on a 190-acre campus. Current development plans include 1 million total sq. ft. of new buildings, with ample room for capacity expansion, according to the company. Once fully operational, the Medicine Foundry is expected to add 400 full-time jobs for highly skilled workers including engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians.
Top Counties for Total Points Highlights
Outside, frequently adjacent to, the cities at the hearts of these counties’ economies are locations winning capital investment projects that are no less significant to their metros, counties and states.
In first-place Maricopa County, Arizona, the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro remains a magnet for semiconductor manufacturing, data centers and logistics facilities. But Tricolor, a leading used automotive retailer focused on underserved Hispanic consumers, opened its newest state-of-the-art mega reconditioning center in Surprise in September 2024. The 258,000-sq.-ft. facility will employ more than 500 people from the area.
In Buckeye, Fortescue is moving forward with its green hydrogen production plans for the U.S. with a 158-acre site for its solar- and wind-powered Arizona Hydrogen facility. The plant is slated to produce up to 11,000 tons of liquid green hydrogen annually. The Buckeye project is the first part of Fortescue’s $550 million plan for producing green hydrogen in the U.S.
United Airlines in March broke ground on a new 140,000-sq.-ft.Ground Service Equipment (GSE) Maintenance Facility at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston (Harris County) and opened a new Technical Operations Training Center at the airport, where the airline has invested $3.5 billion in modern facilities since 2015.
Rendering courtesy of United Airlines
Thank the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro, a leading global energy hub, for landing dozens of projects that more than contributed to Harris County’s second-place finish in this Top Counties category. But the community of Humble secured two of Harris County’s most significant projects, both from United Airlines divisions; the air carrier operates one of its global hubs at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. United Technical Operations is opening a $38 million global distribution center in Humble and expanding other facilities in support of the hub. Foust Distributing Company is investing $24 million to expand a beer distribution center in Jacinto City.
Cook County, Illinois, is home to Chicagoland, but not all of the projects went to the Windy City. In the spring, DN Solutions opened its new Chicago Technical Center (CTC) in Schaumburg. The South Korean precision machinery manufacturer says the 24,000-sq.-ft. CTC will become one of the company’s global Additive Manufacturing Solution Centers, serving as a hub for part design, process optimization, prototyping and production.
“The Chicago Technical Center is more than just a machine showroom,” said DN Solutions North America CEO Daniel Medrea. “It’s a technological hub for advanced machining applications and an important resource for the support of all North American manufacturers.”
In Buffalo Grove, Sweden-based Ymer Technology, a manufacturer of electric vehicle (EV) components for the heavy equipment industry, announced the opening of its new U.S. headquarters in August 2024, involving a $5.7 million investment. Buffalo Grove occupies sections of Cook and Lake Counties.
“We completed an exhaustive nationwide search for a new U.S. location,” said Frederik Peterson, the founder of Ymer Technology, at the announcement event. “The [Illinois] Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Lake County Partners and the Village of Buffalo Grove worked together to support our site selection and assembled an attractive offer that highlights Illinois’ talent, work ethic, favorable climate and vast network of EV leaders.”
