Each year for the last 30 years, Area Development has conducted an annual survey of corporate executives to assess their plans to open, expand or relocate facilities. According to the 2016 Annual Corporate Survey, new facility and expansion plans are up slightly on a year-over-year basis as nearly half the respondents believe the U.S. economy is on a continuous growth track.
“The Area Development report confirms the feedback we have been getting from our clients,” said Brian Gallagher, Director of Marketing for O’Neal, Inc., an integrated design and construction firm. “A number of our clients are moving forward with their capital investment plans to add new manufacturing capacity based on their confidence in the economy.”
Forty-nine percent of respondents to the Corporate Survey indicated that they plan to open new facilities within the next five years (a 3 percent increase over the 2015 survey). Of those firms, 87 percent say these facilities will be in the U.S., and just a quarter plan on locating these new facilities in a foreign location. More than half of these new facilities will be in a southern region of the U.S. — 17 percent of the total planned projects are slated for the South; 16 percent for the Southwest; 13 percent for the South Atlantic; and 9 percent for the Mid-South.
Area Development conducts the Annual Corporate Survey to assess their reader’s take on the economy as revealed by their location and expansion plans and site selection priorities.
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