Location Decision · Issue No. 1

Where the money went, who moved, and why places win.

Good morning, and welcome to Issue No. 1.

Every location decision is a story with a spreadsheet stapled to it. Most coverage gives you one or the other. We'd like to give you both, quickly, with a little personality, and then get out of your way.

Let's start with a number.

FROM THE TRACKER

Hanwha Defense USA → Pine Bluff, Arkansas
$2.2 billion. About 400 jobs.

Do the division and that's roughly $5.5 million in capital per job. Put it next to two other big bets: Oklahoma Primary Aluminum's smelter in Inola comes in around $4 million per job, and Pirelli's expansion in Rome, Georgia, about $1.2 million.

The biggest checks on the map are buying more machines per worker. That changes what a community is really competing for: power, land, infrastructure and a smaller number of highly skilled people.

The Inola project shows what those few jobs can carry. Oklahoma Primary Aluminum's smelter is $4 billion-plus and 1,000+ direct jobs averaging about $100,000 a year. It would be the first new U.S. primary aluminum plant since 1980 in a country that imports about 85% of the primary aluminum it uses. The company's modeling projects roughly 7,000 Oklahoma jobs a year once you count the ripple effects. That's a projection, not a promise, but it's a good look at what hangs off a megaproject.

We can make comparisons like this because the Location Intelligence tracker now holds 1,224 major U.S. projects, logged one decision at a time.

Explore the tracker → · What a $4 Billion Aluminum Plant Could Mean for Oklahoma →

BEHIND THE DEAL

In 2015, Camco Chemical bought a distribution center across the street from its plant. The deal came with about 15 acres the company didn't need.

"We liked the optionality," CEO Adrian Hothem told us.

A decade later, Camco is using it. It's building a 130,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center on about 14 of those acres. That will be the fifth building on a campus in Independence, Ky., that Hothem says will top 900,000 square feet.

There was no multistate search, and there are no state incentives on this phase. "You grow because it's the right business decision, not because there's an incentive on the back end," Hothem said.

It's a reminder that a hometown company still has to be won again every time it grows. Northern Kentucky didn't have to pull Camco away from anywhere else. It just had to keep making sense.

Read Behind the Deal →

MOVERS, SHAKERS & AWARD WINNERS

Mitch Frazier · Gov. Mike Braun named him president of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, effective Oct. 5. He's coming from IBJ Media, and before that he led AgriNovus Indiana. It's also a homecoming: he once ran IEDC's media relations.

Matthew Thomas · New president and CEO of the Rome Floyd Development Authority. He comes over from Cartersville-Bartow, keeping Northwest Georgia talent in Northwest Georgia.

Emily Knight · She's leaving The Engine to become Boston's economic development chief on Oct. 19. Boston is betting on an innovation-economy operator.

Chris Girdler · A former state senator and the founding CEO of Somerset-Pulaski's EDA, he's joining East Kentucky Power Cooperative Oct. 1. When power is the constraint, utility economic developers matter more.

Isabel Rogers · She's joined Georgia Power Economic Development as a GIS analyst. Good location decisions start with good location data.

Award: Rock County's internship and externship programs won WEDA's 2026 award for talent attraction, development and retention. 184 students and 84 teachers have taken part so far. Don't just train the students. Show their teachers where the jobs are going.

One to Watch: FourFound is recruiting a VP of Site Selection & Acquisition for data centers at $450K–$650K, plus bonus. The client isn't named. Yes, we checked the number. Yes, it's real. Site-selection talent has become infrastructure.

All the moves, awards and open seats →

SECOND SHIFT

Khara LeDoux learned to weld through Climb Wyoming in 2012 while raising two young sons on her own. She then spent 12 years at a Casper machine shop making race car parts. Now she works in sales, has more time for her boys' games, and says she earns twice what she did when she finished training.

In southwest Georgia, a graduate of a free heavy-equipment program has come back to help train the next class. Program leaders say four of four participants trained while incarcerated have found jobs after release.

We throw around "talent pipeline" like it's plumbing. There are people in that pipe.

Read Khara's story → · From trainee to trainer →

CONTESTED GROUND

Colorado Springs. Council voted 7–2 to push its Project Taurus data center decision to April 2027. Three people were arrested at the hearing. The applicant told council that an existing local data center uses 40 megawatts. The utility's CEO said the largest one uses about six. If you use a comparison to reassure people, it had better hold up. Read more →

Philadelphia. The data center fight started before anyone filed a proposal. Residents want a pause until rules are in place, and the mayor has formed a task force. The lesson: engagement can start before site selection, so be clear about what's real and what's hypothetical. Read more →

Ascension Parish, La. At Hyundai's steel mill air-permit hearing, supporters talked about jobs and neighbors asked about emissions. Jobs belong in that conversation, but they don't answer an air-permit question. Read more →

And if you missed it: When Data Center Opposition Crosses the Line → Legitimate opposition is not extremism. Firing 13 rounds into a councilman's home is.

RESEARCH, FAST

Phoenix, the glut that wasn't. Vacancy in big-box warehouses (300,000+ sq. ft.) fell from 32.5% in 2022 to 5.8% this spring. Phoenix delivered 19 million sq. ft. of that space in 2023 and just 300,000 so far this year. Now 21.5M sq. ft. of tenant demand is chasing 4.1M available. Remember when everyone said Phoenix overbuilt? Phoenix remembers.

Building costs are rising again. Copper is up 39%, steel 17% and construction wages 4.3%. Cheap land only gets you so far.

Power is a location factor now. JLL finds the most efficient buildings cost 43% to 75% less to operate each year than the least efficient. That used to be a sustainability footnote. Now it belongs in the site selection model.

Research Round-Up →

THE 30-SECOND VERSION

$5.5M in capital per job in Pine Bluff · First new U.S. aluminum smelter since 1980 · 15 acres Camco didn't need, until it did · 40 MW claimed vs. ~6 MW in Colorado Springs · 5.8% big-box vacancy in Phoenix

That's the whole issue. You're caught up.

Location Decision is new enough that we still get to decide what it becomes, and I'd like you in on that.

Send me the project we missed, the promotion you're too modest to announce, the research everyone should read, the worker whose story deserves a bigger room. And if you think we got something wrong, tell me that too. That's the most useful email I can get: [email protected].

Thanks for being here at the start. Let's make this worth opening.

Andy Greiner
Location Decision