How North Carolina stays atop the rankings for best business states and winning large projects isn’t overly complex, says John Boyd, a prominent site-selection consultant.
“To paraphrase the saying, `It’s energy stupid,’ because the great site selection factor right now is energy,” says Boyd, whose company is based in Boca Raton, Florida. “Duke Energy has been a proactive force for economic development for many years, and North Carolina has an advantage over most other states.”
He pointed to the natural gas pipeline and resources available in Richmond County, where Amazon plans a $10 billion investment in a data center complex. The fact that the site was selected in a rural area fits North Carolina’s efforts to diversify its economy beyond the fast-growing Charlotte, Triangle and Triad regions, Boyd notes. (Ten billion dollars is triple the annual assessed property valuation of the entire county.
Boyd is among the advisers to CNBC journalist Scott Cohn, who leads the annual survey of the Top State for Business. North Carolina was named No. 1 this week, marking the third time in four years it has topped the ranking. Gross domestic product grew by 3.7% last year, the fifth-strongest in the U.S. The state added 60,000-plus jobs last year.
To be sure, other regions have won big data center projects because of ample energy resources. Boyd cites Meta’s $10 billion plan in Louisiana and massive projects planned by Google and Elon Musk-owned xAi in the Memphis area.
Data centers driven by surging use of artificial intelligence are one of today’s great economic development stories, with energy supply key to any site selection. The Trump Administration’s shift away from Biden-era green-energy subsidies makes for a complex situation, Boyd says. But the increasing support for nuclear energy from Trump and major utilities, including Duke Energy, is a smart strategy that should support continued economic growth over the coming decades, he says.
Boyd also credits North Carolina for having enough large sites ready for major projects. “Chris Chung has done a good job in site readiness, which is critical,” he says, referring to the CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
Another important opportunity for North Carolina is the potential election of Zohran Mamdami as New York City’s mayor, which Boyd expects to spark significant exits by Big Apple financial companies. “Charlotte and Raleigh should be among the big winners, along with Dallas, Nashville and Boca Raton,” he says. Mamdami , a democrat Socialist who won the Democratic primary over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has proposed boosting taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals.
North Carolina’s quality of life ranked 29th in the CNBC study, which receives relatively limited weighting in the report. “Some like vanilla, some like chocolate,” Boyd says. “Quality of life was something that people lived with during COVID, and many companies wanted options in an area that maximized that. But now that business has returned to more of a focus on fundamentals, it’s playing less of a role.”
David Mildenberg is editor of Business North Carolina. Reach him at dmildenberg@businessnc.com.