A report done by a national publication lists Augusta in the Top 10 locations for site development.
Site Selection Magazine is the official publication of the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC). Founded in 1954, it is currently based in Norcross, Ga.
“We are a controlled circulation, B2B publication that goes to corporate leaders with decision-making responsibility when it comes to facility, locations, and expansions,” Adam Bruns, Editor-in-Chief, head of Publications, explained for ABD. “We’ve gone to what would typically be a job title like the director of global real estate and facilities for a major multinational. That would be anybody from a site selection consultant to a big real estate firm like JLL or Cushman and Wakefield to all the architecture, engineering, and construction firms out there.”
The magazine recently revived a look at development along the nation’s interstate highways. One of the first to be studied was Interstate 75, stretching from Miami to the Canadian border in Michigan.
That report, available in the magazine’s June newsletter, prompted ABD to ask if there was a plan to look at Interstate 20. Bruns said they had studied the more than 1,500-mile east-west artery and provided a preview from an upcoming report by Kelly Barraza. It looked at all new corporate and end-user facility investment projects over the past two years in the counties the interstate passes through.
Not surprisingly, the report found a number of major metropolitan areas rank high on the list, starting with Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington with 772 hot spots, Metro Atlanta with 178, and New Orleans-Metairie listing 45.
“In a lot of our rankings, we find that any place in Texas is attracting a lot of project activity, and that’s everything from headquarters to energy to industrial manufacturing,” said Bruns. “If you follow an interstate corridor, it tends to follow the project, and activity naturally will cluster in big metros.”
Nestled at number six is Columbia, S.C., with 26 projects. However, the eye-opener is Augusta, breaking into the top 10 with 14 projects.
Bruns said he was not surprised to see Augusta ranked in the top 10, pointing to big employers like Kimberly-Clark and legacy industrial operations, including the Savannah River Site.
“There’s naturally going to be project activity there, I think, and also we’ve seen over the years that there can be a lot of activity in metro areas that do straddle a state line,” he said. “So, even though you might think of it as a place where, oh no, we’ve got two states as rivals battling for attracting a project, if you take a regional approach, then you can really lift all boats.”
Bruns said one of the reasons they do the rankings is to be able to show corporate leaders and site selection consultants the developing, regional clusters in certain industry sectors.
“Then, hopefully, what those growing companies are doing is, is offering testimonials themselves about why they’re finding this or that place, a successful location in which to operate. That’s one of the things we specialize in in our reporting, is, is talking to those corporates or their advisors directly in order to get it, get it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, about exactly why they’re choosing this location over that location,” he said.
We took the results of the I-20 site selection survey to Cal Wray, President of the Augusta Economic Development Authority (AEDA), and Will Williams, President and CEO of Western SC Economic Development. We’ll have their reactions to Augusta’s Top 10 ranking in part two.
This is the complete Top 10 list from Site Selection Magazine:
- Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington: 772
- Metro Atlanta: 178
- New Orleans-Metairie: 45
- Birmingham, Alabama: 39
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana: 35
- Columbia, South Carolina: 26
- Shreveport-Bossier: 20
- Longview, Texas: 18
- Tyler, Texas: 15
- Augusta, Georgia: 14
