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Site Selection: Bull’s Eye

  • September 14, 2018

Run a line through the United States that perfectly bisects the country’s north-south population and you’ll find it running smack dab through the middle of Missouri, an imaginary line just south of I-70, according to a new article by the Site Selection team.

Plot a route along the nation’s mean center of population — “the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight” — and the U.S. Census Bureau’s tabulations tell us that since 1980 you’ll find that spot in Missouri too, rolling gently westward along the same path as the old Route 66 to its most recent home, in 2010, in the village of Plato (population: 109) in Texas County, where a geodetic marker commemorates the occasion.

If that’s not enough to convince you of the state’s ideal positioning for logistics and distribution, take it from the corporate leaders who are investing millions of dollars there to achieve competitive advantage.

Over the 30 months ending in December 2017, Site Selection magazine’s Conway Projects Database has performed its own tabulations of private-sector facility investment and tracked more than 50 logistics and distribution center projects — including one from FedEx in Phelps County, home to the demographic mean center of the U.S. population in 2000 and to Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T) in Rolla.

The $10-million, 30-job project was one of several in Missouri from the Memphis-based package delivery and logistics giant over the past couple of years. Among other projects were a $100-million, 400-job expansion from St. Louis’s beloved Schnuck’s grocery; a $111-million, 360-job new facility from CVS Pharmacy in Kansas City; and a $103-million, 375-job project from Dollar Tree in Johnson County city of Warrensburg, about an hour east of KC along I-70 and home to the University of Central Missouri.

Check out the full article by the Site Selection team here.

For more information on Missouri’s logistics strengths check out our webpage, or contact Steve Johnson, CEO of Missouri Partnership, at 314.725.2688 or via our contact form, with any questions you might have, and learn how Missouri Partnership can help with your business investment needs.

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