Over the last five years, as I have crisscrossed the country on behalf of aerospace, defense, semiconductor, and clean energy companies, I have watched the same scene play out in state after state. A governor’s team assembles a generous incentive package. The client is excited. Then we walk the site.

The land is there, but the power is three years out. Water and sewer stop several miles short. The pad needs grading and the rail spur needs rebuilding. By the time the site is buildable, much of the incentive package has been spent before the first worker is hired. The company barely sees the upside.

That scene tells you which parts of the system are working, and which one is not.

Four rooms, one mission

To win this reindustrialization moment, America needs four rooms working hand in hand.

The first room is the companies and innovators, and no one does this better than America. Visit El Segundo, California; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Denver; or Seattle and you will see it firsthand: founders building rockets, drones, reactors, and chips at a pace the world envies.

The second room is the federal government. Between the Office of Strategic Capital, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, the Export-Import Bank, and beyond, Washington is stepping up with loans, grants, and contracts to kick-start this industrial revolution.

The third room is states and localities. They are offering free land and incentives, and learning to rethink their approach for a new wave of manufacturers.

The fourth room — and the one that needs to catch up the most — is the capital markets. More institutional investors and family offices are paying attention, but this piece of the puzzle needs to move faster because the other three rooms are waiting on it.

Manufacturers want to build products, not own dirt

The companies in the first room are not real estate companies. Every dollar tied up in land, site work, and a building shell is a dollar not spent on equipment, engineers, or workforce. When I ask founders whether they need to own their facility, the answer is almost always the same: they want control, speed, and certainty, not the deed. They want to execute on the mission.

Yet the default is still to buy land and build, because no one at the table has offered a better structure. Manufacturing construction still runs at roughly $170 billion a year as of August 2026, according to the Census Bureau, more than double its 2021 pace, but it has fallen by nearly a fifth compared with a year ago. What is missing is patient private capital willing to carry the real estate so that companies can carry the mission.

A new asset class hiding in plain sight

Investors have done this before. Warehouses were an afterthought until e-commerce made logistics one of the most sought-after property types in the world. Data centers went from niche to core holding in about a decade. Advanced manufacturing deserves the same lens investors now apply to data centers and infrastructure.

The fundamentals are there: long lease terms, tenants with contracted demand often backed by federal programs, high switching costs, and national priorities that have outlasted several administrations.

Build-to-suit, sale-leaseback, ground lease, and joint venture structures allow a company to lease a purpose-built plant while an investor owns a durable, income-producing asset. Portfolios of powered, entitled industrial land, developed ahead of demand, could one day be as familiar to investment committees as logistics parks are today.

Family offices should be first in line. Many were built on American industry, and their long horizons suit assets that take time to mature. Few opportunities line up strong risk-adjusted returns and patriotic purpose so clearly. Capital that helps a defense supplier or critical minerals processor reach production two years sooner is capital invested in the nation’s security. The investors who move first will set the underwriting standards everyone else follows.

Let data centers help pay for readiness

Communities are pushing back hard on data centers, imposing moratoriums, rejecting confidential processes, and demanding real commitments. Lately my phone has been ringing with data center developers asking how to do this differently. This pushback is a rare opening for the third room to secure something lasting.

First, dedicate a share of data center tax revenue to site readiness, alongside schools and local services. Data centers generate substantial tax base with relatively few jobs.

Second, require developers that secure large tracts and new power capacity to hand a portion back to the community as pad-ready, powered parcels. Communities can then sell or lease them for job-creating projects.

Third, reserve incentives for manufacturing. Data centers should come with an offer, not an ask.

Ready sites are exactly what the fourth room needs to deploy capital with confidence. Public dollars take the risk out of the ground, and private capital builds on top of it.

Filling the fourth room

The innovators are ready. Washington has put real tools on the table. The states are competing harder than ever. The factories that rebuild our industrial base will be financed by someone. The investors who walk into the fourth room now and treat this as an asset class rather than a string of one-off deals will earn strong returns and become the catalysts who help build an industrial base that strengthens both our economy and security for decades to come.