Programming note. Thursday's Microsoft Outlook outage hit right as we were finishing the shipbuilding story we promised you last week. So … next week it is.
Welcome to Issue No. 8.
Audi and Honda announced brand-new U.S. assembly plants 16 days apart, and neither is built around electric vehicles. Also in this issue: five data center deals that arrived with their power arrangements spelled out, Texas ranches lining up to hire veteran apprentices, McCarthy's Nayan Bhakta on finding 4,600 workers, and a new daily product.
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Two weeks, two new auto plants
Audi picked the Middle Georgia Mega Site for its first U.S. plant: around $4 billion and approximately 4,500 jobs. Honda will spend about $3 billion on a new Ohio plant with more than 2,000 jobs, its first new U.S. assembly plant since 2006 and one it framed as a hybrid investment. Audi hasn't said what powertrains it will build.
Add expansions by Hyundai in Montgomery and Toyota in Princeton, Ind., and four automakers committed about $7.5 billion in 17 days. Three of the four are building at or next to plants they already run.
FROM THE PROJECT TRACKER
Data center deals now come with the power bill attached
Five data center campuses added to our Tracker last week carry more than $52 billion in announced investment. The two largest are Lambda's estimated $33.1 billion campus in Lowndes County, Ala., and Google's $17 billion first Wyoming data center in Laramie County.
Each of the big ones arrived with its electricity arrangement spelled out, from upfront grid-cost commitments in Alabama to Google's own 702-megawatt fuel cell project in Wyoming.
SECTOR INTELLIGENCE
Texas is training veterans to ranch, and big ranches want to hire them
Texas A&M AgriLife's BattleGround to Breaking Ground has trained more than 1,000 people to farm and ranch, most of them veterans. With the Airpower Foundation, it's building a registered apprenticeship, and the Four Sixes, the Pitchfork, the Lazy E and a fourth ranch have committed to hire and train apprentices.
Most ranches can't afford to carry a beginner. "They have to be an asset pretty much from the get go," said program manager Erin Kimbrough.
ACROSS THE TABLE
Nayan Bhakta on building solar where the workers live
McCarthy's renewable energy group has built more than 115 utility-scale solar and storage projects and has more than 4,600 employees and craft workers. Its new president, Nayan Bhakta, says most of them are hired and trained in the towns where McCarthy builds, and a large solar project typically needs 100 to 250 workers.
"BESS is experiencing a growth trajectory like utility-scale solar was 10 years ago," he said.
ON THE RADAR
Eight projects and deals worth knowing
The biggest of this week's daily briefs:
BWXT · $714.5M and 181 jobs at its uranium metal plant, Jonesborough, Tenn. →
Oppenheimer · Headquarters move keeps more than 1,000 jobs in Lower Manhattan →
Grow Therapy · More than 78,000 square feet and 123 jobs, Lower East Side →
Canfor · About $96M and about 75 jobs at its lumber hub, El Dorado, Ark. →
Ares Real Estate Fund · 325,215-square-foot distribution center, Salt Lake City →
Diamond Properties · 198,000-square-foot Shadeland Industrial Park, Indianapolis →
One Liberty Properties · $34M Milwaukee-area industrial portfolio →
MOVERS, SHAKERS & HOT JOBS
Who moved, and who's hiring
David MacNeil · The White House named WeatherTech's founder and CEO special envoy for manufacturing.
Michael Cabonargi · New president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center.
On the board: Atlanta Beltline's Clyde Higgs becomes IEDC board chair on Jan. 1, with seven new board members.
Hot jobs: San José's economic development director pays $170,000 to $215,000.
NEW: BYLINER, EVERY WEEKDAY
Byliner, our roundup of the best outside reporting on location decisions, now runs every weekday morning. Thursday's lead: Virginia's data center tax exemption took about 60% of its incentive spending.
FROM OUR PARTNERS · STRATA PLATFORMS
Billion-dollar location decisions start with trustworthy data. Strata Platforms' LOIS (LocationOne Information System) puts available sites and buildings alongside the data that shapes site selection, from workforce and demographics to major employers and infrastructure. Economic developers use it to market their communities, and site selectors use it to compare them.
THE 30-SECOND VERSION
Audi and Honda announced new U.S. auto plants 16 days apart, neither built around EVs · Five data center campuses worth more than $52B came with power terms attached · Texas ranches will hire veteran apprentices · McCarthy hires most of its 4,600 workers locally · WeatherTech's CEO is the new manufacturing envoy
That's the whole issue. You're caught up.
COMING NEXT
Sector Intelligence: our look at shipyard workforce, built on a new Vista Site Selection analysis of Puget Sound and Hampton Roads.
One last thing
Projects we missed, moves you're too modest to announce and anything we got wrong all go to [email protected].
Andy Greiner
Location Decision