Site/Facility Cost Construction and improvement costs are among the lowest in the nation. Typical costs for an improved industrial site currently run from $5,000 to $10,000 per acre. Construction costs range from $25.00 per square foot for a basic steel building with minimal mechanical to $125.00 per square foot for concrete with double T roofs and significant atmospheric controls. Most communities are able to match local money with various federal programs to lower infrastructure costs for business expansions. There are some communities that "land bank" industrial sites, which sell for $1.00 plus other consideration. North Dakota has 36 industrial parks, including 2,000 acres with rail access. A foreign trade zone industrial park is located at the Grand Forks International Airport. TOP Environmental Standards North Dakota meets all EPA regulatory requirements, saving companies the time and money necessary to comply with separate state and federal regulations. Our streamlined permitting process was cited as one of the reasons North Dakota was chosen as the site for a $260 million corn sweetener processing plant. North Dakota's Department of Health provides a publication entitled Environmental Regulations: A Business Guide to the Environmental Permitting Process to assist companies in the process. TOP Telecommunications Most of our state is on Central Time. Locating in the Central Time Zone allows businesses to contact both coasts and western Europe during convenient working hours. North Dakotans speak "broadcast English," meaning no discernible accent. Telemarketing and back office operations have found this to be a big advantage in dealings with both U. S. and European customers. Twenty-seven telephone companies and cooperatives provide various telecommunications services. The vast majority of the interconnect facilities are fiber optic cable with the changeover of the remaining infrastructure to be completed soon. More than 4,600 miles of fiber are currently installed. In addition, all telephone central offices are equipped with digital switching equipment. "Technical companies need access to communications technologies, and U.S. West Communications offers digital switching and fiber optic cable links in North Dakota. This allowed Robodyne (a North Dakota Company) to link the Rugby plant operations directly to the computer-aided manufacturing systems in the firm's corporate offices." Inside Line, July/August, 1995 Four major interexchange carriers (IXCs) provide long-distance services in North Dakota. This includes AT&T, MCI, U.S. Sprint & WilTel. Both AT&T and U.S. Sprint own point-of-presence facilities in North Dakota (AT&T in Minot, Bismarck, Grand Forks & Fargo and U.S. Sprint in Bismarck and Fargo). A number of companies also function in telecommunications resale and contracting for segments of facilities and services owned by others. Five companies provide shared and operator-controlled mobile radio services through twenty-five sites in the state. These sites cover all major population centers and nearly all of central and western North Dakota. Radio paging services are also available in the Fargo, Wahpeton, Bismarck/Mandan and Grand Forks areas. North Dakotans speak "broadcast English," meaning no discernible accent. Telemarketing and back office operations have found this to be a big advantage in dealings with both U. S. and European customers. Twenty-seven telephone companies and cooperatives provide various telecommunications services. The vast majority of the interconnect facilities are fiber optic cable with the changeover of the remaining infrastructure to be completed soon. More than 4,600 miles of fiber are currently installed. In addition, all telephone central offices are equipped with digital switching equipment. Four major interexchange carriers (IXCs) provide long-distance services in North Dakota. This includes AT&T, MCI, U.S. Sprint & WilTel. Both AT&T and U.S. Sprint own point-of-presence facilities in North Dakota (AT&T in Minot, Bismarck, Grand Forks & Fargo and U.S. Sprint in Bismarck and Fargo). A number of companies also function in telecommunications resale and contracting for segments of facilities and services owned by others. Five companies provide shared and operator-controlled mobile radio services through twenty-five sites in the state. These sites cover all major population centers and nearly all of central and western North Dakota. Radio paging services are also available in the Fargo, Wahpeton, Bismarck/Mandan and Grand Forks areas. In addition to Internet services provided through telecommunications carriers, local Internet access serves an estimated 85% of the state's population through a unique public/private partnership at every one of North Dakota's county seat communities. TOP Transportation In 1995, North Dakota ranked 5th largest in percentage of people employed in transportation, communications and utilities. The transportation sector mirrored an 8.3% growth in manufacturers from 1992-1994, and the number of employees increased by 16.1%. "We realize freight is a major cost factor in our pricing, but the work ethic of our people in North Dakota provide us with quality products that far outweigh any freight cost." Joe Rothschiller, President Steffes ETS, a manufacturer of electric thermal storage room units in Dickinson, ND. Steffes ships products internationally. Trucking North Dakota has a healthy trucking industry. More than half of our businesses depend on trucking for shipments of raw product and finished goods. To meet these demands, the trucking industry grew by 14.4% and the number of employees increased by 17% from 1989 to 1994. In a 1991 survey, 80% of the state's manufacturers indicated that delivery services were either extremely or very good. Contributing to cost savings is the fact that combined state and federal taxes for motor carriers (diesel fuel tax, registration fees, sales tax) are the sixth lowest in the nation. Truckers benefit from the quality and safety of our highways. In fact, we are 49th in the number of highway fatalities and almost 60 percent of our interstate is in either excellent or good condition. Best of all, our highways are all toll-free! Rail Service Rail provides a long-haul alternative to trucking. North Dakota is ranked 12th in the nation for rail miles with 3,276 railroad miles in operation. Two Class I and two Class III or "short-line" railroads serve the state. