Site Selection

Dannar Selects Muncie, IN for Mobile PowerStation Assembly Facility

DD Dannar LLC announced that it has chosen Muncie, Indiana for a new Mobile PowerStation assembly facility. The company, which is currently based in Greenville, South Carolina, will also be moving its corporate headquarters to the Delaware County location in Muncie.

Dannar Mobile PowerStation in front of new facility in Muncie, IN

Dannar Mobile PowerStation in front of new facility in Muncie, IN (photo – dannar-pressrelease.com)

The company will invest $4.65 million in Muncie over the next four years, and the project is expected to create 288 new jobs with average wages of $27.33 per hour for assembly of high-tech vehicles.

The Dannar Mobile PowerStation (MPS) is a class of purpose built hybrid vehicles used by governments for maintenance and as a source of off-grid clean energy. The vehicle model is the first of its kind to combine battery powered electricity with hydraulic drive-trains.

Gary Dannar, CEO and Founder of DD Dannar, LLC, said that Muncie has the right people for producing the MPS with pride and quality.

Not to mention the fact that the company has been provided with an attractive package of state and local incentives.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) has approved performance-based state tax credits worth $2.6 million and another $25,000 in training grants, linked to the company’s job creation commitments.

The Delaware County Redevelopment Commission is pitching in with $150,000 as a low-interest loan, and another $500,000 for site improvements to the Business Center facility on West Bethel Ave. The county owns this property, and is providing 25,000 square feet of space in this facility to DD Dannar free of rent.

DD Dannar LLC has also previously received a $200,000 investment from SC Launch in 2011. SC Launch is an affiliate of the South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA), and promotes high-tech economic development in South Carolina.

Larry Bledsoe, president of the Delaware County Board of Commissioners, said they were pleased to have played a role in this project and thanked DD Dannar LLC for their confidence in the county.

Jay Julian, president and CEO of the Muncie-Delaware County Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Alliance, said they knew they were doing the right things to promote economic development when they see exciting and innovative businesses like Dannar choosing to locate in Muncie-Delaware County.

Muncie Mayor Dennis Tyler said the announcement was a testament to the community and the quality of the workforce.

The company’s plans call for creating 20 new jobs in the first year, with expected growth fueling more employment up to 479 jobs in five years.

Gazelle to Set Up Processing Center in Louisville, KY

Gazelle Inc., which operates a popular trade-in site for consumer electronics, announced that it will be setting up a new 37,500-square-foot processing center in Louisville, Kentucky.

Gazelle

Gazelle (photo – gazelle.com)

The project will require Gazelle to invest $22.3 million and create 438 new jobs with wages of $14 per hour.

Gazelle began operations in 2007, and has since paid out more than $100 million for more than 1.5 million laptops, smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices which people no longer need or can use.

The Louisville facility will be doing in-house the work which the company until now it has outsourced.

Israel Ganot, co-founder and CEO of Gazelle, said they chose Louisville because it was a major shipping hub and because of the great workforce. He also credited the state with making the project economically attractive.

Ganot specifically mentioned that they appreciated everything KY Governor Steve Beshear, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, Greater Louisville Inc. and Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) had done to get them to this point.

Craig Richard, president and CEO of GLI, said Gazelle was the perfect example of the sort of confidence that businesses have about the community. He said the new jobs and significant investment in the region’s increasingly desirable distribution and logistics sector would be a welcome boost to the economy.

Apart from the the available workforce and the Jefferson Riverport International location of the Gazelle processing center close to the UPS air hub Worldport, one of the factors that helped Gazelle choose Louisville was the fact KEDFA is offering Gazelle state incentives worth $3 million under the Kentucky Business Investment program.

As long as Gazelle continues to meet its job creation and investment targets, they will get a portion of it back through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments over the 10-year period of the agreement.

Discussions had been at a final stage since early this year, and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer helped seal the deal by hosting company executives during the Kentucky Derby last month. The company reportedly signed a lease agreement for the site immediately afterwards.

Mayor Fischer said that Gazelle was an innovative and fast-growing company that was a perfect fit for Louisville.

Gov. Beshear also praised the Boston, Massachusetts-based Gazelle, saying that it saw a consumer need and has worked to fill that void, and that is what great businesses are all about. He said the company was growing at more than 100 percent per year, and that showed the success and growth driving their investment and the new jobs created in Louisville.

