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hey travel under cover of the night, their missions concealed under code names like Rosewood, Valentine, Heaven, Beach and Diamond. Their quest? A mega-site to call home for a mega -project, one that could bestow economic laurels on its suitors and their citizens for generations to come.
First, though, these corporate sleuths have to find the sites. And a lot of work is now under way across the farmland and forests of North America to identify them. So Site Selection has endeavored to do its part, by taking a snapshot of just where the big places for big projects really are.
We’re not alone in our hunger for an inventory. The Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, is in the midst of its own assessment, which Bill Adams, target market specialist for the TVA, hopes to wrap up by the spring of 2004.
In many states, several available sites are actively being marketed to prospects, but development officials naturally decline to disclose their locations, fearing a run-up on the land price.
For the purposes of this article, we looked for sites of 1,000 acres (41 hectares) or larger, at least partially cleared and well on the way to permitting and zoning for industrial development. Once samples were submitted by state agencies, we looked at those sites open to the possibility of a single user. Only results from the states that responded are addressed in this article.
When to Hold ‘Em,
When to Fold ‘Em
“Finding a site is no easy task,” says Dennis Cuneo, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America. “Our plant in Georgetown [Ky.] is over 7 million sq. ft. [650,300 sq. m.] and occupies over 1,500 acres [607 hectares].” Add to the size requirement such criteria as flatness, lack of flooding and wetlands issues, cooperation of landowners, rail access, proximity to labor but distance from competitors, and the list shrinks fast. Toyota’s chosen parcel in San Antonio, in fact, was pieced together from the air, after a canvass along all available rail lines.
“Two thousand acres does not a mega-site make,” Del Boyette, site selection consultant with Deloitte and Touche, told an audience at the Southern Economic Development Council’s August 2003 automotive conference in Nashville. “We were recently called in to look at a 5,000-acre [2,024-hectare] site – we would have termed it ‘topographically challenged.'”
Patience is another nice virtue with super sites. The parcel that Nissan chose in Mississippi in 2000 had been looked at repeatedly during the previous decade. And getting all landowners on the same page can be a tough sell. Just ask Peggy Jolly, of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, who helped to assemble the super site in Pooler, Ga. She had to deal with five owners, one of whom had a heart attack, and whose son was less than cooperative. Factor in debate over environmental and historical significance, and the challenge was formidable. But the team went into “hunker-down mode” and got the permitting on 1,500 acres (607 hectares) within four months.
“It was amazing to pull all of this together in such a short period of time,” she said at the SEDC conference, “and I never want to have to go through it again.”
Larry Collingwood, assistant vice president for industrial development at Norfolk Southern, has worked on plenty of super-site projects, including Toyota in Georgetown, Honda in Lincoln, Ala., and, most recently, Mercedes in Vance, Ala. He says sometimes the wait gets too long. A super site in Opelika, Ala., was a strong repeat candidate for mega-projects, but was recently split up into smaller parcels for important projects.
“At some point, a community needs a $40-million project,” he says. “We’d like to hold out, but it depends how the site is being held.” It can also be challenging to re-assemble the multiple-owned parcels every time a project comes up.
Collingwood observes that patience and persistence can indeed win out. Lafayette, Ind., was a finalist for the Mitsubishi/Chrysler plant that eventually landed in Normal, Ill. But the Indiana city held on to its options and Subaru eventually located there. The same thing happened in Jackson, Tenn., which missed out on the big Toyota Tundra plant but managed to then snare the new plant from Toyota subsidiary Bodine Aluminum.
“It’s important how you react if you lose, as well as if you win,” says Cuneo, defining the grace under pressure that keeps super sites – and their teams of economic developers – well within the sights of corporations.
The Economic Development Partnership of Alabama identifies a full 15 super sites. “It’s fairly easy to establish a super site in a short amount of time, even though it may not be totally ready,” says Steve Sewell, executive vice president of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. “A lot of us are working to identify that next generation of super sites to keep Alabama on the map. It’s one of the ways we undergird the infrastructure in this state.”
