LOGISTICS & DISTRIBUTION

But changes roil global supply chains.

INVESTMENT PROFILE: ARDMORE, OKLAHOMA

In the form of the proposed H2OK project from Woodside Energy, the hydrogen business, like other energy sectors in the past, has discovered the value of Ardmore, Oklahoma.

ADVERTISEMENT

Alexis Elmore delivers updates on projects from Hitachi Energy in South America; Schwabe Group and Cara Partners in Ireland; and Meta in the Palmetto State.

The Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund’s first project broke ground in San Francisco in July.

Rendering by David Baker Architects courtesy of Apple

In July, Apple announced it was teaming with the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, Sobrato Philanthropies and Destination: Home to launch the new Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund, part of Apple’s broader $2.5 billion commitment to address housing affordability in communities across California. “Increasing access to safe and affordable housing is essential for thriving communities here,” said Kristina Raspe, Apple’s vice president of Global Real Estate and Facilities, “and we’re excited to help launch the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund as part of our long-term commitment to our home state.”

Site Selection’s coverage of the state’s housing issues includes the September 2019 article “Placemaking Is Nice. Places to Live Are Nicer,” which chronicles work in this same space from Apple’s fellow tech giant Google.

With an initial $50 million investment, the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund will support four projects in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, creating more than 400 homes within the next two years. The first project is in San Francisco’s Mission District, with the second project expected to break ground in Santa Cruz later this year. Apple said its support is backing the building or preserving of more than 10,000 units across more than 90 developments from affordable housing developers statewide.

ADVERTISEMENT

Infographic courtesy of ITA

You don’t have to hunt around the federal government website Data.gov very long before you find useful and relevant data sets. A search for such data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration turns up 56 results, including monthly outbound travel statistics by country; export activities of U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises; aerospace and defense data; U.S. steel exports; and the latest news about Foreign-Trade Zones (FTZs) in its August report to Congress. Rankings calculated from data in that report will appear in the November 2024 issue of Site Selection.

Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski courtesy of UGA

U.S. higher education enrollment figures for fall 2024 are still being tabulated, though several schools such as the University of South Carolina, Arizona State University, Oklahoma State University and the University of Houston are reporting records. In May the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported that undergraduate enrollment grew 2.5% (+359,000) in spring 2024, “marking the second consecutive semester of enrollment growth following years of decline during the pandemic. Gains occurred across all major sector groups, but the majority (55.7%) of this increase is due to community college growth (+200,000, +4.7% over spring 2023).” The center also reported that the number of dual enrolled high school students (17 and younger) grew for the third year in a row (+10.0%, +100,000), accounting for nearly 28.1% of the undergraduate enrollment increases.

The University of Georgia in Athens this fall has welcomed close to 6,200 first-year students from a pool of more than 43,000 applicants, prompting the university in August to release its first strategic enrollment management plan since 2007 “to maintain a balance between student enrollment and the resources necessary to support a large student body.” The plan proposes to maintain the size of freshman classes for the next five years while also building new facilities, hiring more faculty and enrolling one new transfer student for every two first-year students.