Site Selection Magazine puts Boyle, Lincoln counties among top performers for third year

Boyle and Lincoln counties have yet again landed a spot in the top-10 “micropolitan” areas for economic development in the U.S., according to the 2017 “Governor’s Cup” rankings published by Site Selection magazine, a leading economic development publication.

Site Selection ranked the “Danville Micropolitan Area” 10th in the nation for attracting economic development projects, according to Site Selection.

Micropolitan areas, which Site Selection calls “micros,” contain an urban core (such as Danville) and have a population between 10,000 and 50,000.

The magazine counts the number of economic development projects in each micro in order to determine the rankings. Seven other micros, including Bardstown and Frankfort in Kentucky, tied with Danville for 10th with six economic development projects apiece.

This is the third year in a row Danville’s micro has been ranked in the top 10. Last year, it was ranked ninth; the year before that, it was ranked 10th. The area has been ranked among the top 100 micros in the U.S. by Site Selection for years.

“Our objective is not to collect rankings; our goal is to achieve the level of economic productivity that earns rankings,” said Jody Lassiter, president and CEO of the Danville-Boyle County Economic Development Partnership. “Our team is very pleased that we not only held our position at No. 10 from 2016, but we have also had new and expanding business development success to keep us in the top 27 micropolitan communities in the U.S. since 2009.”

The six projects that helped land the Danville micro at No. 10 are:

• Adkev Inc., which plans to bring 70 jobs to the former Caterpillar factory on Corporate Drive in Danville;

• Denyo Manufacturing, which announced a major expansion in August that would bring 90 new jobs to Danville;

• Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems, which announced plans to add 68 jobs at its Danville facility in October, then revised that plan upward to 94 jobs this year;

• Wilderness Trail Distillery, which plans to employ 10 new people through an expansion at its Lebanon Road location;

• AmBraBev, which is constructing a distillery and plans to add a commercial business at the same location on Techwood Drive in Danville; and 

• Pitman Creek Wholesale, which “renovated the former Food Lion facility in Stanford to function as a second distribution center,” according to Lassiter.

Kentucky as a state was ranked third in the nation for economic development projects in micropolitan areas, with 55 projects across 12 areas, according to Site Selection.

Other Kentucky micros in the rankings are Richmond-Berea (fifth), Bardstown (t-10th), Frankfort (t-10th), Glasgow (t-18th), London (t-28th), Paducah (t-28th), Union City (t-28th), Murray (t-41st), Somerset (t-41st), Madisonville (t-64th) and Maysville (t-64th).

Site Selection also ranked larger, metropolitan areas for economic development projects. The Cincinnati metro area, including northern Kentucky, placed sixth among metros with more than 1 million people; Owensboro and Bowling Green tied for second among metros with fewer than 200,000 people.

Kentucky was first in the south central region for projects per capita, with 56.2 projects per 1 million people. The state was second nationwide in per-capita projects to Nebraska, which had 58.5 projects per 1 million people.

Kentucky was second to Nebraska in the same category in 2017; in 2016, it placed first in the ranking and won the “Governor’s Cup” for per-capita projects.