While we were visiting New Orleans this week for Business Facilities' annual LiveXchange event, we came across an article in Sunday's edition of the Times-Picayune detailing an interesting quandary confronting historic preservation districts when they try to address the need to convert to alternative energy. According to the New Orleans daily, Big Easy resident Glade Bilby ran head-on into this quandary whe ...

Less than one year after breaking ground, Levelland City and Economic Development officials will get engines on track for an $8.6 million industrial rail park in the 12,866 population town. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is slated for 10:30 a.m. Nov. 17. "We've come a long way in 11 months," said Dave Quinn, executive director of the Levelland Economic Development Corporation (LEDC). "We've used the tagline, 'Pr ...

AREZ LLC will locate its U.S. headquarters and a new manufacturing facility in Crossett, Arizona; their first location in North America. The Irish company will invest approximately $6.8 million in the facility and create 121 new jobs. AREZ will begin construction immediately and hopes to begin initial production by October 2011. The 270,000-square-foot facility on a six-acre site will produce rosin-based re ...

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell announced today that ICF International, a global professional services firm, will expand its corporate headquarters in Fairfax County. According to the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), ICF is expanding its leased office space to 300,000 square feet for the next 12 years. ICF's commitment to Fairfax County will result in the investment of $20 million to impro ...

NEW ORLEANS – Nov. 8 – Author and economist Dr. Ronald R. Pollina brought his clarion call for a drastic change in U.S. trade policies to Business Facilities LiveXchange event here today, telling attendees that our leaders must reverse a steep decline in the nation’s ability to compete with emerging global powerhouse China “before it’s too late.” In his keynote address at LiveXchange, held this week at the ...

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and state officials announced that Mountaire Farms will invest approximately $34.5 million to expand its poultry complex in Millsboro. The plant will add 31 new jobs by December 2011for a total of 3600 Mountaire employees in Sussex County. The new state-of-the-art Resource Recovery Center will convert waste into products for the poultry and commercial pet food industries, recyclin ...

Clean-tech company Exergonix has agreed to locate a $90 million headquarters in the Kansas City area. Exergonix will produce one-megawatt batteries capable of storing solar or wind energy, supplying it to the power grid during peak times. The producer of energy storage systems will bring 275 new jobs to the metro, according to CEO Don Nissanka. The expansion was made public at the annual luncheon of the Kan ...

i/o Data Centers is planning to build a huge data center in New Jersey to serve as the East Coast hub for its growing colocation business. The company is in the late stages of site selection for a modular data center that will occupy 550,000 square feet of space, which would make the center one of the largest in the country. “We’re expanding to the East Coast,” said George Slessman, CEO of i/o Data Centers ...

For some time now, growing numbers of aging Baby Boomers (and some of their offspring) have been beating the drum for legalization of marijuana, arguing that decriminalizing what may be America’s largest “cash crop” could fill depleted state tax revenue coffers and even spur economic development. Voters in four states have spoken this week and they beg to differ. Weed afficionados believed they had their be ...

Economic development officials in Conway say Kimberly-Clark Corp. is moving up its plans for expansion at its plant in Conway, AR. A news release from the Conway Development Corporation the company will add about 100 new full-time positions and invest about $65 million in the plan during the next three years. The company had said it July it would invest about $25 million and add about 40 jobs during the nex ...