Economic Development Blog -

U.S. Signs $2 Billion Green Energy Deal with South Africa

Aug 07

The U.S.green industry just got a $2 billion bump, thanks to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Africa for the South Africa-United States business summit in Johannesburg.

U.S.-South Africa agreement (Photo – state.gov)

A side deal at the summit has been agreed upon between the US Export-Import (Exim) Bank and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa.

Under the terms of the declaration of intent, Exim Bank will offer $2 billion in loans to South Africa to fund renewable energy projects, which will then be given to US firms.

The financing will be in the form of 18-year loans. It’s a win-win deal, with a huge boost for sustainable development and renewable energy in South Africa, and $2 billion in new projects for US firms.

Exim Bank president Fred Hochberg said that the agreement goes into effect immediately and projects related to wind, solar and thermal power will be among those funded. He added that the bank was the largest financier of solar power in India last year, and they want to do the same in South Africa.

South Africa has set a target of doubling its power supply by adding 50,000 MW more to their grid. Out of this, 3,725 MW is supposed to come from renewable energy sources.

The $2 billion deal with the US is a small part of the $127 billion investment South Africa expects to make to expand, upgrade and modernize the entire electricity production and distribution system. Companies that may benefit from the $2 billion deal include General Electric Co., SolarReserve LLC, and Siemens AG.

In her speech at the U.S.-South Africa Business Partnership Summit, Sec. Clinton said that, “We want sustainable partnerships in Africa that add value rather than extract it.”

Sec. Clinton also urged South Africa to speak with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) regarding the U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative announced at the Rio+20 summit targeting development of energy capacity in Africa.

Walgreens Adds 500 Jobs With Invest Illinois Initiative

Aug 06

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Walgreens announced that the drug store chain will create 500 new jobs over three years and invest $75 million to expand more than two dozen corporate offices in metropolitan Chicago.

Walgreens (Photo – Brandner88/Wikimedia)

Walgreens is undertaking the expansion after striking an agreement with the state called the “Invest Illinois Initiative.”

The incentive package, estimated at $47 million, offers tax credits tied to retaining 1,500 existing jobs.

- Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) tax credits, which are based on jobs and distributed over a period of 10 years;

- Tax credits under the High Impact Business (HIB) Program which supports companies that propose substantial capital investments in operations; and

- Training grants through the Employer Training Investment Program (ETIP);

“Walgreens has deep roots in Illinois and is an important part of the region’s flourishing health care hub,” said Gov. Quinn. “This expansion will create good paying jobs, attract additional investment to the area and help fuel our economic recovery.”

“Just as our stores and pharmacies are health and daily living anchors for the communities we serve, we as a company are now recommitted to serving as an economic anchor for northeastern Illinois.,” said Greg Wasson, Walgreens president and CEO. “A state and workforce that has served us so well for more than a century will now see our footprint grow even larger.”

The Walgreens corporate headquarters has been based in Deerfield since 1975 and employs more than 5,000 corporate workers in Deerfield and in 27 surrounding offices in Northbrook, Buffalo Grove, Lincolnshire, Bannockburn, Mt. Prospect, Northlake and Chicago. Their first office in downtown Chicago was opened in 2010 for housing its e-commerce staff.

The $75 million “Invest Illinois Initiative” expansion and renovation plan is meant to retrofit these disparate offices and make it easier for workers to travel between buildings. As a result of these changes, Walgreens will need to fill an additional 500 corporate positions over the next three years.

These corporate jobs are in addition to the store staff positions that will have to be filled for new Walgreens store openings in Illinois. Walgreens opened its first store on Chicago’s South Side in 1901, and now operates 592 drugstores in Illinois. Across the nation, Walgreens has 7,907 drugstores with fiscal 2011 sales of $72 billion.

Southeast Kansas Economic Initiative Receives $715,000 Dollar Grant

Aug 04

dogpostdaily.com/

An economic initiative in the region of Southeast Kansas has received a federal grant that adds up to approximately $715,000 dollars.

The Department of Agriculture gave out the award as it revitalized Project 17. An Executive Director for the Chamber of Commerce elaborates on how the grant is welcomed. There was also a budget proposal in which $500,000 dollars would have been allocated for Project 17 but it was not approved by the legislature. The USDA announced the grant winners the past week as the intention of the money was to spur job creation while also growing the economy in the rural areas.

There will be two federal sources for the money which includes $215,000 dollars from the USDA Rural Development and $500,000 dollars from the Economic Development Administration. The life of the grants is for approximately 3 years.

The project includes approximately 17 counties in the state of Kansas such as:

Cherokee
Crawford
Anderson
Coffey
Franklin
Montgomery
Greenwood
Woodson

Executive Director Yvonne Hull states that the skill sets are not matched as there are employees looking for jobs and employers who want to expand.

