Greg Burkart Comments on Lowe’s Site Selection for New Global Technology Hub in Charlotte

Gregory Burkart, Managing Director and Leader of the Site Selection and Incentives Advisory practice at Duff & Phelps, was quoted in Bisnow’s article titled, “In The Corporate Relocation Hunger Games, Texas Is No Longer No. 1”. The article discusses CNBC’s recently released report on America’s top states for business in 2019 where Texas dropped in ranking for relocating companies. In June 2019, Texas lost a major corporate relocation opportunity where Lowe’s Cos. Inc. chose Charlotte, North Carolina over Dallas for its 2,000-person global technology center. Lowe’s had been looking at both Charlotte and Dallas for site selection.

Greg follows market data and evaluates potential sites in various cities for clients eyeing relocation. He ran Dallas-Fort Worth and Charlotte data through Jobs EQ to determine why Charlotte beat Dallas in the battle for Lowe's. Greg concluded that Charlotte edged Dallas out by having 1% more workers with bachelor’s degrees. Charlotte also has a higher unemployment rate of 3.8%, compared to 3.1% in Dallas. Higher unemployment usually means an area has enough available talent to absorb new job opportunities without raising wages.

Charlotte’s overall annual wage is $5K less than Dallas' average, and the Charlotte cost of living is 2.5% lower than the national average while Dallas’ is 2.5% higher, Burkart found when analyzing the two cities' data in Jobs EQ. 

The full article is available on the Bisnow website.