3 key factors to consider when choosing a location for your business — plus a prime example in The Beta District

One of the most critical decisions you’ll make as a business leader is how and where your business grows. Everyone knows the old cliché — location, location, location — for good reason. Being in the right place puts your business closer to your suppliers or adjacent to new customers. Plus, it’s a lot easier to attract and retain talent to a community where amenities and work-life balance are abundant. But beyond sites, utilities, permits, and incentives, there are a set of additional factors that will transform a good location into one that is truly superior as a place to run your business long-term.

What are those intangible characteristics that become site-selection dealmakers? We’ve boiled it down to three imperatives every business leader should add to their checklist when selecting the perfect location for business growth.

1. Superior connectivity

The ability to connect with customers, suppliers, and qualified talent is what fuels business growth. Beyond geographic location, access to transportation and technology that makes it easy for products, information, and people to get where they need to go without friction is a critical differentiator when determining where your business will best thrive.

After making Dublin home, executives experience the benefits of the city’s connectivity in big ways.

For Össur Academy, an orthopedics and personal mobility training company, Dublin’s central location just outside Ohio’s capital city of Columbus, was a major consideration. “One of the reasons we chose Dublin, Ohio, is that a good chunk of the U.S. population is within driving distance, so we hit all the major cities and as people travel in, it makes for a great destination and location,” says Nathan Wagner, director of Education.
EASE Logistics, a global supply chain and transportation company, noted what an important role the company’s Dublin location played in its growth. “Ohio is one of the largest hubs for transportation in the U.S. Eighty percent of the freight going from the East Coast to the West Coast or vice versa must go through Ohio,” says founder and CEO of EASE Logistics. “So, being in Dublin helped springboard us into our success.”
T-CETRA, a financial technology company, ships products nationwide every day from their warehouse in Dublin, which is within two miles of the company’s corporate offices. The location adjacent to I-270 is critical for the volume of ground shipping they require. “It allows us to ship ground service that reaches 70% of our customer base with two-day shipping, which was a big factor for us because it’s so cost effective to reach that many of our customers so quickly,” says CEO and co-founder Abdul Akel.

The answers to your location needs

In your conversations with prospective economic development partners, get to the heart of what makes it easy to do business there by asking questions about amenities such as transportation, technology, or high-speed internet. Are they at the core of the city’s infrastructure plans?

Access to a fiber network that keeps businesses connected. Every business in Dublin has access to Dublink, a blazingly fast fiber network that is 100x faster than Google Fiber and makes Dublin one of the best-connected communities on the planet.*
Safe roads for employees’ commutes to the office. Dublin is home to a smart mobility ecosystem that is improving safety and efficiency at several intersections, including the first connected roundabout in the country.*
Reliable transportation to office or worksite, even without a car. The Dublin Connector is an on-demand rideshare service for anyone who lives or works in Dublin, and its web-based app provides an exceptionally easy ride-booking experience.
Convenient meeting and entertainment locations for business prospects and customers. Even parking is more connected in Dublin. Some lots are equipped with smart technologies including cameras, data analytics algorithms, and high-speed wireless broadband.

CEO of IT consulting and custom software developer Leading EDJE, Joelle Brock, says that having a home base in Dublin with the ability to connect both transportation-wise and technology-wise has fueled her company’s expansion. “Within the last two years we have realized we are not geographically tied any longer, so we’ve expanded our practice from coast to coast. We are realizing now that instead of going to other markets we are bringing other markets to Dublin.”

2. A business environment that fosters collaboration.

In addition to continuing normal business operations, business leaders in the process of an expansion or relocation have many hurdles to jump. In Dublin, the economic development team is prepared to support securing permits, outline existing access to utilities, recommend reliable and trustworthy contractors, navigate city policies, and ensure you qualify for all the incentives possible based on your business and site details.

This collaboration is crucial to a confident start in your new location, and it will continue once you’ve cut the ribbon. Location isn’t just about securing your business now — it’s also about ensuring your business is healthy and thriving in a place that works as well for your current and future needs. Quantum Health Chief People Officer Veronica Knuth says that the consistent outreach from the city of Dublin has been a significant benefit:

“The city of Dublin has been a great partner. They always check in, and they are great about asking ‘How are you guys doing? What do you think? What do you need?’ And they are really good at integrating. You know, ‘Here’s what we are doing on the development side. Here’s what we are doing with the schools.’ Bringing us opportunities with job fairs or other industry partners or initiatives.”

Another factor to evaluate in choosing a location is having ready access to peers in the business community and being able to quickly find a network. Because it’s home to companies that range from small startups to those in Fortune’s 20 largest companies in the country, Dublin has competitive opportunities for founders, owners and executives.

T-CETRA CEO Abdul Akel noted that the networking available helped the company meet its talent attraction and retention goals.

“The city of Dublin gave our employees an opportunity to get more engaged within the community. They gave us an opportunity to network and meet with other companies in Dublin, and to take part in diversity programs and inclusion programs that really helped connect people on our executive team to other leaders within the city. This was very, very helpful to us because attracting — and keeping — talent is very important to us.”

3. Abundant amenities in the community

Whether you are persuading existing talent to make the move alongside your business in a relocation or hire talent near your new address, the location must be a place that your executive team, employees, customers, and suppliers truly love to be. Eric Jenkusky, co-founder and CEO of Matrix Food Technologies, which makes nanofiber scaffolds for meat cultivation, says he prioritized locations that offered attractive mixed- use planning, which he easily found in Dublin.

“For us, Dublin is a well-designed city. The mixture of facilities available and things like the walking paths and Bridge Park make it a fantastic place to work, and to entertain clients.”

While many factors influence where a business chooses to relocate or expand, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. The combination of abundant amenities, a culture of collaboration, a centralized-and-connected geography on top of construction-ready sites, access to utilities and a business-friendly environment are easy to come by when you partner with the city of Dublin.

Veronica Knuth at Quantum Health sums it up:

“There are lots of really good things going on in Dublin. In terms of being business- friendly, being resident-friendly, I score them very high. They always want to know what we think. They want us to be involved in anything that they are doing. They truly want to know us, and they want us to feel like we’re a part of the city.”

Interested in a conversation? Visit dublintakescareofbusiness.com to connect with our Economic Development experts.

Learn more.

Dublin, Ohio, is home to 50,000 residents, 20 corporate headquarters, 4,300+ businesses, world-class events and the urban, walkable Bridge Street District. The city offers responsive services, attractive housing, superior public education, direct regional highway access, abundant park space, thoughtful and strategic planning, innovative ideas and technology and a dynamic community life. For more information, visit dublintakescareofbusiness.com.

*According to City of Dublin Economic Development