Economy

According to a recent WalletHub study, comparing the 50 states across 26 key indicators of startup success to determine the most fertile grounds in which to launch and grow an enterprise, the top 10 best states to start a business are: Texas, Utah, Georgia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Florida, Arizona, California, Montana and Colorado.

APEX Motor Club, a private motorsports club and race track complex, broke ground in October and is expected to feature a racetrack, clubhouse and 168 garage condos.

Voya Financial, Inc. will open a new office in greater Phoenix, bringing more than 1,000 new jobs to Arizona. Voya has secured a temporary site, scheduled to open in January 2019, and is currently identifying a permanent site, with plans to open it in mid-2020.

The Greater Phoenix area has seen an uptick in job creation in recent months, which is leading to a higher demand for office space. Developers are responding to the need, and the market is seeing new projects coming online.

According to the Brookings Institution, Innovation Districts “are geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators. They’re physically compact, transit-accessible, and technically wired, offering mixed-use housing, office, and retail.”

The Tax Foundation, the nation’s leading independent tax policy research organization, released its 2019 State Business Tax Climate Index. The index measures how well states structure their tax systems.

The state Office of Economic Opportunity reports that Arizona will add more than 543,000 net new jobs by 2026, while adding another million residents in the process.

Elected officials, business leaders and economic development professionals from Arizona and Sonora participated in the 2018 Arizona-Sonora Megaregion Meeting in Phoenix, the first meeting since Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president-elect of Mexico.

According to a newly released report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arizona’s gross domestic product grew by 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2018.

Many companies are looking at different ways to market their business, product or service. In the past, hiring a marketer or communicator was sufficient. Today, considering how people consume information and make purchasing decisions, those positions have morphed into something new, with titles and skills to match.