Site Selection Factors / Strategy
Recent Features
Why America's Largest Companies Are Investing in Skilled Trades
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.
Geopolitics Is Now a Site Selection Variable
Why trade policy, tariffs, and global instability are reshaping where manufacturing projects land—and whether they move forward at all.
Community Risk Can Kill a Project Before It Breaks Ground
Why NIMBYism, political scrutiny, and local opposition are now core site selection risks—not afterthoughts
If the Site Doesn't Work on Paper, It Won't Work in Reality
Why land constraints—not incentives or labor—are eliminating manufacturing sites before the process even begins.
The Aluminum Smelter That Could Reshape the U.S. Industrial Map
How Oklahoma landed the first new U.S. aluminum smelter in 45 years and why the investment structure matters most.
Training for an Economy That Isn’t Fully Here Yet
Northern Workforce Training Center is opening two facilities this July that bet the region’s future on a gap most people haven’t noticed.
Avoid These Red Flags, Deal Killers, and Blunders in Site Selection
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.
In Focus: Rethinking Water in Data Center Site Selection
Why the real constraint isn’t always supply—and why the risk is still real.
Why Some Utilities Are Now Looking at Flexible Loads
Some utilities are experimenting with flexible-load strategies that could help data centers and manufacturers access capacity faster without waiting years for new generation.
21st Annual Shovel Awards: The American Industrial Economy Remade in Real Time
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.
What Korean Manufacturers Underestimate About Building in America
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.
Google’s 100-Year Bet
What Alphabet’s century bond signals about the future of data center site selection.
The Infrastructure Bet: Three Stories About Where American Industry Is Being Rebuilt
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.
Can AI Help This Supply Chain?
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.
Where Early-Stage Life Sciences Companies Get Stuck Scaling Their Real Estate—and How to Move Forward
Biotech firms face delays in programming, permitting, and infrastructure as they scale from lab to production.
From Reset to Readiness: Navigating the Life Science Real Estate Market in 2026
The life science real estate market isn’t collapsing — it’s resetting.
The Missing Middle: Pre-Commercial Life Science Companies and the Incentives Gap Impacting Future Clusters
States chasing life sciences growth may be overlooking the companies that drive long-term innovation.
The Infrastructure of Intelligence
Why the next economic map will be drawn in megawatts, not square feet.
Transparency and Infrastructure Foresight as Competitive Advantages
Even well-positioned projects can falter when critical details emerge late.
AI Isn’t Killing Jobs—It’s Reshaping Hiring
AI isn’t eliminating jobs—at least not yet. But it is quietly reshaping how companies hire, and where those jobs show up.
How AI Is Reshaping the Way Communities Compete for Investment
Why earned media—not websites—is becoming the front door to site selection.
What Does “Site Readiness” Really Mean?
A roundup of programs—and the consultants who know what they’re worth.
40th Annual Corporate and 22nd Annual Consultant Site Selection Survey Results
For decades, the bedrock question of corporate site selection was some version of the same calculation: where can we do this most cheaply? That era is not simply fading. According to the results of Area Development's 2026 Annual Survey of Site Selection Consultants, it has ended. Welcome to the new era of operational certainty.
Last Word: When Incentives Lead, Projects Follow—Often in the Wrong Direction
Why chasing the biggest package can derail site selection decisions before they begin.
Forestry and Related Products: Why Location Mistakes Are So Hard to Undo
What corporate site selection teams must understand before committing long-term capital.
First Person: Tate Reeves, Governor of Mississippi
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.
Editor's Note: A Higher Bar for Winning Projects
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.
21st Annual Shovel Awards: The Projects of the Year
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.
First Person: UCB's $2 Billion Bet on Gwinnett County
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.
Navigating Foreign Direct Investment, Foreign-Trade Zones and Manufacturing in a Volatile Market
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.
2026 Outlook: Biomanufacturing Isn’t Slowing — It’s Getting More Selective
What looks like a slowdown in biomanufacturing is better understood as a filter. Demand remains, but companies are moving more carefully — aligning new projects with production needs, regulatory realities, infrastructure capacity, and long-term.
2026 Outlook: The Warehouse Market Isn’t Growing — It’s Sorting Itself
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.
Editor's Note: Raising the Bar on Readiness
Contributed Content
Laying the Groundwork for Success: Kentucky’s Speed-to-Market Initiatives Are Fueling Future Economic Growth
Kentucky’s Product Development Initiative is translating preparation into performance.
Contributed Content
Beyond Shovel-Ready
How Michigan’s Site Readiness Strategy is De-Risking Investment.
Contributed Content
Speed to Site: How Ohio Is Removing Barriers to Major Investments
JobsOhio’s SiteOhio program is designed to give companies certainty on timelines, infrastructure, and due diligence before a project even begins.
