Team Ohio was in Cleveland for the 2026 Site Selectors Guild Fall Forum, where economic developers, location strategy consultants, and business leaders gathered to talk about how companies are making site decisions today.
The mission of the Site Selectors Guild is to strengthen the relationships among all parties involved in a project so companies can find the right fit, faster. That’s why JobsOhio makes the Forum a priority; the more site selectors know about Ohio, the better we can help meet their clients’ needs.
JobsOhio and our regional partners met with about 30 site selectors. Many came away impressed with our state and how JobsOhio’s private, nonprofit structure helps projects move forward.
Certainty is the scarcest resource
Conversations at the Forum echoed the central finding of the Guild’s newly released 2026 State of Site Selection report: companies aren’t short on options or capital, but they’re short on certainty. Here’s what that looks like on the ground.
Speed comes from preparation. Clients want to move fast — sometimes faster than is realistic. What actually slows projects down is uncertainty around utilities, permitting, and policy.
Infrastructure is now strategy. Nearly 80% of Guild members named power availability as a top factor shaping site selection today. Water, transmission, transformers, air permitting, and construction materials also increasingly decide whether a site is feasible.
Workforce is still a deciding factor. Demand is shaped like a barbell, with specialized technical and engineering talent on one end and hands-on production and entry-level roles on the other.
Community acceptance comes earlier. Local opposition can eliminate a location before a project is ever announced. Concerns about data centers are spilling over into unrelated industrial and office projects.
Foreign investment is growing, but predictability decides where it lands. International companies are expanding in the U.S. They’re weighing political climate, a welcoming community, and a clear, predictable process.
Headquarters projects are picking up. Consultants are seeing some growth in HQ moves, driven by talent, quality of life, flight service, and proximity to related operations.
Defense tech is a growth market, and it often starts in Washington. Aerospace & Defense is now among the most active industries, driven partly by younger companies scaling quickly after winning federal contracts. Those projects often surface through government relations teams and congressional delegations, making relationships in D.C. an important early pipeline.
Where Ohio fits
These trends play to Ohio’s strengths. About two-thirds of Guild members cited the lack of a suitable site as a top reason a location gets cut from a shortlist, the most common answer. The report urges communities to build inventories of development-ready sites with due diligence done before a search begins. That’s what SiteOhio authentication was built to do.
As the No. 1 state for doing business, Ohio helps companies balance speed, risk, and cost. With more than 5,000 available sites and a private, nonprofit structure built to cut red tape, we help companies replace guesswork with certainty and find not just a ready site, but the right one.
Find your right site in Ohio: jobsohio.com/site-selection.