Sixty percent of the West Memphis/Marion area’s residents work in Memphis, Tenn., where they spend 60 percent of their disposable income, according to a recent retail study. But that figure pops up in Arkansas’ favor in one respect: property taxes on the western side of the river are about 60 percent of those in Memphis, Tenn.
Union Pacific operates an intermodal facility on a 600-acre (243-hectare) parcel in Marion, where many shipments come in from the West Coast before doubling back to Little Rock. Five trains a day come in and two go out, “a microcosm of the trade deficit,” quips Kay Brockwell, director of economic development for the City of Marion. Norfolk Southern and CSX pick up just outside the fence, and there’s still room for Union Pacific to expand by another, yes, 60 percent.
Directly next door is the city’s prized and almost-captured possession: the “Starbright” mega-site, right at the juncture of I-40 and I-55, that Toyota just barely passed up in choosing San Antonio, Texas, for its $800-million pickup truck assembly plant. The site’s still there, all 1,600 acres (648 hectares) of it, part of a larger undeveloped area that comes to 5,500 acres (2,226 hectares). Only now it’s planted with cotton instead of I-beams.
“Arkansas has all the land in the world – you can look over there and see it,” says Memphis corporate real estate veteran Eddie Saig of NAI, from his office overlooking the Mississippi. The corporate prospects continue to do just that.
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It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not: 1,800 acres (729 hectares) of industrially zoned land in Fruita, right next to the Colorado River and adjacent to Colorado National Monument Park. Dual rail. And it’s just a stone’s throw to Grand Junction and to the Utah border. Ann Driggers, with the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, says the mountain biking between Fruita and Moab is some of the best in the world, and the community hopes to see the site developed by a company as interested in employee quality of life as it is in productive facilities.
In Fountain, south of call center capital Colorado Springs, the Christian Ranch Industrial Park is cushioned from any potential residential development by the presence of a military base and by aggregate pits.
And in the northeastern part of Elbert County, some 60 miles (97 km.) from Denver, a massive parcel of some 200,000 acres (80,940 hectares) of cattle ranch land has been “pre-zoned” for industrial and commercial development. Van W. Sands of the Elbert County Development Council says the half a dozen large landowners are very much behind the idea. Called the “I-70 Economic Development Area,” it will be served by both BNSF rail and Qwest fiber optic service.
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With its vast Florida holdings of more than 1 million acres (404,700 hectares), St. Joe Co. could probably designate dozens of super sites. But that’s not exactly in keeping with the stewardship mentality of its leader, former Disney executive Peter Rummell. Plus, the company’s most recent successes have been in residential and resort development, not industrial.
But that may change with its West Bay Sector Plan in the Panama City area, touted by many as the linchpin for a new era of economic development in Northwest Florida. Part of that plan is a 4,000-acre (1,619-hectare) parcel designated for a new airport and industrial use, with a potential 3 million sq. ft. (278,700 sq. m.) of industrial space. The plan was approved by the Bay County Commission by a vote of 3-1 in a crucial vote on Dec. 11, 2003. The eventual roll-out calls for balanced development and conservatino of some 75,000 acres in northwest Bay County.
Another super site is in the Shoal River Ranch properties, 11,000 acres (4,452 hectares) due east of Crestview that are split by I-10. The property is served by CSX, and is contiguous to the northern border of Eglin Air Force base.
“It’s a beautiful piece of property because it’s basically flat, and it was formerly used for agriculture, growing watermelons and cotton,” says Larry Sassano of the Okaloosa Co. EDC. The reassuring presence of Eglin only stands to be more so, as the county is working with the base, state and private landowners to make more space available for military exercises. Sassano notes that all five county commissioners are pro-growth, and that the school system is the highest-rated of any county in the state. That kind of news could garner a formerly neglected region much more attention.
