The life science real estate market isn’t collapsing — it’s resetting.
A massive shift is underway in U.S. industrial investment — and it’s being driven by defense.
Why the next economic map will be drawn in megawatts, not square feet.
Even well-positioned projects can falter when critical details emerge late.
What corporate site selection teams must understand before committing long-term capital.
A tropical storm, a former phosphate mine and one unforgettable phone call helped shape one of the most consequential aerospace investments in South Carolina history.
Activity is down from its post-COVID peak, average investment is up, and the competition for major projects has gone global. Understanding what those trends mean for your community's strategy is more important than chasing the next announcement.
AMD is racing to build the chips powering the AI era. First, it has to build the engineers to design them.
Headline migration statistics obscure the movements that matter most. Looking at specialized talent flows reveals a different picture of New York's competitive position—and offers a better framework for location strategy.
Construction / Project Planning
Understanding the construction industry’s multiplier effect — and the workforce infrastructure behind it — can sharpen site selection and economic development decisions.
The New Rules of Site Selection
Why trade policy, tariffs, and global instability are reshaping where manufacturing projects land—and whether they move forward at all.
Legacy aerospace assets are becoming the foundation of tomorrow's commercial space economy
The New Rules of Site Selection
Why NIMBYism, political scrutiny, and local opposition are now core site selection risks—not afterthoughts
International interest in the U.S. remains strong, but shifting trade rules are delaying commitments and giving prepared communities time to improve their position.
The New Rules of Site Selection
Why land constraints—not incentives or labor—are eliminating manufacturing sites before the process even begins.
Site Selection Factors / Strategy
The factors that decide close location contests rarely appear in a scorecard. They happen in the debrief conversation after the site visit ends.
Site Selection Factors / Strategy
The competitive intelligence that shapes location decisions is often available to your consulting team but rarely makes it to the client. Understanding what's being held back, and why, changes how you manage the relationship.
As supply chains evolve beyond pure efficiency, companies are rethinking where they build, store, and move products. The result is a new generation of logistics decisions centered on resilience, flexibility, and long-term performance.
Site Selection Factors / Strategy
Now more than ever before with projects, local economic development teams are asking consultants to wait until after the election. That is a sentence that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Here is what it means for how the job gets done.
The biggest workforce challenge facing AI, advanced manufacturing and infrastructure projects isn't operating new facilities—it's finding enough skilled workers to build them.
Four conversations from SelectUSA and the field reveal what’s driving investment now — from Mississippi’s execution model and workforce pipelines to project delays and a surge in Korean manufacturing interest across the Southeast.
Site Selection Factors / Strategy
AI has moved the front end of site selection upstream by weeks — and the communities you evaluate are being scored before you contact them. Understanding what that pre-screening process surfaces changes how corporate real estate teams should think about their own location process.
Site Selection Factors / Strategy
Industry experts from site selection, construction, law, and supply chain consulting weigh in on what's derailing projects in 2026 — and what it takes to keep deals alive.
Why the real constraint isn’t always supply—and why the risk is still real.
For Philippe Mantelet, a $2 billion biologics facility represents more than a capital investment. In this interview, he outlines how UCB approaches site selection — balancing speed, infrastructure, talent, and long-term certainty — to make decisions that hold up well beyond the initial buildout.
The competition for transformative projects is intensifying. From $10 billion data centers to next-generation manufacturing, this year’s Shovel Awards show which states are winning—and how they’re building durable industrial ecosystems.
AI is changing how facilities are operated, maintained, and optimized—turning buildings from fixed assets into active participants in business performance.
Some utilities are experimenting with flexible-load strategies that could help data centers and manufacturers access capacity faster without waiting years for new generation.
What Alphabet’s century bond signals about the future of data center site selection.
An examination of how Mississippi is structuring large industrial projects: maintaining excess power capacity, pre serving sites with utilities in place, and coordinating workforce development through a single entity to reduce timing gaps across infrastructure, permitting, and hiring.
U.S. expansion decisions are increasingly won—or lost—before site selection begins. For Korean manufacturers, aligning capital strategy with infrastructure realities has become the defining challenge in executing successful investments.