NY Senators Lobby Time Warner Over Call Center Site Selection

Time Warner Cable is looking for a location on the East Coast for a new call center that would create as many as 175 new jobs.

Buffalo Niagara

Photo – buffaloniagara.org

New York wants Stamford, Connecticut-based TWC to locate the call center at a new development in Buffalo, NY, and state officials working on the project got a helping hand last week from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and NY State Senator Tim Kennedy.

The total number of jobs involved is even more, because TWC intends to move around 100 jobs from elsewhere to the new customer center which is meant for providing sales and support for companies using TWC’s fiber-optic communications network.

Schumer and Kennedy urged TWC to select the eight-acre Compass East development on the site of the former Sheehan Hospital in Buffalo.

If TWC selects Compass East, it would give a major boost to the development and the Michigan St neighborhood which has suffered a lot from the closure of the Sheehan hospital after the company’s bankruptcy.

The McGuire Development Company purchased the site earlier this year for $2 million, and renamed the project Compass East with a plan to revitalize the area around the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus by attracting life sciences companies. It would also enhance the cultural tourism initiative on the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor.

However, the only current occupants include University Pediatric Dentistry, a temporary facility for the Langston Hughes Institute, and a training center for a nursing home company associated with the property developer McGuire Development Company. TWC would be one of the first major tenants at Compass East.

Schumer said in a statement that he had called up TWC COO Rob Marcus and met with CEO Glenn Britt, urging them to “put Buffalo on speed dial.” Schumer said he highlighted Buffalo’s low real estate costs, exceptional workforce and the high quality of life.

He also added that he had had vowed to do everything in his power to make the project a reality. New York State and local economic development officials have not made public the details of any potential package of incentives being discussed to secure the TWC call center.

Kennedy said the historic building had kept its door open in support of the community for more than 100 years. He said Time Warner now has a unique opportunity to partner with Buffalo and write a new chapter for the building.

Cedar Shingle Maker Ecoshel Selects Ashland, ME For New Manufacturing Plant

Ecoshel CEO Bryan Kirkey and Maine Governor Paul R. LePage will announce today that the company has selected Ashland, ME as the site of its new cedar shingle manufacturing plant.

Echosel shingles

Echosel shingles (photo – ecoshel.com)

The project will create 78 new and direct jobs, and another 150 indirect jobs.

Ecoshel has also committed to an expansion in the near future to add 10 more production lines, which should further boost employment at the new plant.

Ecoshel has developed a cedar shingle system that it has been beta testing for the past two years to produce cedar shingle panels for roofing and siding.

The company’s patented weatherproof Smart-Shingle System not only uses wood as a renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic resource that helps improve energy efficiency of homes, but also adds to long-term energy efficiency and resource savings by protecting the house from decay related to moisture and helping increase its lifespan.

This test production facility where they are currently located is in Gainesville, Georgia.

However, the company decided to set up its permanent manufacturing plant in Maine in order to be close to its raw material supply of northern white cedar and the large New England market for cedar shingles. The company is also planning to import western red cedar.

Kirkey said that once they decided to set up their manufacturing base in Maine, he contacted the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) Commissioner George Gervais.

He thanked the commissioner and Rosaire Pelletier, DECD’s liaison for the Forest Products Industry, for their hard work and the incentives provided to Ecoshel to facilitate the project.

Economic development officials helped the company secure expedited approval for a Maine Rural Development Authority loan and financing through the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME), among other things.

They also hooked up Ecoshel with raw material suppliers, and provided site selection assistance to the company. Ecoshel ultimately decided on the Levesque Sawmill site in Ashland, which hosts the headquarters of the North Maine Woods, Inc. management area. NMW covers 3.5 million acres of forest land along the border with Canada.

NMW private forest landowners and state governmental agencies cooperate to make sure the timber industry and other industries dependent on the forest’s renewable resources can coexist with the area’s 100,000 annual visitors who come for outdoor recreation.

Ecoshel will be using cedar from salvaged logs sourced from managed areas, and the wood used will also be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Colorado UAS Team Highlights FAA Collaborations, Diverse Terrain

The Colorado UAS Team is one of the 50 applicants from 37 states vying to be named by the FAA as one of six unmanned aircraft systems test sites that will be used as testing grounds for the FAA’s planned integration of drones with the National Airspace System (NAS).

Mesa County, CO sheriff's deputies operating drone

Mesa County, CO sheriff’s deputies operating drone (photo – sheriff.mesacounty.us)

Colorado’s application was filed by the University of Colorado Boulder, which is leading the public-private consortium behind the effort.

