Insights

This article originally appeared on insideindianabusiness.com. The economic divide in large cities continues to expand. Despite a financial resurgence following the 2007-2009 recession, the system wasn’t fixing itself. Enter Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZ), a program included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 designed to boost development in economically distressed communities. In exchange for new … Continue reading (i) on Economic Development: Opportunity Zones: Changing the Course of Real Estate Investment

Hello, and welcome to KSM Location Advisor’s annual Legislative Update! You’ll find detail after detail about what legislative actions the 2019 Indiana General Assembly took in the world of economic development. For example: Is the Venture Capital Investment Tax Credit finally transferrable? It is! Will data centers become more prevalent in Indiana because of important … Continue reading 2019 Indiana Legislative Update

This article originally appeared on IBJ.com. Indiana’s success (or failure) at talent development is key to its future. Legislators and Gov. Eric Holcomb have spent a lot of time addressing this challenge. They’ve created new programs, talked of consolidating agencies, and devoted a lot of money trying to do it better, smarter. We support and … Continue reading State’s Skills Enhancement Fund Works but Is at Risk

This article originally appeared on REJournals.com. During the dawn of Amazon’s announcement that the world’s most beloved business was in search of a second headquarters (HQ2), economic development watchers predicted a bold, new day in site selection. Renowned renovator of so many fundamentals of our everyday lives – from how we purchase goods to how … Continue reading Any Lessons Learned From Amazon’s HQ2 Debacle in New York?

This article originally appeared on IBJ.com. A collective sigh of relief could be heard from the losing cities that competed for Amazon’s HQ2 as they watched the frame-by-frame wreckage of the company’s flameout in New York. On an economic development disaster scale of 1 to 10, Jeff Bezos’ decision to pull out of the Empire … Continue reading Legislature Should Learn From New York’s HQ2 Flameout

This article originally appeared on siteselection.com. Alexa, what happened? Amazon’s decision to cancel its New York headquarters project means different things to different people, depending upon their perspective. For state and local supporters of the deal, it means lost jobs, lost sources of new tax revenue, lost redevelopment opportunities, and the lost multiplier effect associated … Continue reading Alexa, What Just Happened? Trying to Make Sense of the Amazon Debacle in NY Yields Valuable Lessons

This article originally appeared on InsideINdianaBusiness.com. It shouldn’t be this hard. The Senate’s Public Policy Committee voted 9-1 in favor of SB-12 this week, a bill that would have codified (as written) hate crime bias to include protections for race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, disability, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, and age. SB-12 then … Continue reading Indiana’s Regrettable Struggle to Pass Hate Crime Legislation

This article originally appeared on siteselection.com. With Amazon’s scavenger hunt for a second (and third) headquarters now a thing of the past, lingering questions have been left in its wake, especially surrounding the water cooler aspects of the hunt. When did Amazon make the decision to split the project between two sites? Had it already … Continue reading Who Declared Amazon the Chief Rule-Maker? Rethinking Economic Development in the Wake of HQ2

This article originally appeared on InsideINdianaBusiness.com. Economic development is a hot topic these days. With the economy continuing to chug along in robust fashion and unemployment approaching historic lows, communities are refining their objectives and priorities to eek every drop of benefit they can from these financially strong times. Nowhere is this focus greater than with … Continue reading What Makes Up Quality of Place?

Although the immediacy of the Amazon HQ2 decision is behind us, the economic development world will continue to learn lessons from Amazon’s site selection process in the months and years to come. It’s not clear at what point in the process Amazon decided to split its HQ2 project between two areas. Considering the economic profile … Continue reading Lessons Learned from Amazon HQ2