Government Policy / Business Climate
Why Streamlined Environmental Review Is Now a Strategic Imperative.
Episode 13 of The Site & Facility Planning Podcast explores Oklahoma’s $4B aluminum smelter bet, active infrastructure for grid constraints, and workforce training for clean energy facilities.
States chasing life sciences growth may be overlooking the companies that drive long-term innovation.
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Meta’s Louisiana project illustrates both the legitimate concerns surrounding large-scale data centers and the potentially transformative rewards for communities prepared to accommodate them.
Economic development is often described as a data-driven process. RFIs are issued. Responses are scored. Sites are ranked. Incentives are compared. A winner emerges.
Understanding the construction industry’s multiplier effect — and the workforce infrastructure behind it — can sharpen site selection and economic development decisions.
Why long-term resilience—across climate, supply chains, and technology—is now part of the site selection decision.
Even well-positioned projects can falter when critical details emerge late.
Facilities facing interconnection bottlenecks are accelerating production by investing directly in resilient, on-site energy systems.
Smarter expansion begins with smarter location decisions — especially as automation, sustainability, and supply chain risk redefine the packaging industry.
Domestic drug production is becoming a matter of national security, not just market strategy.
Annual Econdev Awards
Corporate Exec Survey Results
Leading Metro Locations
Top States for Business
International interest in the U.S. remains strong, but shifting trade rules are delaying commitments and giving prepared communities time to improve their position.
Why Streamlined Environmental Review Is Now a Strategic Imperative.
Charlie Smith, managing director of geopolitical strategy at Newmark Global Strategy discusses the current trade tensions across North America and their implications with his colleagues, managing director Carlos Sanchez (based in Mexico) and senior managing director Gregg Wassmansdorf (based in Canada).
The Court blocks the administration’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs, but alternative legal pathways — and political will — suggest trade duties will remain embedded in the operating environment.
As supply chains evolve beyond pure efficiency, companies are rethinking where they build, store, and move products. The result is a new generation of logistics decisions centered on resilience, flexibility, and long-term performance.
Infrastructure can power your supply chain—but only when planned with foresight.
With supply chain pressures mounting, America’s logistics network is being rebuilt from the ground up and states are competing for the infrastructure edge by investing in ports, air cargo, and cold storage.
A discussion with JC Renshaw (Savills), Joe Dunlap (Legacy Investing) and Matt Powers (OnPace Partners), about the state of rail infrastructure for site selectors.
Strong locations can fall out of contention when communities submit information that is difficult to interpret, compare or verify.
Five surging forces reshaping where — and how — companies grow.
The factors that decide close location contests rarely appear in a scorecard. They happen in the debrief conversation after the site visit ends.
AI has moved the front end of site selection upstream by weeks — and the communities you evaluate are being scored before you contact them. Understanding what that pre-screening process surfaces changes how corporate real estate teams should think about their own location process.
Why chasing the biggest package can derail site selection decisions before they begin.
Discover how the OBBBA creates a short-lived opportunity for modular developers to accelerate deductions, leverage restored bonus depreciation, and meet tight 2026 energy-incentive deadlines.
New challenges—from automation to federal fallout—are testing how companies manage risk in incentive-backed projects
States and cities have tied incentives to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals — such as subcontracting targets or workforce composition — but a new executive order from the Trump administration and related lawsuits are raising the legal stakes. That raises new questions about what’s lawful and what’s not when it comes to DEI, affirmative action, and the use of contracting targets — and how that may impact your next location decision.
Manufacturers and corporate real estate executives often talk about speed to market and clarity of process as deciding factors in site selection. Fort Worth is testing what happens when a city reorganizes itself around those principles.
How to plan manufacturing facilities with safety in mind.
Although records have been set for massive industrial spaces, the market has been shifting to smaller buildings.
To find out more about the current cyber threats companies are facing and their responses to such threats, Area Development’s staff writer, Lisa Bastian, interviewed Michael Morris, a managing director in Deloitte’s Cyber Detect & Respond practice.
Activity is down from its post-COVID peak, average investment is up, and the competition for major projects has gone global. Understanding what those trends mean for your community's strategy is more important than chasing the next announcement.