There are 4 important areas that will be addressed for Project 17 such as:

Health Care
Leadership
Permanent Structure
Economic Development

Director Hull states that the grant allows the administration to take action on important issues that have been known for years. Hull still does not know how the permanent structure would look like in a couple of years. The Development State Director praised the project in a news release. State Director Clark states that the USDA is glad to provide support in collaboration with the EDA. Regional Planning will also create more opportunities for the work force.

Overall, the economic initiative will be a positive asset to the Southeast region of Kansas.

163,000 Jobs Added In The Month of July

Aug 04

money.cnn.com/

In the month of July, nearly 163,000 jobs were added which is double the amount when compared to the 3 month average.

Unfortunately, the unemployment rate went up to approximately 8.3 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the increase in the unemployment rate. The job growth pace is still middling according to many of the experts. A particular picture in the report reveals that more jobs were created across various sectors while the unemployment rate was a bit higher. Many of the analysts agreed that complications may arise with the Federal Reserve in regards to a stimulus. The FED actually announced that they will most likely take action on the unemployment matter around the month of September.

Many economists were also pessimistic when looking at the hiring outlook as they predicted the numbers would not get any better over the next couple of months. The sluggish pace for the economy can be contributed to government cutbacks and consumer spending that is softening.

Many employers were also weighed down due to the:

Uncertainty over the Europe Crisis
Global Economy that is slowing
Fiscal and Political situation in the U.S.

The former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that economic growth is not strong enough to improve the amount of job prospects. Even though there were weak signals with the economy, the employment report beat the predictions from many of the economists. The predicted growth number was 100,000 for the month of July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also reacted positively as it went up approximately 217 points. An event was held with the White House where Obama stated that nearly 4.5 million jobs were added over the past 2 ½ years.

Overall, the increase in the amount of jobs in the month of July is positive news for the economic outlook.

Okaloosa County Greenlights Indoor UAV Testing Facility

Aug 03

It’s widely acknowledged that UAVs are the next big thing, and now economic development planners are leading the innovation. The biggest problem the nascent industry is facing is testing space, since the FAA has not cleared drone flight paths integrated into the national airspace as yet.

UAV testing (Photo – defense.gov)

So Okaloosa County in Northwest Florida has come up with an interesting solution for testing small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – an indoor test facility.

The Okaloosa County Economic Development Council (EDC) has completed its feasibility study for the project and is now working hard on building the 45,000 sq ft domed building for UAV testing that will allow the drones to fly inside up to a height of 50 feet.

The University of Florida is helping out with the building’s design, and the location is next to UF’s Research and Engineering Education Facility (REEF) property where they already do a limited amount of UAV testing.

The EDC is working with UF and Space Florida to secure the $4.5 million funding for the project. UF will be applying for a federal grant from the U.S. EDA while Space Florida will provide the matching funds required for federal EDA grants.

They estimate that the funding process will take about six months and then the building could be completed quickly so that the project could be operational a year from now as the first ever commercial indoor UAV testing facility in the United States.

Okaloosa County has been able to accomplish all this because they set up a dedicated panel within the county’s TeCMEN group solely devoted to expanding the county’s share of the UAV business. Jim Breitenfeld, who heads the panel, explained to NWF Daily News that the facility is not that complicated to build, and provides an analogy – he says it’s like building a garage to park your Ferrari.

The EDC is already busy drumming up business for their proposed indoor UAV testing center. EDC president Larry Sassano will be attending a Vegas tradeshow sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, and will try to attract companies who may be interested in leasing space.

They also hope that universities, private companies and students doing research projects under the same roof and interacting together will produce something a lot more beneficial for the county and for the Florida Space Coast that has been adrift since NASA shut down the shuttle program.

Development Board in Nevada Endorses Apple Deal

Aug 02

www.brighthand.com/

An economic development board in the region of Nevada has officially endorsed an $89 million dollar deal in which the state will attempt to lure Apple to the region. The economic development board is offering a myriad of tax breaks to Apple as well. The Governor of Nevada whose name is Brian Sandoval states that the deal will be beneficial to Apple as more interest is generated for many of the small businesses in the region. A brand new state law was officially approved which gave the economic development authority the right to negotiate with other companies.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development elaborates on how Apple would not have been in the region if the state law was not officially approved. Apple will create a data center in which there will be many data centers in the compound. 35 full time jobs will be created that pay approximately $25 dollars an hour. 200 contract workers will also be employed with the company. A business center will also be constructed in a worn out region in Reno. Over the next decade, nearly $340 million dollars in economic activity will be generated from the projects. Tax abatements will also be shared between Washoe County and the region of Reno.

