RURAL ADVANTAGE

The pandemic changed site selection patterns for companies and their workers. Ron Starner talks to several individuals living their version of the American Dream by taking advantage of relocation incentives to move across the country and start a new life.

RESEARCH & SCIENCE PARKS

Industry-relevant innovation continues to spin out of one of America’s most powerful research resources: the network of national laboratories operated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Our July cover story derives its findings from the detailed corporate end-user facility investment data resident in Conway Data’s Conway Projects Database. We dig into those details and present a complementary data resource on county economic performance from Argonne National Laboratory.

Direct investment in New Mexico productions by Netflix combined with use of Netflix Studios Albuquerque by other productions comes to a grand total of around $900 million since 2019.

Photos courtesy of Netflix

Conway Data Senior Research Associate Brian Espinoza has alerted our team that last Thursday, June 27, Netflix announced the opening of its newly expanded West Coast production facility in Albuquerque “featuring four new soundstages, three mills, one production office, two stage support buildings and two dedicated backlot areas across 108 acres. The expansion will enable us to enhance our creative output and produce even more compelling films and series for our global audience,” said the company, “further solidifying our commitment to nurturing and growing the thriving production ecosystem in New Mexico.” While the company did not mention an investment amount, a separate release from the office of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham stated the expansion was valued at $2 billion.

Netflix is one of six studios that comprise the membership of the Motion Picture Association, which reported that the American motion picture and television industry in 2022 supported 927,000 direct jobs and $105 billion in direct wages. This MPA map depicts with a dot each of over 240,000 local businesses that received $33 billion in payments across a variety of industries:

The Netflix expansion builds on the original establishment of an Albuquerque production hub in 2018 with the purchase of Albuquerque Studios, whose complex included eight sound stages on 28 acres where such productions as “The Avengers,” “Breaking Bad” and “Sicario” had been partially filmed. Gary Daughters documented the project in Site Selection’s November 2018 issue.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Opportunities unlike anywhere else.

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Decatur, Illinois, the least expensive place to live in America, is also home to this building occupied by food and beverage ingredient company Tate and Lyle. The company’s plant in Decatur was where the Chicago Bears were founded 105 years ago when owner Augustus Eugene Staley established an employee football team — the Decatur Staleys — who went on to become one of the original NFL teams.

Photo by JHVEPhoto: Getty Images

C2ER – The Council for Community and Economic Research on May 31 released its 2024 Cost of Living Index for the first quarter of 2025. “Among the 261 urban areas that participated in the first quarter of the 2024 Cost of Living Index, the after-tax cost for a professional/managerial standard of living ranged from more than twice the national average in New York (Manhattan), New York, to more than 20% below the national average in Decatur, Illinois,” the organization said. Here are the 10 most and least expensive regions:

C2ER says the Cost of Living Index “measures regional differences in the cost of consumer goods and services, excluding taxes and non-consumer expenditures, for professional and managerial households in the top income quintile. Covering 61 different items, prices are collected quarterly by chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, and university applied economic centers in each participating urban area.”

Photo courtesy of BE NKY

The Northern Kentucky Port Authority, Corporex, Hemmer Construction Company, elected leaders and 10 northern Kentucky growth organizations last Wednesday celebrated the topping out ceremony of the OneNKY Center in downtown Covington, where the final steel beam was placed at the top of the building. Expected to open in summer 2025 and already 100% leased, the $26 million complex will be home to BE NKY Growth Partnership (BE NKY), Catalytic Fund of Northern Kentucky, Covington Life Sciences Partners, EducateNKY, Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky, meetNKY, Northern Kentucky Bar Association, Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, OneNKY Alliance, Thomas More University Division of External Affairs and the Covington Life Science Lab, “which will provide early-stage companies with cost-effective research and development facilities,” said a release from BE NKY.