Rivian’s new website ‘proudly’ promotes its Peach State plans

Posted on by Michael Randle

Electric vehicle startup Rivian launched a new promotional campaign to tout its Georgia roots, which the company’s leaders say will soon take hold despite its decision in March to pause its planned $5 billion factory an hour east of Atlanta.

The slickly produced campaign is making the rounds days after Rivian officials showed off three prototype crossover EVs the company said it will build in Georgia once it completes its factory near Rutledge. But a new start date for construction has not yet been announced.

Titled “Proudly Made in Georgia,” the initiative is packed with Peach State iconography. Plug-in pickup trucks are shown spattered with red clay. Electric SUVs are driven around Covington’s central square and under the shimmering lights of the Fox Theatre in Midtown.

“We’re here in Georgia to continue our journey, building our next line of world-class electric vehicles,” a narrator says over building classical music in the campaign’s lead promotional video.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

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Amazon Virginia HQ2 was supposed to add jobs last year. It shed them instead.

Posted on by Michael Randle

Amazon has fallen so far behind schedule in creating new jobs at its Northern Virginia headquarters that its workforce at those offices shrank last year, the company confirmed, showing how the project that it had pitched as an economic jolt is instead hitting a slowdown.

Following a much-hyped sweepstakes across North America, the tech giant in 2018 made a deal with Virginia officials to locate half of its second headquarters in Arlington, just outside D.C.: In exchange for as much as $750 million in taxpayer subsidies from the commonwealth, itagreed to build a massive new campus near the Pentagon and fill it with tens of thousands of new employees.

The company was expected to gradually add 25,000 new jobs at HQ2 by the end of the decade, according to its agreement with Virginia, and receive money from the commonwealth as it hit annual hiring targets — such as 2,665 new jobs last year.

The Washington Post

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Oracle founder on plans for Nashville campus: ‘It’s the center of our future’

Posted on by Michael Randle

Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison revealed Tuesday that the software giant’s long-term plan for its 70-acre property on Nashville’s downtown riverfront is for a “world headquarters.”

Ellison shared his Music City vision during a “fireside chat” with former U.S. senator and longtime Nashville businessman and physician Bill Frist at the Oracle Health Summit. The conference was held at Conrad Nashville Hotel.

“Why did you, in the places you’ve lived and the worlds you’ve traveled to, why did you choose Nashville to make this commitment?,” Frist asked Ellison during a discussion on improving health care technologies.

The Tennessean

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JPMorgan CEO: “Now, every place is competitive: Nashville, Austin, Hong Kong, London, Singapore.”

Posted on by Michael Randle

Larry Ellison wasn’t the only A-list influential businessman praising Nashville in the early afternoon of April 23.

Just before Ellison did so, the leader of the nation’s largest bank name-dropped Music City in a short-list that included global business hubs.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), touted Nashville during a luncheon held by The Economic Club of New York.

“No one has the right, in my view, to think they have a divine right to success,” Dimon said, in remarks published by Bloomberg Television. “You’ve seen it with cities, you’ve seen it with governments, you’ve seen it with countries — people go the wrong way.

“When I first started working, most cities were not that attractive places to work,” Dimon continued. “Dallas didn’t have anything like what it has today. Hong Kong was a mess. London didn’t have the restaurants and the infrastructure it has today.

“Now, every place is competitive: Nashville, Austin, Hong Kong, London, Singapore,” Dimon said.

Dimon urged New York and other cities to prioritize what’s important, and “understand that they are competing with Miami and Nashville and Austin and Plano.”

Nashville Business Journal

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Charlotte industrial market sees vacancy rise amid ‘new normal’

Posted on by Michael Randle

Charlotte’s industrial vacancy rate has moved past 5%, according to first-quarter market reports from several major brokerages.

The vacancy rate is expected to keep climbing this year. Around half of the 13.5 million square feet under construction will deliver in the second quarter, according to a Cushman & Wakefield market report.

Demand is still strong, but lease deals are taking longer to get done after the fast pace seen during the years immediately following the pandemic. The rest of 2024 could see the Charlotte industrial market balance its supply-and-demand picture.

The Charlotte industrial market has entered what many have dubbed a “new normal.” It’s stronger than the pre-pandemic period, but softer than the unprecedented highs reached immediately after the pandemic hit when vacancy rates dropped to near 2%. Cushman & Wakefield reported the vacancy rate at 5.6% for the first quarter. Supply is quickly catching up to demand.

