Research for operators and landowners
Sites are won and lost on power, water, policy, and timing.
Redchip helps owners of businesses and land across the Southeast think through expansion, site, and property decisions. Each report reads the numbers, then the things that decide the outcome, and says how we would approach it. It reads the way a partner in your firm would brief you.
Why Redchip
Vacancy, absorption, population growth, household income. Most of it is accurate, and most of it is easy to find. It describes what a market is today. It says much less about what a specific site can carry, what a project will need, or when the timing is right.
Those answers sit in other places: a utility's capacity plan, the terms attached to an incentive, a road that is funded and one that is only proposed, the buildings already under construction down the street. Redchip reads those too, and puts them in one place with a view on what they mean.
The best site on paper is often the third-best site in practice.
Who it's written for
Where the next plant, warehouse, or location should go, and how to compare the places that want you. Whether to own the building or sell it and lease it back. What the business is worth to a buyer, and what the buyer will look at first.
What your land is suited for, and who would pay for it. Whether this is the time to sell, lease, or hold. How to judge an offer, and what a serious buyer will need to see before it closes.
Lenders, investors, and developers read Redchip too. Every good project starts with an owner who needs space or has land to put to work, and that is where this research starts.
The research
Guides answer the general question behind each of six decisions, and change little. Reports go deep on one place, one sector, or one rule, and carry a date.
The 2025 federal tax law created a first-year deduction for qualifying new production buildings, generally for projects that begin construction before 2029. Who owns the building affects whether it applies. The report compares an operator-owned building, one held in an owner-controlled real estate company, and a lease from an outside developer, with a worked example. It changes the own-versus-lease comparison without settling it, and it is not a substitute for your tax adviser.
Market Watch
Redchip follows markets across the Southeast and gives each one a status, with the reason, the date, and what would move it. Infrastructure, available sites, and incentives are part of every status, because they decide whether growth turns into projects.
Demand is arriving, and sites and infrastructure are in place to meet it.
The groundwork is underway: utilities, sites, or programs that will open the next round of projects.
Promising, with something still to resolve, such as capacity, supply, or timing.
For cities, counties, and economic development teams
Operators read Redchip while they are deciding where to go. Send us a site or program and we will look at what an operator would need to see: utilities, access, zoning, workforce, and incentives. Sites that fit the research get featured in it, and when an operator comes to us looking for a site like yours, we will know it exists.
What we cover
Who needs the space, what the use requires, and whether the economics and the infrastructure line up.
Power, delivery dates, water, and customer commitments, and what separates a workable site from acreage near a line.
Generation, substations, and storage, where grid access and approvals decide more than acreage does.
New plants and expansions, weighed against customers, workforce, infrastructure, and incentive terms.
Freight access, customer proximity, competing buildings, and the rent new space needs.
Processing, cold storage, and distribution, where water and wastewater set the shortlist.
Space for contractors and local businesses, against zoning, access, and what tenants can afford.
Local care needs, physician capacity, and the commitments a new building requires.
Jobs, incomes, competing supply, and whether projected rents fit the people expected to pay them.
Household growth, occupancy, and new supply within the market a facility actually serves.
Tenant demand, local spending, and whether each piece of a project supports the whole.
The Southeast and Gulf Coast, anchored in East Alabama.
Real estate coverage runs across the Southeast. Research on operating companies and transactions is national. The local question is always specific: what can this market support, and what would it take to deliver it?
Privately held businesses, especially those whose value depends on facilities, equipment, and operating capacity.
Demand, capacity, cost, and where to put it, with a clear comparison of the places competing for you.
Capital released today, rent obligations tomorrow, and how the lease shapes the next decision.
What the buyer is getting, what has to be separated or replaced, and what the business needs after closing.
What supports the price, what a buyer will look at first, and how the real estate changes the options.
The records, dependencies, and loose ends that move price, delay financing, or stall a deal.
Where technology improves margins and capacity, with the implementation cost counted up front.
How a report reads
Stated the way an owner would ask it. "Plant is full. Now what?" not "Regional Industrial Market Overview."
Our view, up front. If you read nothing else, read this.
Brief, sourced, and dated. The numbers set the floor. They rarely settle the question.
Power, water, roads, incentives, zoning, capital, and competing supply. Usually the longest section, because it is where projects succeed or stall.
Specific, and written separately for someone running a business and someone who owns land.
The same decision tested against different futures: sales grow, sales stay flat, the key customer leaves, you need to sell in five years.
Acting has risks. So does waiting. Every report prices both: the capacity you didn't add, the customer you couldn't take, the deadline you missed.
What the report can't answer without your specifics: the parcel, the headcount, the power load, the timeline.
When the question is yours
We apply the same thinking to one company, site, or project and help carry it through. The work usually starts with a Deal Read: a clear recommendation and next steps, typically in about ten business days once the key materials are in hand. Site selection, pre-development, and putting the deal together follow from there.
Demand, site, cost, incentives, and financing brought into one plan, with a clear comparison of the options.
What the buyer needs the site for, what it is worth to them, and what to settle before you sign.
What the parcel is suited for, what it would take to get there, and who would pay for it.
A sale-leaseback against the alternatives, and what each one leaves with the business.
The operating assumptions, the structure, the real estate, and the gaps that could change the outcome.
The assumptions, dependencies, and risks, examined before more time or money goes in.
On LinkedIn
Selected posts on sites, capital, and what it takes to get a project built.
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Who writes Redchip
Most of the research is written by Daniel Sexton, founder of Arkvera Grove Partners. He spent a decade designing enterprise software and algorithms for large companies, then moved into managing a family office fund and advising operators on capital and technology. Today he works on industrial development and private-company transactions across the Southeast. He has written a book on AI and built the research system Redchip runs on. He lives in Auburn, Alabama. More about Redchip →
Redchip Ventures LLC provides advisory services as Arkvera Grove Partners, and Dan is a partner in Vanguard Industrial Partners, a design-build developer that may develop projects in markets Redchip covers. When an affiliate has an interest in what a report covers, the report says so. See disclosure.
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