“Northwest Florida hasn’t really had a wide variety of landing zones for large-scale industrial projects,” says Nathan Sparks, manager of economic development for St. Joe Co. “You can look out on I-10 and see available land, but it’s not zoned correctly. In Florida, that’s bit of a process.”
With the Sector and Shoal River parcels, that process may be quickly ramping up to shovel-ready.
If you think mega-sites are a new phenomenon, think again. In 1917, just after the U.S. declaration of war on Germany, a 1,400-acre (567-hectare) site was designated in Glynn County, Ga., for the construction of a plant making picric acid, a vital component in explosives. A massive $7 million was going to be spent on the project, with two-thirds of the parcel designated for the “company town” amenities that would surround the actual plant and serve the plant’s 6,000 employees. Thirteen miles (21 km.) of rail were due to be laid, and five wells were to be dug to supply the estimated 30 million gallons of water the plant would need daily.
Just 30 days prior to the plant’s scheduled completion, the war ended. So did the project.
A brochure about this bit of history carries the headline, “The Factory That Never Was,” which unfortunately rang true twice for Georgia officials in 2003. First, DaimlerChrysler pulled out of its plans for a utility van plant in the Savannah-area community of Pooler. Now the 1,560-acre (631-hectare) site at the northeast quadrant of I-95 and I-16 is being marketed heavily, and certainly stands at the head of the pack, given that it is owned free and clear by the state, cleared, pad-ready, zoned for industrial use and permitted.
The second non-event of the year didn’t occur on a parcel of approximately the same size in Meriwether County, southwest of Atlanta, which the state had options on in the fall of 2003 in the hope that Ford Motor Co. might choose it for a new plant to replace their aging Hapeville factory. The company went in another direction, and the option was dropped in November.
The New Carlisle Development Area is a 5,295-acre (2,143-hectare) site located just west of South Bend. It has large, clean sites that could quickly accommodate a company looking for a mega-site, says John C. Devereaux, economic development specialist for Project Future, an organization developing the site. New Carlisle already has several large industrial and distribution facilities. The site is served by Norfolk Southern and Chicago Southshore and South Bend railroads.
In early November, the Purchase Area Regional Industrial Park Authority, an eight-county group in far western Kentucky, hired Spartanburg, S.C.-based engineering and construction firm Lockwood Greene to develop a Phase II master plan study for a 2,500-acre (1,012-hectare) site in north Graves County, south of Paducah.
“Over the next couple of years they’re going to be developing the infrastructure at the site and making it development-ready,” says Robert Pittman, senior principal for Lockwood Greene, of the gently rolling parcel. The master plan includes initial development of a 1,000-acre parcel and the establishment of a rail spur, to be served by the Paducah & Louisville Railroad. The broader Purchase area has a strong rail transportation advantage, with 5 Class 1 railroads in the region, including CN and BNSF. The site is notable for its large consensus as well as its large footprint.
“By agreement of the eight regional counties and the state of Kentucky, they are aggressively seeking a mega-project that would take most if not all of that 1,000 acres,” says Pittman. Target industries include automotive, large appliances and metalworking.
Direct access to I-95 is one of the principal attributes of the 1,000-acre A.V. Williams Property in eastern Baltimore County, which includes 700 acres (283 hectares) of developable land. Still partially wooded, and two years away from full development, the site offers Norfolk Southern main line rail service, and is one of the largest undeveloped, industrially zoned tracts along the entire I-95 corridor. The site is served by three sewer districts, and is seeing some $60 million of infrastructure investment, including a major extension of White Marsh Blvd., with five intersections. The site is near GM’s Allison Transmission plant, opened in 1999. That same company will be closing its Baltimore assembly plant in 2005, with the loss of 1,100 jobs.
