ig jobs can happen without big parcels. But having large land ready for action never hurts.
Among super sites taken by super projects in the past year, one of the top finishers is the PUL Alliance-Wellspring site near Tupelo, Miss., which received the nod from Toyota early in 2007 for a new assembly plant. All due respect to the area’s existing employer base, it was the biggest thing to swivel out of Tupelo since Elvis.
Running neck and neck with that project would have to be the November announcement by Rolls-Royce Group of its US$500-million, 500-employee aerospace engine plant in Prince George County, Va., at its Crosspointe megasite (see sidebar).
Also finishing in the money is India-based Welspun Gujarat Stahl Rohren Ltd., which in June selected Little Rock’s Isgrig Select Site, marketed by Entergy Arkansas, for a $100-million tubular steel manufacturing plant that will employ 300. It was the largest single industrial investment in the city’s history.
This year’s chart, now in its fourth edition, features a distinctively larger cast of sites, including new entries from Louisiana to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and some prodigious parcels in Florida, Texas, Australia and Egypt. It also includes a few that are otherwise known as business parks, but possess the flexibility to group parcels into a single contiguous unit if the opportunity arises.
As Jim Smitham, executive director of Butte Local Development Corp., says of the new Port of Montana Business Development District in Butte, “If there was one end-user that wanted to utilize the entire Business Development District or a large portion of it, we would gladly work with them to meet their needs.”
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So would many parties associated with the 11,000 acres (4,452 hectares) called Shoal River Ranch in Okaloosa County, Fla., adjacent to Eglin Air Force Base and the city of Crestview, and first mentioned here in 2004. Three miles deep by seven miles wide (54 sq. km.), the massive area abuts Eglin to the south, a rail spur and US 90 to the north, and is bisected by I-10, though no interchanges yet exist. That could change, says principal owner Stefan Davis.
“This property is far enough from Crestview’s exit that we were told by the DOT district director that if there was an interchange he could support on I-10, the one at Shoal River Ranch would be the one he’d support,” he says.
Davis says some 694 acres (281 hectares) are officially zoned industrial at this point. Asked if the potential exists for more, he says, “Absolutely,” citing the willingness and rapport among the various cities and counties the land touches. There is also the potential of some annexation by Crestview. But at the same time, his group’s putting all the right touches on the currently approved zone.
“We have donated a total of about 170 acres [69 hectares] to Okaloosa County for wastewater and water treatment plants, and the county is in the process of putting at least a 12-inch main along the north end of the property,” he says. “When I cut the deal, I required them to hold the pipe on the south side of the rail tracks, so nobody would ever have to try and get an easement from the railroad. Development-wise, we’ve done everything we can to ensure this property will have adequate water and sewer for the entire parcel.”
That’s in keeping with what original developer, former oilman Jack Stack, had in mind when he pulled together the land for a cattle operation.
“When he developed it, he basically created a stormwater system of lakes and dikes and overflow structures, so there are 36 lakes on the property, and none require any water to be pumped into them,” says Davis. “Three are several natural springheads in those areas.”
While Davis says some large automotive prospects have come calling, he admits, “It’s difficult to have acreage big enough to support some of these industries with all the other things they have to have as well.”
Could that big blank canvas of unoccupied land that now exists – and which Eglin no doubt wants to preserve – provide the right kind of buffer for a large petrochemical operation?
“Very possible,” says Davis.
The military connection is alive and well in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan too – if that can be said of a property adjacent to a base that was closed by the BRAC process 11 years ago. But the 12,300-ft. runway at the former K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base (now Sawyer International Airport) is a major sales point, in addition to CN rail and the M-553 highway, says Vikki Kulju, executive director of Telkite Technology Park in Gwinn, Mich.
“It would be ideally suited for aviation use of some kind,” she says. “With Michigan’s automotive industry taking a downward spiral, plenty of work force is available to meet the end-user’s need.”
Ownership is in the hands of Telkite and Marquette County, she says, noting that most of the parcel is forest. While Potlatch Lumber is the primary company in that business, the area’s heritage is mining, led by Cleveland-Cliffs Intl./Kobe Steel’s iron operation. Kennecott Mining is also considering a nickel mine, she says. Aviation MRO firm AMR maintains a facility. Other recent expansions tracked by the Conway Data New Plant Database have included projects from surgical implant firm Pioneer Surgical and aluminum product company Superior Extrusion.
The family of companies is complemented by nearby Northern Michigan University, with Michigan Technological University some 90 minutes away in Houghton, where GE Aviation just sited a project in late November. AMR works with NMU on a work-force development program to staff its 230-person operation at Sawyer.
As both of the above sites highlight, secure transport options are nearly as essential as secured land options. When it comes to large industrial sites looking for occupiers, “There are a lot of sites out there, but not a lot really close to the Interstate,” says Bill Adams, automotive target market specialist and site consultant for TVA. He says some automotive projects on the horizon, especially from companies looking to make a market splash as well as an operational improvement, will “absolutely want to be visible,” and being 45 minutes from the national highway network is therefore a disqualifier.
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He also points to the fact that most automotive plants, while they may be in semi-rural areas, are usually within 30 to 45 minutes of an MSA.
That’s one challenge confronting a new Tennessee site. Construction just began at the Clarkrange Regional Business Park in Fentress County, which comes in at 994 acres (402 hectares) composed of a 244-acre (99-hectare) first phase and an option on the remainder. It sits approximately 13 miles (21 km.) north of I-40, near Crossville, which is about 75 miles (121 km.) west of downtown Knoxville. Crossville in December learned it would lose 280 jobs due to plant closings by a window and door maker and a cabinet maker.
