It’s been 20-plus years since Kim Davis started her career in business site selection and economic development consulting. In that time, she has helped companies in a variety of industries decide where to locate their facilities and worked with communities throughout the United States to improve their competitiveness for attracting projects.
AND magazine recently sat down with Davis, who serves as director at Quest Site Solutions, the South Carolina-based consulting firm behind the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s (MEDC) MI Sites program. Below, she shares her insights on site selection, site readiness, and what it takes to attract companies to a community today.
Q: What trends are you seeing in the site selection space right now?
A: There is a shortage of ready sites around the country. Many states have had site readiness programs in place since the early 2000s. It took years to get their sites ready. There has been a tremendous amount of project activity over the last three years. Many of the most-ready sites have been selected and are under development. So, there’s this gap that needs to be backfilled in terms of positioning additional sites for development.
Q: What defines a ready site?
A: It has three key attributes. The first is that it is available for sale or long-term lease with established terms and conditions. The second one is that it is servable, meaning that if the utility and transportation infrastructure is not already at the property, then detailed plans have been developed. And then the third is that it is developable. So, the due diligence studies around the environmental condition of the property have already been completed, and proper zoning is in place.
Q: What can communities do to make a property site-ready?
A: They can start documenting the property’s characteristics and then develop and execute plans to better position the property for development. I think it’s important to note that this is an ongoing process. There’s no single point in time when you can say, “Okay, the site is ready,” and then step back and wait; there are always improvements that can be made.
Q: Why is this work important from a site selection perspective?
A: When a company or site selector reaches out with a project RFP (to locate or expand their business), the economic development team must complete a comprehensive application by a given deadline. The timeline is critically important. Without having collected this information and doing the due diligence in advance, they can’t compete.
Q: It sounds like site readiness efforts vary quite a bit, state by state.
A: Some of these concepts have been in place since the late 90s, but over the last 25 years, programs have evolved. There are two main types of readiness programs: site readiness and site certification. Every certification program is a readiness program, but not every readiness program is a certification program.
Q: What’s happening in Michigan?
A: Quest Site Solutions designed and is administering the MI Sites program for the MEDC and piloted the program last year. Designations – bronze, silver, and gold – are achieved based on the level of property readiness. There’s also the VIP program through the Detroit Regional Partnership.
These kinds of programs allow Michigan to effectively compete with their competitor states that already have site readiness programs in place.
Q: What trends are you seeing in company needs right now?
It seems that all projects across the board, regardless of the industry, are requiring more electricity and water than ever before. That’s being driven by a rise in automation and new technology.
Q: Beyond the actual site, what factors can impact a project?
A: Business environment and tax structure. There’s also the workforce, which is a key driver in many projects. It’s critical to understand what’s available within the community and how that may change over time. Throughout the country, there are some communities that are very strong in manufacturing that are experiencing significant demographic changes. If most of their manufacturing workforce is at retirement age and they don’t have training programs in place to fill those positions with a younger workforce as those retirements occur, they’re going to be facing a challenging situation.
Q: Do you have any advice for communities working to make themselves more competitive?
A: States and communities benefit from having a portfolio of ready sites that can suit a variety of needs and projects for different businesses being targeted. You could do a mix of greenfield and brownfield sites that have a mix of different acreages, land uses, and characteristics.
Q: What’s next?
A: Site readiness has been critically important over the last two decades, and that’s not going to go away. For any company to locate a facility, they need a site that is available, servable, and developable. Regardless of the trends happening in the marketplace, those three fundamentals will remain unchanged.