Apple will receive an 85 percent tax break on the property that is constructed. The region of Reno also pledged nearly 75 percent in sales tax to assist with the local business center. Given the tax breaks that will be received, Apple plans to invest nearly $1 billion dollars in Reno over the next 10 years. The agreement was officially cast in stone as the company met specific requirements to officially qualify for the abatements.

Many of the board members endorsed the Apple deal but many were also worried about the power that was given to the Executive Director.

Google Plunks Down $180M For Bigger Data Center in Finland

Aug 02

Data centers are migrating towards the freezing cold. The latest evidence to support this theory comes from Google, which has put down another $180 million for an expansion of its Hamina data center in Finland.

Hamina Data Center (Photo – Google)

Hamina was Google’s first attempt to retrofit an existing building into a data center.

They bought the 60-year old Summa Paper Mill from Finnish paper company Stora Enso in March 2009 for 40 million euros and converted it into a €200 million data center.

The original constructed required 18 months and some 2,000 workers, mostly from various Finnish companies who were contractors. Google now has some 90 people working at the data center, most of whom are technicians and engineers. The new $180 million expansion is likely to take another 18 months.

Another relevant facet of this data center, which is now active and serving Google users in Europe, is that it has a high-tech cooling system that uses cold seawater from the Bay of Finland to reduce energy usage while still keeping Google’s servers running smoothly at a controlled temperature. It is the first such data center of its kind anywhere in the world.

But Google is not alone in moving its data center operations to colder climes to reduce energy needs. Facebook is building a data center on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Lulea, Sweden.

Both Google and Facebook have set examples of how to make data center operations greener and more energy efficient. As per Google, its data centers are twice as efficient as the average data center.

The efficiency of data centers is measured with a unit called PUE, or power usage effectiveness. The optimal PUE is 1.0, with anything more indicating overheads (for cooling, power distribution, etc.) above the wattage required for the IT equipment being used by the data center.

Google’s average PUE across the board and in all seasons is 1.13, while the data center industry average is 1.92, according to the U.S. EPA. Google’s latest PUE for the first quarter in 2012 dropped further to 1.11, perhaps bolstered by the extreme efficiency of the seawater-cooled Hamina data center.

Arctic climactic conditions used to provide natural cooling for data centers may become a significant factor in the near future in terms of site selection. But it is still not a major issue that will call for relocation of existing data centers from clusters with power problems in places like California‘s Silicon Valley, because operating data centers at or above 80 degree temperatures is now considered quite normal.

In fact, the main aim behind the high-tech cooling systems is to prevent temperature variations rather than maintaining a super-chilled data center. Facebook is actually transporting its servers to Lulea in temperature controlled heated trucks to prevent the rapid change in temperature and condensation on the electronics when it lands in Lulea.

USDA Announces Loans and Grants To Strengthen Economy In Iowa

Aug 01

biomassmagazine.com/

The USDA has announced that jobs will be created in the state of Iowa in order to strengthen economic development.

The Agriculture Deputy announced that there will be grants and loans that will be allocated towards the creation of jobs, the development of business and encouraging economic growth in order to benefit the local community. Deputy O’Brien states that he is pleased with all of the efforts of the USDA as they work hard to strengthen the local economy. O’Brien finally elaborates on how the Obama Administration is working hard to make sure the local economy is vibrant in the future.

The funding for the job creation is being provided by the USDA Economic Development Loan Program which provides loans with zero interest. Nearly $2.5 million dollars will be allocated towards the program that will spur economic growth in the state of Iowa.

There are many utilities that will be receiving the money such as:

Eastern Iowa Light- $298,000 dollars will be utilized to purchase land so that it can be developed into an efficient industrial park.
Orange Electric Utility- The $1,000,000 dollar loan will be used for economic development. The money will be utilized for the purchase of equipment and machinery. 144 jobs will also be created in the process.
Rock Rapids Utility- $300,000 dollar grant will be used for economic development purposes. The project will create approximately 20 brand new jobs.
Harrison County will utilize a $344,000 dollar loan in order to construct a warehouse facility that is 10,000 square feet.
Central Power Cooperative will utilize a $300,000 dollar grant which will be used to purchase land that will be properly converted into an industrial park.

A $21 million dollar loan is also being utilized in order to construct a local hospital. Overall, the USDA is a positive asset to the local communities in the state of Iowa.

Downtown Baltimore To Get $300M Harrah’s Casino

Aug 01

Caesars Entertainment Corporation announced that the State of Maryland Video Lottery Facility Location Commission had approved a license to operate a video lottery terminal (VLT) facility in Downtown Baltimore to CBAC Gaming, LLC, the investment group led by Caesars and Rock Gaming.