Colorado has highlighted many in-built advantages it will have as a test site, including the diversity of the state’s geography from large mountainous areas to the Great Plains.

Another advantage they have is a diverse team whose members have extensive experience with drone research, scientific and real-world UAS applications, and collaborating with the FAA to ensure safe drone flights.

The Colorado UAS Team consists of more than 100 team members representing a long list of 50 stakeholders that includes seven universities, 10 economic development agencies, two state agencies, five industry associations, a sheriff’s office, Front Range Airport Authority and other airports, and many private companies.

CU-Boulder aerospace engineering sciences Associate Professor Eric Frew, who is director of CU’s Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECUV), said they likely have more experience flying UAS science missions than any other research group in the world.

In 2010, a CU tornado chasing team used a RECUV UAS to intercept thunderstorms in Colorado and Nebraska. The team had to work closely with the FAA to secure a 400-square-mile box of airspace across three states to use for flying the UAS into thunderstorms.

This was just the beginning, and their collaboration with the FAA has since increased to 59 such boxes across Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, with the CU faculty and students chasing storms required to give the FAA only a two-hour notice.

Another Colorado UAS Team member with experience flying drones and working with the FAA is the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office. MCSO gained a Certificate of Authorization (COA) from the FAA in 2009 to test a drone inside a 1-square-mile area in the county landfill.

They started off testing a free drone provided by Draganfly Innovations Inc. By the fall of 2010, the FAA had agreed to modify the COA so that MCSO could fly its drones anywhere in the county. Now they have fixed-wing UAVs provided by Denver-based Falcon UAV, and are starting to implement its use in daily operations, having logged more than 35 missions and over 160 hours of flight time.

RECUV played a big part in putting together the Colorado UAS Team’s application to the FAA, and Frew suggests that the students being trained at the center to design, build and operate sophisticated UAS will be a valuable workforce commodity.

The state’s private aerospace industry already employs nearly 25,000 workers, and there are three Air Force bases engaged in aerospace activity. The military’s aerospace activities in Colorado support around 30,000 military personnel, many of whom are engaged in aeronautics, aviation and space research testing and training operations.

The FAA is expected to announce its choices for the six UAS test sites before the end of the year. Selected sites will have a five-year government contract and will gain a big advantage in attracting UAS manufacturers and research facilities.

Study – Strategic Placement of Air Polluters

A paper presented last month at the 2013 State Politics and Policy Conference in Iowa City, Iowa suggests that site selection decisions for polluting industries are disproportionately in favor of downwind border areas in order to minimize responsibility for environmental impact and pollution exposure for in-state residents.

Air pollution transport

Air pollution transport (photo – nps.gov)

The paper, titled “Strategic Placement of Air Polluters: An Application of Point Pattern Models,” was co-authored by James E. Monogan III, David M. Konisky and Neal D. Woods.

Monogan is an assistant professor at the University of Georgia, while Konisky is an assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Woods is an associate professor at the University of South Carolina.

In order to test their hypothesis, the authors pinpointed the locations of stationary pollution sources in each state using a spatial point pattern analysis.

The results showed that air polluting industries were more likely to be located at downwind borders than any other group of industrial facilities, and the effect is even more pronounced for facilities that release highly toxic emissions into the air.

The paper further suggests that states may be actively promoting this phenomenon called “state line syndrome” by providing incentives for projects that provide economic development benefits while exporting the environmental and health costs of the facility across state lines to neighbors.

The EPA is currently holding meetings with states to address air pollution transport under the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor” provision.

Monogan et al also claim NIMBY (not in my backyard) driven dynamics as impacting site location for polluting industries.

Projects that pollute the environment tend to face significant opposition from concerned local residents, which in turn can derail the project or at the very least cause delays, legal costs, reduced political support and increase in regulatory proceedings.

However, if the harmful impact is largely going to be felt by non-residents, then the company can expect significantly lower opposition.

So while state incentives encouraging state line syndrome provide the carrot, NIMBY is the stick that forces polluting industries towards downwind borders. The paper mentions that this NIMBY effect was brought to their notice by an economic development official in North Carolina.

This is a revised version of a paper that was presented earlier this year in Chicago at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.

Read the full “Strategic Placement of Air Polluters” paper – Download (pdf)

Atlanta Brings Home PulteGroup Relocation

PulteGroup, Inc. (NYSE: PHM), one of the nation’s largest home builders, announced that it will be relocating its corporate headquarters from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan to Atlanta, Georgia.

