Corporate Executive Survey Results: A Realignment of Location Priorities

March 24, 2015 | By Business Wire News

WESTBURY, N.Y.

Area Development, the leading executive magazine covering site selection and facility planning, today announced the release of its 29^th Annual Corporate Survey. The results of our survey show a realignment of site selection priorities with facilities costs supplanting labor considerations. Of the more than 140 Corporate Survey respondents, 35 percent represent manufacturing firms, 13 percent are with financial services/insurance/real estate companies, and 8 percent distribution/logistics/warehousing establishments.

Highway accessibility is rated as either “very important” or “important” by 88.3 percent of the survey respondents, moving from 2nd to 1st place in the ranking of site selection factors. Occupancy and construction costs moved from 4^th to 2^nd place with a combined importance rating of 87.9 percent, followed by available land and available buildings, at 85.7 and 82.2 percent importance ratings, respectively. Availability of skilled labor moves from 1^st to 5^th position, considered “very important” or “important” by 82.1 percent of the corporate respondents. The factor showing the biggest change in the rankings is availability of advanced ICT services (dropping from 5^th to 24^th), with a combined importance rating of 45.1 percent.

Area Development’s Corporate Survey also reveals that the Midwest (IL, IN, MI, OH, and WI) will garner the largest share — 20 percent — of the corporate respondents’ planned new domestic facilities, followed by the South (AL, FL, GA, LA, MS) with 17 percent, and Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX) at 14 percent. When it comes to new foreign facilities, Canada and Asia will each receive 25 percent of the Corporate Survey respondents’ planned new projects; interest in Western and Eastern Europe is down, accounting for only 9 and 3 percent of the planned new foreign facilities, respectively.

A full review of this year’s Corporate Survey can be found in the Q1 2015 issue of Area Development and online at areadevelopment.com/survey.

About Area Development

Founded in 1965, Area Development reaches 60,000 corporate executive readers. It is considered the leading resource for site and facility planning, providing valuable information about the factors, key issues, and criteria that affect a successful location decision. It also provides two free GIS-driven databases: FacilityLocations.com, which lists more than 5,000 economic development contacts; and FastFacility.com, which lists available industrial buildings and sites. Area Development also produces e-newsletters.

Visit http://www.areadevelopment.com to access these resources. Contact gerri@areadevelopment.com for more information.