July 25, 2024 - Southern Business & Development

Elon Musk’s X actively searching for Austin office space, sources say

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

After announcing plans to relocate its headquarters from San Francisco to Austin, Elon Musk’s X is now trying to lock down office space in the Texas capital.

Multiple sources unconnected to the social media platform’s office search have said that Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (NYSE: JLL) and Jake Ragusa, an executive vice president at the firm, are helping it in the search. JLL is already working with X, formerly known as Twitter, to market its office space on San Francisco’s Market and Tenth streets, a JLL spokesperson confirmed.

However, the spokesperson declined to comment on whether JLL and Ragusa were helping X find an Austin office. Ragusa did not respond to a request for comment.

X also did not respond to requests for comment. Serial entrepreneur Musk on July 16 announced the X headquarters would relocate to Austin, joining his other companies — Tesla Inc., The Boring Co., Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Neuralink Corp. — in Texas. All of Musk’s companies tend to operate under a veil of secrecy. Tesla, for example, has a reputation for being tight-lipped — even disbanding its media relations department in 2020.

Austin Business Journal

North Carolina’s “first in flight” legacy grows with over 200 aerospace and aviation operations here

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

Some industry execs grumble when related companies launch operations nearby and begin competing for the same labor pool. Not Bill Collins, president of Airframe Services at HAECO Americas in Greensboro. Collins not only applauds the efforts of business recruiters when they land the likes of Honda Aircraft, Boom Supersonic and Marshall Aerospace, he joins them in growing the region’s roster of aerospace and aviation names.

“We’re pretty active and coordinated in our vision for the companies we’d like to see in the area,” says Collins, who has led HAECO Americas for the past five years and is a board member of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. “We’d like to see it grow and bring in some of the world’s best aviation minds.” Collins even meets with visiting location-search teams when they explore bringing new jobs and operations in the region.

HAECO’s presence at Greensboro’s Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTI) has its roots in the early 1990s. Since then, PTI has grown from a regional passenger airport to a global center for airborne logistics; aerospace manufacturing; and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operations like HAECO.

Momentum began growing with the 1998 announcement by FedEx that it would open a key mid-Atlantic hub on 175 acres at PTI. The project ushered in major upgrades that included a new 9,000-foot runway, fuel farm and interstate-linked access roads. Another prominent name, Honda Aircraft, made a significant commitment to PTI in 2006, moving R&D, manufacturing and management operations there. PTI’s ambitious strategic plan, completed in 2012, paved the way for additional economic infrastructure, partnerships and advocacy.

Triad Business Journal

Japanese firm Nipro to create 232 jobs in Eastern NC with $400M investment

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

A Japanese company that manufactures medical equipment is looking to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a new factory that would create hundreds of jobs in a growing Eastern North Carolina city.

Nipro is expected to announce Wednesday a roughly $400 million investment that will create 232 jobs in Greenville in Pitt County, according to sources with knowledge of the project.

This will be the company’s first manufacturing plant in North Carolina and fifth in the United States. The company, headquartered in Osaka, Japan, has two facilities in New Jersey, one in Virginia and one in Indiana.

Triangle Business Journal

TikTok lands key permits for Music Row office, revealing cost

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

TikTok is taking steps forward on its new Nashville office, which is turning out to be a multimillion-dollar project.

Earlier this year, the global social media giant signed a 143,610-square-foot lease in Music Row’s Moore Building for its permanent Nashville office.

The company has now been issued several key permits related to the project, showing work is progressing fast on its new local office. The recent permits have revealed that TikTok will be taking over the top five floors of the 16-story office building.

TikTok is beginning interior build-out of the 12th and 13th floors of the Midtown office building to include open office areas, enclosed offices, meetings rooms and a break room. The cost of construction for the two floors is $2.8 million, according to permits.

Nashville Business Journal

Oracle adds almost 30% to downtown Nashville’s office footprint

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) has snagged another floor of a downtown Nashville office building that’s serving as the Fortune 100 company’s interim landing spot.

The new lease, confirmed by multiple sources with knowledge of the deal, means Oracle’s total office space now tallies more than 120,000 square feet. The expansion adds nearly 30% to the company’s prior footprint, all within the Radius building at 601 11th Ave. N.

