When Area Development heard that Eric Stavriotis, Vice Chairman at CBRE Advisory Services, was headed to Seoul to speak at a U.S. Site Selection Seminar co-hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea (AMCHAM) and CBRE’s Korea Desk North America (KDNA), we asked him to take some notes for our readers.

The event brought together executives from South Korea’s leading manufacturers and suppliers—many now among the largest sources of new foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States—to explore what successful expansion into the U.S. really requires. The conversation, Stavriotis reported, made clear that Korean companies are approaching site selection not as a transaction, but as a long-term strategic exercise.

“Site selection for foreign direct investment is far more than a real estate transaction; it’s the foundation of long-term success,” Stavriotis said. “It requires a critical upfront definition of project requirements to select the optimal location. Success is built on seamlessly integrating incentives, infrastructure, logistics, talent, and local partnerships to ensure a resilient platform for sustainable U.S. growth.”

That framework captures how Korean investors are managing increasingly complex projects across the American manufacturing landscape. Rather than prioritizing speed to market, they are designing investment strategies that balance capital efficiency, infrastructure readiness, workforce stability, and local integration.

• Economic Incentives: Maximizing cost efficiencies and offsetting capital expenditures through proactive engagement with state and local partners.
• Essential Infrastructure: Verifying that sites have the robust power, water, and utility capacity to support both current and future operations.
• Efficient Logistics: Optimizing supply chain pathways and securing market access through multimodal connectivity.
• Skilled Talent: Ensuring access to qualified labor pools and workforce training programs aligned with advanced manufacturing needs.
• Local Partnerships: Fostering community relationships and understanding regional regulatory frameworks to sustain long-term success.

This structured approach, Stavriotis noted, mirrors the way Korean enterprises manage large-scale production systems—treating each decision point as part of a broader operational ecosystem. Incentives, utilities, labor, and logistics are not sequential steps; they are simultaneous considerations designed to reinforce one another.

The Korean investment model has become particularly visible in strategic sectors such as EV batteries, semiconductors, and advanced materials—industries that depend on specialized infrastructure and a skilled workforce. Many of these projects involve multi-phase master planning, where initial anchor facilities are followed by supplier networks and R&D components, creating localized ecosystems of production.

Steven Chon, Executive Vice President at CBRE and co-leader of the firm’s Korea Desk North America, emphasized that executing this kind of strategy demands deep collaboration among advisory teams.

“A prerequisite for a successful site selection project when engaging a Korean company is the ability to provide a full scope of services—and to go the extra mile with a collaborative team approach, as the U.S. is a new market for much of the supply chain,” Chon said.

For U.S. stakeholders—state agencies, utilities, and local developers alike—the takeaway is clear: Korean investors are setting a new benchmark for how international projects are conceived and delivered. Their process-driven rigor, emphasis on infrastructure verification, and commitment to community partnership reflect an understanding that success in the U.S. market is cumulative.

By treating site selection as a strategic discipline rather than a checklist, Korean companies are building more than factories—they are building advantage. And as Stavriotis’s experience in Seoul shows, that mindset may soon become the global standard for how high-value industrial investment gets done.