Charlotte Business Journal

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Central Texas employers eye new talent pool — laid-off Tesla workers

Posted on by Michael Randle

In a Tesla-related twist on an old maxim, one company’s job cuts could be another company’s gain.

That appears to be the case in Austin, where there’s no shortage of local manufacturers recruiting Tesla Inc. employees who recently lost their positions amid the electric vehicle maker’s global layoffs.

Nearly 2,700 employees of the Tesla gigafactory in eastern Travis County — or about 12% of the workforce there — have been laid off, constituting the biggest single layoff in the Austin metro in at least four decades, and possibly ever.

Austin Business Journal

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Georgetown, Texas manufacturers ink big leases in industrial parks amid growth plans

Posted on by Michael Randle

A pair of Georgetown manufacturers have taken up nearly 580,000 square feet for warehousing and distribution in sprawling industrial parks built by Albuquerque-based Titan Development Ltd.

Ohio-based Kreate, which recently acquired the longtime operations of Tasus Corp., has leased two buildings in the Gateway35 industrial park totaling roughly 400,000 square feet. Cangshan Cutlery Co. — which previously intended to move its headquarters to Leander but has opted to invest in its Georgetown site instead — has subleased about 158,000 square feet from logistics company Aeronet Inc. in Northpark35, officials said.

The moves are part of a continuing wave of manufacturers flocking to and investing in Georgetown, which for the last two years has been the fastest-growing city of its size in the country. The city is about 30 miles north of downtown Austin and had a population of 86,507 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Austin Business Journal

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Silicon Valley-based EcoMicron to get up to $1.3M in incentives to move HQ to Cedar Park, Texas

Posted on by Michael Randle

A San Jose-based company that supports the semiconductor industry and others in the tech sector will receive an incentive package worth a maximum of about $1.3 million to relocate its headquarters to Cedar Park.

The Cedar Park City Council approved the performance-based deal with EcoMicron Inc. on April 25 to help it move into the roughly 25,500-square-foot Building 12 at the La Jaita Business Park at 1500 Arrow Point Drive. To get the full amount, the company is required to buy the building by the end of this year, make additional investments in it and employ 48 people by 2028. Austin Business Journal

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CEO Barry Harrison on the Economic Impact of the Arkansas Aeroplex

Posted on by Michael Randle

Barrett “Barry” Harrison, 66, heads the Blytheville Gosnell Regional Airport Authority, which runs the Arkansas Aeroplex, home to 40 commercial businesses. It is on the 3,500-acre site of the former Eaker Air Force Base. He is also the vice chairman of the board of the National Cold War Center, a museum scheduled to open on the Aeroplex grounds in 2027.

What is your ultimate vision for the Aeroplex?

The Arkansas Aeroplex has been an economic driver for Mississippi County for nearly 40 years. We have a unique blend of resources that allow for continued growth as a large transportation and distribution center, including an 11,600-foot runway, proximity to Interstate 55 and thousands of available acres in the middle of the United States. Combine those assets with limited traffic in our airspace, and we have ongoing interest from multiple e-commerce and distribution companies. We host military aircraft for training exercises and refueling stops, allowing us to stay top-of-mind should our facility be needed for longer-term national defense operations.

Arkansas Business

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Energy manufacturer Sunmax Tech chooses Georgia for operation base

Posted on by Michael Randle

Sunmax Tech Inc., an energy component manufacturer, is opening a 300,000-square-foot manufacturing operation base in Adairsville, according to a news release.

The company is a supplier for Tesla and Hanwha, the parent company of QCells, which also has factories in North Georgia, per the news release.

It plans to invest a total of $193 million and create at least 242 new jobs over a three-phased plan.

“Georgia’s growing solar panel manufacturing industry is creating jobs and opportunities for many communities, especially in Northwest Georgia,” said Kristi Brigman, Georgia Department of Economic Development deputy commissioner of global commerce, in a prepared statement.

During the first phase, Sunmax Tech will buy equipment for solar junction boxes and cables. In the second phase it will expand its production line to create EVA film, cable line plastic material, aluminum solar frames and copper wire.

It plans to do $100 million in annual sales by 2027 and capture 40% of the photovoltaic junction box and connectors market share in North America. Atlanta Business Chronicle

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