PulteGroup

PulteGroup (photo – pulte.com)

The relocation project in 2014 will require an investment of $10 million by Pulte, and will create 310 high-paying jobs in Atlanta.

The ostensible reason cited for the relocation is a multi-year trend of an increasing percentage of the company’s investments (from 72 percent in 2000 to 92 percent in 2012) being made outside Michigan and the markets their Michigan operations cover in the Midwest.

Richard J. Dugas, Jr., the chairman, president and CEO of PulteGroup, said they had historically managed the company’s growth from Michigan, but a point had been reached where they had to pursue a strategy more suited to the company’s long-term growth trends. He added that the relocation would bring them closer to their customers and a large part of their investment portfolio.

Pulte has quietly been working with local and state officials in Atlanta for at least three months, with the project being identified in documents only as Project Casino. No other sites have been mentioned as being under consideration. The state has reportedly offered Pulte $1.5 million as incentives, with additional and as yet undisclosed support from the City of Atlanta.

The Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) worked on the project in partnership with Invest Atlanta and the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said that the corporate relocation, rare for a Fortune 500 company, would solidify Atlanta’s strength as a great city for business for everyone from national and global corporations to start-ups.

However, there was never a contest between Oakland County and Atlanta. In fact, nobody in Michigan from Oakland County executives to MI Gov Rick Snyder was even told about the relocation until just before the announcement was made on Friday.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said in a statement posted on Facebook that they were disappointed that Pulte had chosen to leave Michigan, but respected the company’s right to determine its own future.

PulteGroup has around 380 employees in Michigan, and plans to retain 54 jobs to handle its local Michigan operations. The remaining jobs will be relocated to Atlanta, where the company is taking up 100,000 square feet of office space in Buckhead and eventually expects to have around 350 employees.

Pulte’s Michigan employees who choose not to relocate to Georgia will be offered a severance package.

PulteGroup has around 3,400 employees across 28 states, and is currently listed on the Fortune 1000 list at No. 501.

Motorola Announces 2000 Jobs in Fort Worth for Smartphone Moto X Plant

Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside announced at the AllThingsD conference that the company is launching its flagship smartphone Moto X later this year.

Motorola Mobility Moto X - Assembled in the USA

Motorola Mobility Moto X – Assembled in the USA (photo – motorola.com)

He said the product is being designed, engineered and assembled in the USA. This makes it the first smartphone that is being assembled domestically.

Woodside also mentioned that every Moto X phone sold in the USA would be assembled at a 500,000-square-foot facility in Fort Worth, Texas that was previously used by Nokia to build phones.

They plan to hire 2,000 workers for this facility by August. The jobs will be filled by Flextronics, the company’s global manufacturing partner.

The reason they are doing this no doubt includes the obvious buzz over the first-ever “Assembled in America” smartphone. But the Libertyville, Illinois-based company also specifically mentioned the business advantages behind their decision, most of which has to do with having engineers located in Illinois and California close to the factory.

Apart from being able to deliver devices quickly to customers, the company says they’ll be able to iterate designs faster, respond quickly to purchasing trends and demand, and create a lean supply chain.

Woodside took over Motorola Mobility after Motorola was acquired by Google for $12.5 billion. He was previously president of Google’s America region. The company’s statement mentions that since Motorola Mobility is now a Google company, they are encouraged to put down big bets on things that can make a difference.

They also pointed out that the new domestic production facility will not impact their network of global operations. Flextronics will continue to assemble Motorola devices locally at existing plants in Brazil and China.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said that Motorola Mobility’s decision to choose Texas for manufacturing its new smartphone and create thousands of new jobs is great news for the state.

Gov. Perry added that the state’s healthy economy, based on a foundation of smart regulation, low taxes, skilled workforce and fair legal system was attracting businesses from all over the country and the world interested in being a part of the Texas success story.

KS, NH Bases Selected for KC-46A Refueling Tanker Operations

The U.S. Air Force has announced that McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas will be the first KC-46A refueling tanker base for active duty operations. New Hampshire‘s Pease Air National Guard base was selected as the tanker’s first Air National Guard operational base.

KC-46A base site selection

KC-46A base site selection (photo – af.mil)

McConnell AFB will now be sent 36 KC-46A tankers to replace KC-135R tankers.