Harrah’s (Photo – Antoine Taveneaux)

CBAC Gaming plans to invest more than $300 million to develop the casino which will be known as Harrah’s Baltimore.

In addition to 3,750 VLTs, the property will offer multiple food and beverage amenities, including a fine dining steakhouse and signature casual dining restaurants.

Construction of the 262,000 square feet casino and an adjacent parking garage is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2013, with an opening targeted in the second quarter of 2014.

“The development of Harrah’s Baltimore is part of our plan to develop casinos in urban areas that integrate into and support the surrounding communities,” said Gary Loveman, chairman, president and CEO of Caesars Entertainment.

Prior to this, Caesars and Rock Gaming teamed up as Rock Ohio Gaming to open Horseshoe Cleveland, the first casino in Ohio. They will be opening Horseshoe Cincinnati in 2013, and Caesars has also applied for a license to open a property in East Boston in partnership with Suffolk Downs.

As far as Maryland is concerned, Harrah’s Baltimore is the fifth and last gaming license the state can give for a casino as per the state constitution. Lawmakers are debating whether to amend the constitution to allow table games at all casinos and create an additional gaming license for a sixth casino in Prince George’s County at the Rosecroft Raceway, 10 miles from Washington DC.

According to a study commissioned last year by the track’s owners, the $700 million Prince George casino could create a total of 7,636 jobs, including 2,000 permanent employees hired for the casino’s operation and other temporary jobs created for the construction.

It would generate $415 million in annual tax revenue, out of which $40 million would go to the county and the rest to the state. It would create a total economic impact of $2.5 billion for Maryland during the construction and the first five years of its operation.

Maryland Live! at Arundel Mills, which recently opened as the state’s largest casino, will be hiring 1,500 employees by fall this year. If the law is amended to allow table games, Maryland Live! will need another 800 staffers to man the tables. The casino is expected to pay the state $400 million in annual taxes.

Columbia University Adds to Applied Sciences NYC Cluster

Jul 31

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger announced an agreement between the City and Columbia for creating a new Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering.

NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Columbia Univ. Applied Sciences NYC partnership

Photo – columbia.edu

This is the third Applied Sciences NYC partnership agreement entered into by the City, bringing the total economic impact of all three projects combined to more than $33 billion.

The City will provide $15 million in financial assistance, including discounted energy transmission costs, partial debt forgiveness and lease flexibility leading to the development of the Institute. Columbia will contribute at least $80 million in private investment.

The institute will generate $3.9 billion of economic growth across the five boroughs over the next three decades. This includes 4,223 permanent jobs and 285 construction jobs. In addition, 170 companies are expected to spin-off in the City as a result of the project during this time.

This $3.9 billion, along with over $23 billion for the Cornell-Technion project on Roosevelt Island and the $5.5 billion for NYU-led consortium building the Center for Urban Science and Progress in Downtown Brooklyn brings the total projected Applied Sciences NYC economic impact so far to a huge $33.2 billion.

All three projects put together will create 48,241 permanent and construction jobs, and 945 spin-off companies by 2046.

The announcement was made by Mayor Bloomberg and President Bolinger at the Morningside Heights campus, with plenty of other officials in attendance including New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) president Seth W. Pinsky.

“This historic partnership is newest element in the applied sciences initiative that is, by far, the largest and most far-reaching economic development effort City government has undertaken in modern memory,” said Mayor Bloomberg.

“Through this Applied Science initiative Mayor Bloomberg has energized the conversation about the essential role of universities in our City’s economic future,” said President Bollinger.

“When we officially launched this groundbreaking initiative in 2010, among our stated goals was to achieve a critical mass of applied science and engineering activity here in New York City,” said NYCEDC president Seth W. Pinsky. “This newest partnership, with one of the finest academic institutions in the world, is another important step towards achieving that goal.”

The City is not resting on its laurels, though. Negotiations for more such initiatives are ongoing with Carnegie Mellon and some of the other institutions that had responded to the original Applied Sciences NYC Request for Proposals (RFP) put out by NYCEDC in July 2011.

Kathryn Wylde, president & CEO of the Partnership for New York City, summed it up nicely. “Within a decade, our city will likely eclipse Silicon Valley as the nation’s largest concentration of diverse engineering talent and technological innovation, thanks to the vision of the Bloomberg Administration and the commitments of Columbia, Cornell, The Technion, NYU Polytechnic and the City University of New York to create a cluster of new applied sciences institutions here,” said Wylde.

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 Next Scroll to top

Economic Development Blog