02 — Global Site Selection & Location Strategy
The cheapest site and the right site are rarely the same site.
Location decides talent, supply chain, power and cost structure for a decade. We model each of those before the shortlist, not after.
Identify critical success factors.
- A new facility, plant or regional operation where the market is genuinely open
- A program whose power, water or cooling demand exceeds what the current site can supply
- Reshoring or nearshoring where the location decision is being made from scratch
- Consolidating multiple sites and needing to know which geography should win
Location shapes success far beyond cost per square foot. We model how each option affects talent recruitment and retention, supply chain and logistics, incentives, taxes, cost of living and operational resiliency.
Site selection goes wrong when it is run as a real estate exercise. Rent is the most visible number and rarely the decisive one: a site with buildable power beats a cheaper site that cannot energize on your schedule, and a location your engineers will not commute to costs more in attrition than it saves in rent.
The work is comparative modeling. Each candidate region and building is scored against the factors that actually drive the operating result, so the decision is made on the full picture rather than on the line item that happens to be easiest to compare.
The work, itemized.
Requirement definition
The technical, operational and workforce criteria a site has to satisfy, agreed before the search begins.
Labor market analysis
Availability of the specific skills the operation needs, wage benchmarks, competition for that talent and commute patterns.
Power and utility screening
Real available capacity, substation and generation options, water and cooling, and the interconnection timeline — usually the longest lead item in the schedule.
Supply chain and logistics
Proximity to suppliers and customers, freight access, port and rail, and the cost of moving product from each option.
Incentives assessment
What each jurisdiction will actually offer, modeled into the comparison rather than treated as a bonus discovered later.
Tax and cost structure
State and local tax exposure, cost of living as it affects wages, and total operating cost by location.
Risk and resiliency
Grid reliability, climate and natural-hazard exposure, and regulatory or permitting risk.
Comparative model
A single scored comparison across all factors, so the trade-offs are explicit and the decision is defensible internally.
Four stages, in order.
What clients ask first.
How early should site selection start?
Earlier than most teams expect. Where power, water or specialized permitting is involved, utility interconnection can be measured in years — so the site decision has to lead the construction schedule, not follow it.
What usually decides the outcome?
In our experience it is rarely rent. It is most often power availability and timeline, the depth of the specific labor market, and the incentives package — factors that only become comparable if they are modeled deliberately.
Do you negotiate incentives as part of this?
Yes. Incentives negotiate best while multiple jurisdictions are still competing, which means running them in parallel with the real estate process rather than after a site is chosen.
Can you evaluate a site we have already identified?
Yes — a single-site validation is a common engagement, and it tests the assumptions behind the choice: buildable power, workforce depth, permitting path and total cost against at least one benchmark alternative.
How do you assess power availability?
By confirming real available megawatts with the utility rather than nameplate capacity, then establishing the interconnection queue position and timeline, on-site substation and generation options, and redundancy configuration.