December 1, 2005

The South's Chip Biz has Good Quarter

In the fall quarter Korean electronics giant Samsung chose Austin, Tex., for its newest North American computer chip facility. The company is spending $3.5 billion on the new plant, which will house about 800 workers. Also in the fall, microchip manufacturer Micron Technologies announced it is investing $1.2 billion in its Manassas, Va., facility, creating 860 new jobs. Idaho-based Micron purchased the Virginia plant from Toshiba in 2002. You have to go all the way back to the spring of 1996 to find two semiconductor manufacturers making $1 billion or more investments in one quarter in the South.

Entrepreneur.com, NPRC Big on Southern Markets

Entrepreneur.com and the National Policy Research Council published their annual "Hot Cities" for entrepreneurs in the fall quarter and markets in the South dominated the rankings. Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Nashville, Austin and Memphis all made it onto the large cities top 10. El Paso, Birmingham, Charleston, S.C., Mobile, McAllen, Tex., Columbia, S.C., Greenville-Spartanburg and Tulsa earned spots in the top 10 in the mid-market category. And in the small market category, Auburn-Opelika, Ala., Wilmington, N.C. Jonesboro, Ark., Huntsville, Ala., Laredo, Tex., and Springfield, Mo., made the magazine's top 10. Of the 30 "Hot Cities" for entrepreneurs cited in each top 10, 21 were in the South. Alabama and Texas led all U.S. states with four markets each making a top 10 and South Carolina and North Carolina each had three cities cited.

BRAC Not Kind to Northern Virginia

Few regions in the South can boast of an economy better than Northern Virginia's. With an October 2005 unemployment rate of about 2.5 percent, even people who don't want to work apparently are working in the region that partly surrounds Washington, D.C. But it was Washington and the Base Realignment and Closure Commission that recommended in the fall that 23,000 jobs be moved or eliminated in Northern Virginia, 18,000 of which are military-related. It's been estimated that approximately 7 million square feet of real estate will be vacated by the Department of Defense in Northern Virginia, with 4 million of that vacated in Arlington, Va.

GM Closing Two Plants, Eliminating Line in Southern Auto Corridor

On Monday, November 21, GM CEO Rick Wagoner announced the domestic automaker will close eight North American plants, two of which are in the Southern Auto Corridor. Scheduled to close are GM's plant in Oklahoma City in early 2006 and the Doraville, Ga., facility in 2008. Also, GM will shut down its No. 1 line at the Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. The closures will eliminate an estimated 7,500 jobs in the Southern Auto Corridor. GM plants located outside the corridor slated for closure are located in Michigan (3), Ontario (2) and Pennsylvania (1). In addition to reduced production at its Tennessee auto works, GM will eliminate shifts in Ontario and Ohio. Over the last five years, GM has invested over $2.3 billion at its Oklahoma City, Doraville and Spring Hill facilities.

Nissan's New Headquarters to Cost $70M

Nissan's new North American headquarters is being built in the Cool Springs area of Williamson County, Tenn., just south of Nashville. Nissan officials have said the company will invest $70 million in the new headquarters campus, which is expected to encompass 400,000 to 500,000 square feet. The arrival of Nissan will mean 1,300 new jobs with an annual payroll exceeding $100 million, with an overall economic effect on the Nashville area of over $500 million. Currently Nissan employs over 8,000 people in mid-Tennessee.

New Orleans’s First Big Deal Post-Katrina

Tenet Healthcare Corp., announced in late October that it plans to invest nearly $500 million to establish a new healthcare network in New Orleans. The healthcare provider was the largest in the New Orleans region prior to hurricane Katrina's devastation to parts of the city. The hurricane damaged two of Tenet's urban campuses, the Memorial Medical Center and the Lindy Boggs Medical Center. Both hospitals remain closed. Three of the other hospitals in the New Orleans region operated by the company were damaged. Tenet officials have said that the damage caused by Katrina will give the company an opportunity to "reinvent" how it will offer healthcare services in the future. The proposed new healthcare network has been named the NOLA Regional Health Network.

West Tennessee Site Earns Fifth Certified TVA Mega site

The more than 1,600-acre industrial site known as the West Tennessee Auto Park, has been certified by McCallum Sweeney Consulting of Greenville, S.C. The site, located in Fruitvale, Tenn. in Crockett County, has been certified as suitable for major automotive manufacturing. The mega site is the second in Tennessee and the fifth in the Tennessee Valley to earn certification. The other sites are located in Columbus, Miss., near Tupelo, near Hopkinsville, Ky., and in Chattanooga.

Chiquita is the Latest Brand to Look to Relocate HQ to South

Nissan's headquarters move from the Los Angeles area to the Nashville area (see www.SouthernAutoCorridor.com section in this edition) is just one of many high profile headquarter relocations to the South over the last several years. Nissan officials cited costs as the reason to pick up from California to Tennessee. Now Chiquita Brands International is looking to relocate its headquarters from Cincinnati to either South Florida or Atlanta. A decision is expected in January.

Offshore Wind Farm to be built in Gulf

The State of Texas signed an contract with a Louisiana company during the fall quarter to construct the nation's first offshore wind farm. The $300 million project will be built in the Gulf of Mexico about 7 miles off the coast of Texas' Galveston Island. When completed, energy generated by the wind farm will produce enough electricity to power over 40,000 homes.

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