In our last post, Dr. C. R. Canup of Canup & Associates shared the process by which site selection consultants help corporate clients choose new locations for their facilities. In this post, we return to that interview and pick up the discussion on site selection as it relates to community preparedness through incentives and investment.

“When we counsel our clients on incentives, we help them understand the difference between legislated incentives and discretionary incentives,” Dr. Canup said. “Essentially, legislated incentives are those that are going to be awarded to any project that meets the criteria that the state, county, or city has established for that particular incentive… Discretionary incentives, however, can actually exceed the value of legislated incentives for some projects. They are not just tax credits or tax rebates, but they may get into buying the property, building an access road, or paying for a sewer system. (more…)

Canup & Associates, Economic Development, Site Selection

In continuing our series of posts on economic development, we felt that it would be valuable to explore the approach that site selection professionals use in helping their clients find the best places to locate new facilities. With that in mind, I approached Dr. C. R. “Buzz” Canup, founder and president of the site selection and community consulting firm Canup & Associates, and asked for some insights into how the process of choosing a community for a new enterprise really works. While much of the process is just as you might suspect, the sequence of the evaluation, the role of incentives, and the places where communities fall short might surprise you.

“One of the key things communities need to understand is that every site location study really is a custom study for a specific client based on the specific project requirements,” Dr. Canup began. “The process we go through is to help our client define the criteria of the project, and then that criteria drives where we search, how we search, what we look at, how we evaluate it, and how communities stack up against each other.”

Meeting these criteria is the first hurdle for a community to clear in order to be in the running, and while communities can prepare for some, others are more innate and are based on the geographic location. (more…)

Canup & Associates, Economic Development, Economic Incentives, Site Selection