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Ohio Ranked Second For Economic Development

"Site Selection" magazine ranks Ohio second behind Texas for economic development in 2013. Brian Bull of member station WCPN in Cleveland reports:

The magazine’s “Governor’s Cup” award is based on how many new corporate development projects a state lands in a given year.  Projects must involve a capital investment of one million dollars or higher; the creation of 50 or more jobs; and/or an expansion of at least 20-thousand square feet.

Texas racked up 657 projects, Ohio netted 480.  Site Selection also awarded a Governors Cup for the most projects per capita.  Again, Ohio ranked second, behind Nebraska.

Metropolitan areas were also ranked.  Site Selection’s editor, Mark Arend, says this helps fire up investor interest in certain regions or states:

MArend01:  “Both Cincinnati and Columbus ranked in the ‘Top 10’, so that says that those metro areas are considered attractive. And rankings like these would hopefully trigger renewed interest in a city, it would cause the reader to wonder why are so many projects going to Cincinnati or Columbus or to Ohio.” (:20)

Dayton, Youngstown and Wooster also fared well for their metro size.

Some aren’t completely sold on the Site Selection rankings, though…. Ken Mayland is President of Clearview Economics, a consulting firm in Independence.  He says there’s a little piece of good news in the survey for Ohio, but…

KMayland02: “It’s only measuring the new acquisitions and the new expansions of businesses.  Kinda looking at the one piece of the picture, and not the whole picture.” (:19)

In other words, there’s no data on payroll, and how many companies may have shuttered or lost workforce during 2013.

Jim has been with WCBE since 1996. Before that he worked as a reporter at another Columbus radio station, and for three newspapers in Southwest Florida.