Oracle’s newest space provides extra cushion for growth: Construction of its planned $1.35 billion riverfront office campus has yet to begin, and no start date appears imminent. It’s been more than three years since the software and cloud-computing company formally cemented incentives tied to its plan to have 8,500 workers in Nashville by the end of 2031.

Nashville Business Journal

One of Memphis’ biggest companies is moving its C-suite to Nashville area

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

One of Memphis’ largest private companies is moving its executives to Music City, but rejecting the headquarters label.

TruGreen, the largest lawn services provider in the U.S., is opening a new corporate office in Franklin.

The company has signed a lease for 37,000 square feet in Highwoods Properties’ Cool Springs V office building, according to a news release shared with the Business Journal in response to an inquiry. TruGreen’s executive team will be relocating from Memphis to the new Nashville-area office.

Memphis Business Journal

Mystery $3 billion data center could locate in the Memphis area

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

The West Memphis City Council recently discussed possible incentives to woo a $3 billion data center to the area.

The project, which is covered by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), could create 300 jobs and cost $3 billion to develop. As presented to the City Council, the facility was described as “technical,” though wage figures for the resulting jobs were not shared at the July 11 meeting.

“We’re under an NDA for everything. We’d love to tell you everything we know, but this is for a project that is considering locating in West Memphis,” said Ward Wimbish, general manager at West Memphis Utilities, at the City Council meeting. “At the moment, it is believed we are the No. 1 pick for them. They have to make certain decisions about property acquisitions, and one of their asks is for a PILOT [payment-in-lieu-of-taxes].”

Memphis Business Journal

New details revealed about Microsoft’s $1.8B data center near Atlanta

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

State paperwork sheds some new light on a future Microsoft data center campus — one of the largest projects on Atlanta’s Southside.

The campus at 4810 Stonewall Tell Road in Union City will span some 2.1 million square feet — larger than the Mall of Georgia, planning documents made public Tuesday show. It will also rank among the largest data center projects in the Southeast as measured by energy use, a news release from the project’s development team said.

Details of the sprawling server farm campus were revealed in a Development of Regional Impact (DRI) filing on Tuesday.

Data centers are effectively giant warehouses filled with computer servers to store online data and power technologies like artificial intelligence. They’ve become one of the hottest uses for undeveloped land in metro Atlanta, raising concerns about their power consumption, water usage and prevalence.

Since 2023, data center construction in metro Atlanta has increased 211%, which is the fastest among major data center markets across the country, according to real estate services firm CBRE. Microsoft has targeted Atlanta’s Southside for data center development, paying at least $171 million so far this year to acquire more than 480 acres, including the Union City site.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Return-to-office mandates help boost Atlanta area visits, but availability rates remain at historic levels

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

These days, your work elevator probably feels a bit more crowded. Your office landlord couldn’t be happier about it.

Atlanta saw in-office visits jump 10% since last June, its busiest month since the pandemic, according to newly-released data from Placer.ai. Only Boston, at 10.3%, experienced a larger year-over-year increase.

Placer.ai, which aggregates data from mobile devices, has emerged as useful gauge to measure foot traffic at office properties.

Atlanta has been outperforming nationwide averages for some months now, with its recovery accelerated by return-to-office mandates, Placer.ai said. Those mandates have been a boon for office landlords who say they may forecast where demand for space is trending.

Atlanta Business Chronicle

Waynesboro, Ga. lands $28 million investment from European manufacturer

Posted on July 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Michael Randle

The state of Georgia landed a landmark manufacturing investment that illustrates rapidly increasing demand for power.

European company Ritz Instrument Transformer plans to invest $28 million in a new facility located in Waynesboro. The project will create about 130 jobs, according to a news release.

“The investment in a new state-of-the-art factory for high-voltage instrument transformers in Waynesboro marks the single-largest investment to date for the Ritz Group and illustrates the commitment of the company to the North American market,” said Ritz USA CEO and General Manager Scott Flowers in a prepared statement.

Atlanta Business Chronicle