Understanding the construction industry’s multiplier effect — and the workforce infrastructure behind it — can sharpen site selection and economic development decisions.
How a factory went from an idea to operational in about two years.
Legal risks and the rise of the AI clause in construction contracts.
Why long-term resilience—across climate, supply chains, and technology—is now part of the site selection decision.
In Elkhart, Indiana, a 171,000-square-foot “wood warehouse” built by Graycor may point the way toward a more sustainable model for industrial construction.
Georgia’s newest innovation district bets big on climate-ready infrastructure and long-term planning.
Faced with the prospect of building a massive $700 million surface reservoir, Greeley instead pursued something few communities have dared to try.
Introducing the Area Development State Talent Pipeline Ranking.
Salary transparency in job listings offers new insights into wages.
Could a prolonged strike have disrupted U.S. supply chains further?
The new year brings some significant changes that will impact employers who have entry-level workers, with 22 states raising their minimum wages effective January 1st.
Headline migration statistics obscure the movements that matter most. Looking at specialized talent flows reveals a different picture of New York's competitive position—and offers a better framework for location strategy.
The biggest workforce challenge facing AI, advanced manufacturing and infrastructure projects isn't operating new facilities—it's finding enough skilled workers to build them.
As investment surges, a thinning workforce forces companies to rethink where—and how—they build in America.
AI is freeing skilled tradespeople to focus on craftsmanship, safety, and growth as labor pressures intensify.
Why labor hasn't disappeared from site selection—but is now competing with power, land, and execution risk.
AI isn’t eliminating jobs—at least not yet. But it is quietly reshaping how companies hire, and where those jobs show up.
Reestablishing the value of the office has driven trends in workplace investment and location strategy
Workforce demographics are reshaping how and where companies design and locate their offices.
The competition for transformative projects is intensifying. From $10 billion data centers to next-generation manufacturing, this year’s Shovel Awards show which states are winning—and how they’re building durable industrial ecosystems.
An examination of how Mississippi is structuring large industrial projects: maintaining excess power capacity, pre serving sites with utilities in place, and coordinating workforce development through a single entity to reduce timing gaps across infrastructure, permitting, and hiring.
Projects are still advancing—but fewer are clearing internal hurdles. As assumptions around cost, timing, and delivery get tested, only the deals that stand up to full internal scrutiny are moving forward.
The investments that stood apart for their scale, strategic significance, and economic impact — from advanced manufacturing and life sciences to headquarters expansions and AI-powered data centers.
How Oklahoma landed the first new U.S. aluminum smelter in 45 years and why the investment structure matters most.
The fluidity of digital innovation - and its lack of dependence on a traditional industrial infrastructure - means that tech havens are blooming in newer magnets where tech-savvy workers are prevalent, ranging from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Richmond, Virginia.
Northland Workforce Training Center is opening two facilities this July that bet the region’s future on a gap most people haven’t noticed.
Some utilities are experimenting with flexible-load strategies that could help data centers and manufacturers access capacity faster without waiting years for new generation.
Smaller and mid-sized U.S. metros are outpacing big cities, leveraging workforce agility, affordability, and livability to redefine competitiveness and attract investment in 2025.
Simply put, companies want to locate and expand in places where people want to move to and live.
Area Development’s 2024 Leading Metro Locations report reveals shifting dynamics in America’s cities.
Speed, workforce alignment, and energy infrastructure now define the best states for doing business — not just incentives or tax breaks. Our exclusive rankings break down how the top performers are staying ahead in a tightening market.
Certain states just have the right ingredients for attracting and nurturing business growth. The 2024 Top States for Doing Business rankings are in, and guess what? The Southern states are shining bright once again.
Companies across industry sectors are having trouble finding all the talent they need, which makes workforce development programs even more vital as a location factor.
Economic development is often described as a data-driven process. RFIs are issued. Responses are scored. Sites are ranked. Incentives are compared. A winner emerges.
With hybrid work now a constant, corporate real estate leaders are shifting from “wait-and-see” to execution. The result: less space, higher cost per square foot, and a growing premium on offices that deliver measurable value in collaboration, culture and talent outcomes.