Michigan’s lone super site is in Alpena, in the state’s northeast on Lake Huron. The site, adjacent to the Alpena County Regional Airport, was submitted by the state as a candidate for Boeing’s much-coveted 7E7 plant. The airport is home to a Michigan Air National Guard base and Combat Readiness Training Center and boasts a 9,000-ft. (2,743-m.) runway, able to handle all aircraft short of a B-52. The site has just over 1,000 contiguous acres available for development.
“Boeing has brought the deer to the headlights and raised our curiosity about the development potential of the site,” says James Peltier, Alpena County administrator and interim airport manager. “Two years ago, city water and sewer were added to the site, which allows us to develop it.”
Peltier says a homeland defense project is also a strong possibility for the site, especially with the training center already at the airport.
“We are looking at Plan B if we don’t get Boeing,” he said before the announcement that Boeing would build in Seattle. “It’s a great site with a lot of assets and good connectivity in terms of highways. Boeing was only looking for 400 acres [162 hectares], which would still allow 600 acres [243 hectares] for other projects.”
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North Carolina’s premier super site is a 1,688-acre [683-hectare] parcel near Rocky Mount in Nash County at the intersection of I-95 and N.C. Highway 33.
John Gessaman, president of CEO of Carolinas Gateway Partnership, the economic development agency for Nash and Edgecombe counties, says the site is state certified and was recently increased by 500 acres [202 hectares].
“With the increased economic activity, it’s a perfect time to renew our marketing efforts,” Gessaman says. “The timing is also good with a new package of economic stimuli developed by the state. We think it should be utilized for a major employment use.”
South Carolina state officials rely on the development boards of the state’s 46 counties to inform them about potential sites. Many of the sites on the state’s current list are in the Low Country surrounding Charleston.
“If it’s suitable for a project, we add it to our list,” says Richard Price, manager of the South Carolina Dept. of Commerce’s Available Buildings Program. “If it’s just a cornfield and far from utilities, it’s not a suitable site.”
“Clarksville was a finalist for our Huntsville [engine] plant,” said Toyota’s Dennis Cuneo in August 2003, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day its efforts didn’t pay off, if not with us, then with a competitor or suppliers.”
Jackson knows the value of that advice, as it garnered the Bodine Aluminum plant after being a finalist for the San Antonio truck plant. Now the Clarksville site has company, with sites being marketed in East Tennessee, Chattanooga and Memphis. Chattanooga’s Enterprise South is envisioned as an industrial park, but its contiguous parcels could be combined. The Loudoun Co.-Monroe Co. parcel, 1,960 acres (793 hectares) virtually surrounded by the waters of Tellico reservoir south of Knoxville, offers little in immediate Interstate access, but ample water and power. And the Memphis parcel in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park is adjacent to some 8,500 acres (3,440 hectares) of industrial activity, including the forthcoming super terminal joint venture from CN and CSX.
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They already got Toyota in San Antonio, but there’s always plenty of room for more in Texas. Ross Perot’s Hillwood developments have been leading the way in logistics development, especially at the AllianceTexas facility, which basically aims to be a land-based logistics port. With some 125 companies, 22.4 million sq. ft. (2.1 million sq. m.) and 20,000 jobs created, the project is well on its way. But not all of the company’s land holdings are destined to be parks just yet.
In an unincorporated, unzoned area of Denton County, 2 miles (3.2 km.) west of I-35 and the same distance north of the Alliance Airport, sit 1,475 acres (597 hectares), with frontage on Hwy. 114 and BNSF rail service available. Just down the road is a BNSF intermodal hub.
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The Meadowville Technology Park in Chesterfield County, Va., has been styled as either the future location for a major superconductor manufacturing operation (with room for accompanying suppliers) or a prime site for a biotechnology park. The county has spent close to $20 million developing the nearly 1,600-acre (648-hectare) site adjacent to the I-295 beltway near Richmond.
“We’ll take a single user or multiple users,” says Jim Dunn, Chesterfield County’s economic development director. “But we envision multiple users.”
Dunn says the site is ready to go and a company could start construction immediately.
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