Ruble Upchurch, executive director of the Fentress County Chamber of Commerce, says the Clarkrange project has been six years in the making, and has come about due in no small part to the work of his predecessor Scott Sandman, the Industrial Development Board and the property’s single owner, the Gerndt family, which has owned it for 130 years. An additional 5,500 acres (2,226 hectares) surrounds the planned park, which is just getting under way with sewer, water, gas, electric and road work, backed by funding and support from entities such as TVA, the Appalachian Regional Commission, USDA,
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the state of Tennessee and the Upper Cumberland Development District.
“After 15 years of begging and borrowing, we’re getting TDOT to four-lane to within a mile of the park by 2011,” says Upchurch, and there’s even a movement afoot to study the revival of rail service. His organization is also working with neighboring counties through the state’s “Orange Carpet” program, designed to help rural communities welcome corporate prospects.
Perhaps even more important than the flow of traffic is the flow of talent. Nancy Bowen, economic development director in Van Wert County, Ohio, can attest to that. The 1,600-acre (648-hectare) super site in Van Wert was a runner-up last year to Greensburg, Ind.,
for the new Honda assembly plant.
Micropolitan Van Wert has most recently seen expansions from food companies Golden Heritage (honey) and Cooper Farms, Central Insurance Companies, handbag maker KAM Manufacturing and toolbox maker Kennedy-Kuhn.
Bowen says the site is currently under option until 2017. Preliminary engineering for gas, electric, rail and transportation work is all done, and “utility plans will be firmed up with submission of a Job Ready Sites grant application to the state in January to assist with infrastructure improvements.”
But the site is also within shouting distance of the “fertile crescent” of Ohio cities that have been home to incrementally expanding Honda facilities for years: Troy, Anna, Russells Point, Marysville, West Liberty, East Liberty and Raymond.
Asked if that was a factor for Honda, Bowen says, “Yes, I think we were ‘too close’ to Honda’s existing labor shed. That was one of the issues we heard had floated to the top.”
But other automotive and advanced manufacturing concerns have checked up on Van Wert since then, she says.
In the meantime, Bowen and other super site promoters around the world are doing all they can to float to the top themselves.
olls-Royce Group has touched down in Virginia with a US$500-million, 500-employee jet engine plant on a 1,025-acre (410-hectare) site in Prince George County. But the Virginia expansion that Rolls announced on Nov. 20th could pack even more economic muscle than that.
“This project has very long legs, and it has depth,” Liz Povar, director of business development for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), told the SiteNet Dispatch in early December. “We believe there’s a great opportunity for the Rolls plant to be the OEM of aerospace in Virginia, much like an auto plant. We anticipate that there will be a supply chain following. ”
Rolls in October 2006 sent out requests for qualifications (RFQs) to eight selected U.S. states: Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Rolls also notified other countries, but declined to name them. Later it became clear Singapore was a prime global contender.
When that 2006 RFQ was issued, Povar had already been regularly interfacing with Rolls’ top North American officials for three years. Chantilly, Va., in Prince George County is home to Rolls’ North American headquarters, as well as the global headquarters for three of its business units: corporate and regional aircraft; helicopters and small gas turbine engines; and energy.
Rolls put heavy emphasis on fusing work-force quality with educational excellence, extending from K-12 to higher learning. That focus made the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech vital project players. The two schools are creating, on the Rolls site, one of the expansion’s most potent job-generating elements: the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing.
“The pipeline of engineers and the ability for the company to have a highly articulated and well-qualified research and development relationship with institutions like UVA and Virginia Tech was definitely one of their fundamental drivers,”
Povar explains from her Richmond office.
“Rolls wanted to see an education system developed for a 100-year pipeline of workers,” she says.
Prince George County’s roomy 1,025-acre (410-hectare) site was another valuable find for Rolls. Located in county-owned Crosspointe Centre, that property was already assembled in a single tract and already zoned for industrial use as well.
“That was absolutely a positive factor,” Povar says of the site that Rolls selected. “Mega-sites across the United States are rare. Mega-sites with infrastructure are more rare; and mega-sites that are appropriately zoned are even more rare.
“Prince George County about 10 years ago began looking at that property and assembling it,” she explains. “The people in the county had the foresight to recognize that their proximity to the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas, plus the region’s in-place logistics, meant that it was an opportunity.”
Prince George is donating the property to Rolls, whose operation will ultimately double the county’s industrial tax base. Prince George officials also feel that the donation will be less capital-intensive than slowly developing the property and selling it off to individual buyers.
The ready-to-go site speeds the expansion’s time frame. Rolls projects that the project’s first phase, a $100-million investment creating more than 100 jobs, will be completed and fully operational by the end of 2009.
| U.S. Super Sites Gallery | ||
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Franklin Farm, Louisiana |
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Orange Grove, Louisiana |
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Pointe Sunshine, Louisiana |
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Telkite Technology Park, Michigan |
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PEZ Lake Industrial Development, New York |
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Enterprise South Industrial Park, Tennessee |
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I-40 Advantage Auto Park, Tennessee |
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Cooke Industrial Rail Park, Virginia |
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 is a 1,300-acre industrial development located in Chesterfield County in the Richmond, Virginia metropolitan area.',600,1000))
Meadowville Technology Park, Virginia |
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New River Valley Commerce Park, Virginia |
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Site Selection Online – The magazine of Corporate Real Estate Strategy and Area Economic Development.
©2008 Conway Data, Inc. All rights reserved. SiteNet data is from many sources and not warranted to be accurate or current.