Texas Leads the Nation for Businesses Sinking Billions of Dollars into Relocations, Expansions
March 5, 2021
Texas Leads the Nation for Businesses Sinking Billions of Dollars into Relocations, Expansions
For the ninth consecutive year, Texas has outpaced every other state by a big margin for the most new and expanded corporate facilities, according to a new report released Monday.
Site Selection magazine, a trade publication that has compiled the annual ranking since 1978, said Texas had 781 projects in 2020 to lead the list. Runner-up Ohio had 419 projects.
Both top states had fewer projects in the year that started out with a strong economy that was slammed by the pandemic.
Major company investments in Texas last year include Tesla’s $1 billion plan to build an auto plant in Austin and Houston-based Axiom Space’s intentions to invest $2 billion in its aerospace facility. Other projects included retail fulfillment, such as Amazon’s expansion into Waco and TJX Cos.’s project in El Paso.
Texas and Ohio benefited from having diverse economies, as do other high-ranking states including No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Illinois and No. 5 North Carolina, the economic development magazine said.
“All the metrics are moving in the right direction,” Gov. Greg Abbott told the magazine in early February about the state’s recovery.
Hundreds of companies are said to be eying moves to the state, and Texas sees a steady flow every year of relocations from California and other states perceived to be less business-friendly.
That was before a week of freezing temperatures knocked out power for as many as 4 million Texans. The outages ranged from a few hours to consecutive days. Large and smaller cities were forced to boil water and dozens of deaths have been tied to the frigid temperatures.
On Monday, Abbott gave credit for winning the top spot to local, regional and statewide economic development teams and the companies that chose to invest in the state. He brought up the COVID-19 pandemic challenges. Texas was one of the first states to open up the economy from forced closings last spring.
But Abbott didn’t mention the power outages and the fallout still being calculated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which settles the payments estimated at more than $40 billion. ERCOT manages the state’s electrical grid.
Irving-based Vistra, the state’s largest power generator, last week calculated a one-time hit of up to $1.3 billion. Retail electricity providers and power generators are at risk.
Monday, the state’s largest power generation and transmission cooperative filed for bankruptcy. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative filed for Chapter 11 with estimated charges of $2.1 billion from the February week of freezing temperatures.
Other economic development rankings that put Texas near the top always point to abundant and affordable energy. Over the past 20 years, net electric generation grew 20% in Texas, that’s more than three times faster than growth for the rest of the U.S...
