Between FY 2016 and FY 2023, Missouri Partnership opened 78 inquiries/prospects and an additional 790 active business attraction projects. Missouri Partnership defines an active business attraction project as one in which a company or its representative expresses an interest in Missouri as a potential business location and has specific plans for a new facility within the foreseeable future. These plans include some combination of estimates for the following: head count, capital investment, payroll, and timing. Further, these business attraction projects primarily include companies that do not yet have a presence in Missouri and do not account for existing Missouri companies that expanded during this time. 

Project Characteristics

Ultimately, most of the total opened projects were in advanced manufacturing and financial & professional services, followed by food solutions.

Closing Projects

Missouri Partnership continues to work 240 of the total opened projects, although a very small portion of them (36) have been placed on hold at the direction of the client/consultant. Missouri Partnership opened the bulk of these still active projects in the last three years.

In addition, Missouri Partnership closed 252 (32%) of the total opened active projects as Dead. This means that based on all known and ascertainable information, these projects did not proceed or land in any location. Projects can meet this fate for several reasons including when a company does not find a suitable site or infrastructure, sufficient labor supply or other key project requirements. Further, unexpected changes in market conditions and/or other external political and economic factors may render a project no longer feasible. Moreover, in some situations, companies may be in the very early stages of exploring site location opportunities and the resulting search concludes in a business case that does not support proceeding. 

192 (24%) of the total opened active projects were closed as Lost, while 106 (13%) were closed as Won. The following includes a detailed discussion of the relevant project characteristics as well as an analysis of the factors contributing to those projects lost and won. However, it is important to note that this analysis is limited to ascertainable information and the client/consultant often does not share the elimination reasons with Missouri Partnership due to confidentiality and typical process. Moreover, a project “win” is almost always a culmination of many factors and risk mitigation, whereas a client will often pinpoint a primary reason(s) for an elimination if they share that information. 

Real Estate Data & Analysis

As previously highlighted, Missouri Partnership opened 790 active projects between FY 2016 and FY 2023. While real estate and sites are a critical component of every site selection project, Missouri Partnership does not necessarily conduct a real estate or site search for every project. Sometimes the client conducts the real estate/site search independently. In some instances, we are supporting our local and regional partners who are managing the real estate or site search process. However, between FY 2016 and FY 2023, Missouri Partnership did conduct 336 real estate or site searches. 148 of these searches were for an existing building, while 107 were for a site. 75 of the searches included a request for both a site and existing building. We do not have data for 6 of our searches.

Min. Ceiling Height Requirement	12.00′
Max. Ceiling Height Requirement	85.00′
Avg. Ceiling Height Requirement	26.37′
Median Ceiling Height Requirement	25.00′
Min. Building Square Footage Requirement	900 sq. ft.
Max. Building Square Footage Requirement	4,000,000 sq. ft.
Avg. Building Square Footage Requirement	259,490 sq. ft.
Median Building Square Footage Requirement	100,000 sq. ft.
Min. Site Acreage Requirement	1 acre
Max. Site Acreage Requirement	1,595 acres
Avg. Site Acreage Requirement	100 acres
Median Site Acreage Requirement	40 acres