The Lone Star State's business friendly environment is draw big manufacturing companies to our region.
Lucid Motors, Intel, and Tesla are a few examples of companies looking to the Southwest for future projects. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma all offer open land, tax breaks, and a growing pool of tech-savvy workers. Those four states, plus Nevada, added more than a 100,000 new manufacturing jobs from January 2017 to January 2020.
“When projects start to reach 100 million, 500 million, or 1 billion dollars, there’s a good amount of location strategy and business planning that goes behind the scenes before an announcement is made. Sometimes it could be 12 months, sometimes it’s three or five years,” Executive Vice President and Economist John Lenio, with CBRE Group, said.
Lenio adds companies working on semiconductor plants, electric vehicles, and batteries are all considering land sites in our region. He says those projects provide a big economic boost.
“From the operations of the facility and employees going out into the market and spending their wages,” Lenio explained. “Especially during the construction phase of the project which also generates a good amount of economic activity.”