Oil and gas industry consolidation will likely lead to increased demands for higher-quality offices in top locations.
Companies prioritize values and mission when choosing modern headquarters locations.
Meta’s Louisiana project illustrates both the legitimate concerns surrounding large-scale data centers and the potentially transformative rewards for communities prepared to accommodate them.
Why the real constraint isn’t always supply—and why the risk is still real.
What Alphabet’s century bond signals about the future of data center site selection.
The race to build AI infrastructure is no longer just a technology story — it’s a geopolitical one.
Companies are changing how they forecast demand, manage inventory, and make location decisions — and that transformation is happening against a backdrop of tariff turbulence, nearshoring pressure, and relentless port volatility. Here's how to read the signals.
With demand stabilizing, industrial occupiers are shifting from rapid expansion to disciplined execution. The result is fewer speculative projects, more build-to-suit activity, and a growing premium on facilities that deliver efficiency, automation capacity, and reliable access to labor and customers.
Embedding automation into leases may offer companies a smarter way to balance risk, cost and productivity.
Partnerships with local economic developers and other community stakeholders are key to a company getting approval to site a big-box distribution center.
A new generation of domestic steel investment is reshaping the industrial map. The projects are larger, the infrastructure requirements are more demanding, and the communities that can compete are fewer than most economic developers realize.
Industrial real estate is entering a new phase as tariff policy, slowing e-commerce growth, and changing trade routes reshape where demand is strongest — and where vacancy is rising fastest.
Capital, infrastructure, power and workforce now define competitive manufacturing locations.
In an undersupplied NYC market, a historic multistory facility shows why what seemed obsolete is now indispensable for last-mile distribution.
With research strength, manufacturing depth, and a statewide workforce strategy, Wisconsin is positioning itself as a destination for biohealth and biopharma growth.
Tennessee's surging foreign direct investment numbers—record capital, landmark deals, and a strategic focus on critical industries—signal a state competing and winning on the global stage.
Middlesex County, New Jersey is rewriting the economic development playbook — one relationship at a time.
Virginia is pairing industry investment, academic partnerships and workforce development to build a resilient biopharmaceutical manufacturing ecosystem.
As site scarcity shifts corporate decisions from parcels to people, execution—not assets—is becoming the real differentiator.
The permanent extension of Opportunity Zones under the 2025 OBBBA creates a rare opening for business leaders to shape where federal investment flows — and rural America may hold the strongest opportunities for long-term strategic growth.
With federal action slowing and market forces accelerating, private firms are finding that the most effective policy responses—on issues like energy, housing, and workforce—are coming from state and local governments with the agility to act.
A return to American manufacturing demands more than factories — it requires coordinated, community-wide ecosystem development
Four conversations from SelectUSA and the field reveal what’s driving investment now — from Mississippi’s execution model and workforce pipelines to project delays and a surge in Korean manufacturing interest across the Southeast.
Episode 13 of The Site & Facility Planning Podcast explores Oklahoma’s $4B aluminum smelter bet, active infrastructure for grid constraints, and workforce training for clean energy facilities.
As tariff uncertainty and industrial policy shifts reshape investment strategies, manufacturers are leaning on tools such as foreign-trade zones, accelerated workforce partnerships and vertically integrated facilities to manage risk and maintain momentum in U.S. site selection decisions.
AI is reshaping site strategy. This episode explores compressing “Time to First Token,” power-first location decisions, and the execution discipline executives need as data centers scale, faster than real estate cycles.
Area Development magazine caught up with its Q2 guest editors, Ford Graham and Steven Pearce from McGuireWoods consulting, to talk about their reporting on data center supply chains. We also invited Ermengarde Jabir Director of Economic Research at Moody’s to join the discussion.
The means by which information is delivered has, of course, changed over the last three decades, but Area Development will continue to provide our readers with what they require to make informed site and facility planning decisions.
The consumption of electricity is only predicted to increase as the digital transformation of industry continues and, consequently, access to electricity has become a dominant site selection factor.
With a worker shortage that seems destined to persist, employers are turning to AI/automation and upskilling, while also realizing that comprehensive immigration reform is necessary to fill gaps in the labor force.