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad operates two east-west mainlines. Both lines serve as major freight corridors for traffic originating at or destined for the Port of Seattle or Duluth Superior. The CP Rail System (Soo Line) also operates a mainline, a major freight corridor for traffic originating at or destined for the Port of Vancouver and other Canadian points. Both systems also maintain an extensive network of branchlines. Two shortlines, the Red River Valley & Western and the Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western, also serve shippers in North Dakota. The Red River has service agreements with the BNSF and primarily serves southeast and central North Dakota. The Dakota, with CP service agreements, primarily serves the central and northwestern area. Air Service Air transportation is another area of sustained growth. Despite intense competition limiting the number of firms serving North Dakota, the amount of air freight tonnage increased 20% each year from 1989 to 1994. Eight commercial service airports schedule 198 airline flights daily. North Dakota is connected to worldwide destinations via the Minneapolis and Denver air service hubs, with 8,242 total seats available daily. In addition, there are 11 air charters providing on-demand air service throughout the state. There is also a daily one-stop flight from Fargo to Amsterdam, the largest connecting point in Europe. North Dakota has 95 public airports outfitted with weather navigation aids. North Dakota has the sixth highest ratio of pilots (49 per 10,000 people) and fourth highest ratio of aircraft (29 per 10,000 people) in the country. The nation's largest aerospace training facility, the Center for Aerospace Sciences is located at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. TOP Proximity It's highly likely value-added agricultural facilities will find raw materials a short distance from their plant site. However, North Dakota has the means to provide for transport of raw materials and finished goods via truck, rail or air. "The Wahpeton 3M plant... is engaged effectively in worldwide competition from the North Dakota plant. In fact, 50 percent of the products we manufacture end up in the hands of non-domestic users." Robert K. Olstad, plant manager of Wahpeton, ND plant Sizable international and domestic markets are easily accessible from North Dakota. The state is linked to the rest of the nation via two interstate highways. I-29 runs north and south along the eastern border and I-94 runs east and west just south of the central portion of the state. We are proud of our well-maintained highway system. In 1994, North Dakota ranked sixth out of the 50 states in per capita federal highway funding. The Red River Corridor runs from Sioux Falls, SD through the eastern third of North Dakota and continues into Canada. This corridor is growing quickly and figures to be a major factor in further development, serving nearly two million people. TOP Energy The cost and availability of energy are key factors in industrial location decisions. This places North Dakota, with its huge reserves of coal and oil, in a very favorable position. We stand ready to deliver power to North Dakota business and industry... not only today, but far into the future. North Dakota is a leader in available low cost energy! (For a list of the major utility companies and site-specific rate estimates, please see the appendix. Larger industrial users may be able to negotiate peak and off-peak rates with the utility providers in their service areas.) It's estimated that North Dakota has 35 billion tons of economically recoverable lignite coal in the western part of the state. We export less than 10% of the 25 million tons of lignite coal mined annually. More than 75% of mined lignite fires the state's electrical power plants. Annual production of crude oil increased by 1.7 million to 29.3 million barrels in 1995. All-time production of crude oil amounts to over 1.23 billion barrels. Estimated reserves, assuming secondary and tertiary enhanced recovery techniques are used, are in excess of one billion barrels. TOP Water North Dakota has many locations with undeveloped surface and ground-water supplies. Quantity and quality of those supplies vary greatly according to the industrial demands. Water use in 1994 was 1,383,200 acre-feet. More than 75% of the water was used for electrical power generation. Irrigation accounted for approximately 12%, while industrial use was 7%, with the remainder going toward municipal and rural use. Water permits are required for all commercial and industrial uses of water unless the amount of water is less than 12.5 acre-feet. Presently there are about 2,700 active water permits in North Dakota. About 67 percent of those permits are held by irrigators, while city, town and rural water systems hold 13 percent and industrial users hold 10 percent.