The base is getting a $200 million infusion for upgrades required to become the main operating base (MOB 1) for KC-46A operations.

The selection ensures the base and its economic impact on the community will be maintained for the long-term.

These 36 KC-46 tankers are just one part of the first phase which involves replacing 179 tankers. There are two more phases afterwards, and all three phases put together will replace 59 KC-10 and 400 KC-135 tankers.

McConnell AFB was competing for this project with bases in Washington, Oklahoma and North Dakota.

It wasn’t all smiles for Kansas, though, because the Forbes Military Airfield in Topeka lost its bid to be designated as the Air National Guard led main operating base (MOB 2) for the KC-46A. This project was won by New Hampshire’s Pease Air National Guard base.

Apart from Pease and Forbes, three other bases in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio were competing for MOB 2.

New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan said that on behalf of the people of New Hampshire, they were proud and honored to have the KC-46A with the Granite State’s National Guard.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said it was unlikely that two bases in the same state would be chosen for the initial round of the KC-46A base site selections. He added that Kansas being the only state that had two bases competing in the final stage of the process speaks for the quality of personnel at the bases.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, whose Fairchild AFB lost out against Wichita’s McConnell, issued a statement in which he said the Fairchild community, Spokane County and the State had made important investments for preparing the base to host the tanker, and this was “an extremely unfortunate decision” by the Air Force.

The reasons for which McConnell and Pease were selected are explained here.

Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma was also one of the unsuccessful candidate sites for MOB 1, but Altus did get chosen as the first KC-46A formal training unit or FTU.

These chosen sites for MOB 1, MOB 2 and FTU are only the “preferred alternatives” based on the results of evaluations and cost estimates developed by site survey teams.

The final site decisions will be announced at a later date depending on the outcome of additional approvals such as the Environmental Impact Analysis Process (EIAP) which includes a public comment period.

Florida Offers Hertz $19M for Headquarters Relocation

The Hertz Corporation (NYSE: HTZ) announced that it plans to relocate its global headquarters from Park Ridge, New Jersey to Estero in Lee County, Florida.

Hertz

Hertz (photo – Hertz/wikipedia)

The ostensible reason given for the relocation is that they need to consolidate operations in one location after their acquisition of Dollar Thrifty, which is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

As the company moves its corporate operations to Estero, Florida will gain 700 high-paying jobs with average annual wages of $102,000, not including benefits.

The company’s current employees in Park Ridge will be able to retain their positions in the new headquarters in Florida. Dollar Thrifty and Hertz together have more than 2,000 employees in New Jersey and the NYC metro area, who will remain there, including about 150 in Park Ridge.

The company will retain eCommerce and other financial services functions in New Jersey, while Oklahoma will retain IT, customer care and some financial support functions.

Hertz chairman and CEO Mark P. Frissora said the relocation should not be taken as slight of Oklahoma or New Jersey, because both states have undertaken significant job creation and business climate improvement efforts.

He added that New Jersey would have continued to be their home indefinitely had it not been for the Dollar Thrifty acquisition. Frissora specifically singled out the New Jersey Partnership for Action (NJPAC), which he said had been very active in their efforts to get Hertz to stay in New Jersey.

But NJPAC was never going to win this one, because relocating to Florida allows Hertz to be in the middle of America’s biggest travel and tourism market. Florida rents more cars per capita than any other state, and Orlando is the largest car rental market in the world.

More specifically, Lee County was chosen because of its diverse community, easy accessibility to the major tourism markets, and an available workforce. The county also recently agreed to reduce the impact fees they charge for development work on new projects, which makes it easier for Hertz can get all the site improvement infrastructure they need.

State and local authorities in Florida have been working on the Hertz project for nine months, and have offered the company $19 million in incentives for the relocation.

As per the agreement the company has entered into with Lee County and Florida, Hertz will invest $46.25 million by the end of 2014 for the relocation and construction of a new corporate headquarters in Estero. They will also create 350 jobs by Sept 30, 2015. In return, Lee County has approved $4 million and the state is chipping in with another $14.4 million.

Hertz will get $7 million right away from the state, and another $2 million from Lee County when it fulfills the aforementioned investment and job creation commitments by Sept 2015.

To receive the balance from both Lee County and the state, Hertz would have to add at least another 350 jobs for a total of 700, and must make a capital investment of $60 million.

While the new corporate campus in Estero is being built, Hertz is looking at three other locations for a temporary headquarters.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19  Scroll to top