A tier-3 ED director with a $40,000 predevelopment budget and three target sectors will typically spread that budget across power documentation, site readiness, and workforce data for all three. Every dimension advances a little; none reaches a passing answer.
Site selector screening is sequential and eliminative. The selector working a precision machining search asks a different first question than the one working a food processing search. A city that fails the first-cut question never reaches the second. The preparation budget should retire the gap that eliminates the city earliest for the declared target, which means the director needs to know what screens first, by sector.
This piece covers four manufacturing categories that tier-3 cities plausibly target: precision machining, wet-process food and beverage, battery and EV component supply chain, and building materials. For each: the preparation dimension that most frequently serves as the early screen, the documentation state that constitutes a passing answer, and the approximate cost to get there.
Where the sourcing comes from. The Site Selectors Guild's annual surveys rank decision factors — workforce, infrastructure, logistics, incentives — across all industrial projects. Those rankings are useful at the sector level. They do not disaggregate to the process level, which is where screening actually eliminates cities. A Guild 2024 AI case study used a hypothetical 45 MW bottling facility as a test scenario; that is a single large-format illustration, not a tier-3 benchmark. The sequencing below draws on published practitioner methodology (named site consultants describing their screening order in trade press), documented project records (state announcements, federal environmental assessments, permit files), and pattern recognition from how searches run at tier-3 scale. Where the sourcing is a single practitioner account or a single project comparator, I say so. Treat the sector sections as informed synthesis grounded in public evidence, not as survey findings.
Define the process before sequencing the preparation
"Food processing," "battery components," "precision machining," and "building materials" each contain processes with materially different infrastructure and permitting requirements. A battery module-and-pack assembly line received a categorical environmental exemption in California. An electrode coating facility triggered Title V major-source classification in North Carolina. Both are "battery components." The preparation sequencing for one has almost nothing in common with the other.
The breakdowns below assume you have defined your target at the process level: product type, throughput range, process description. If your target is still a sector label, the sequencing question is premature. Issue #4's demand envelope framework covers how to get from a sector label to a process-specific attribute set.
Precision machining
The early screen. Two dimensions recur as first-cut eliminators for machining projects at tier-3 scale: occupation-specific workforce availability and a compatible existing building. Site selection practitioners advise testing machinist and engineer availability at the beginning of a location study, defining the labor market by drive time rather than jurisdiction. A 2026 Oklahoma aerospace machining project — 25,000 to 40,000 square feet, up to 50 jobs — cited Tulsa's existing workforce as a factor. The announcement named no power demand, no floor loading, no water requirement.
The building question is more specific than available square footage. A machining facility's building compatibility depends on actual service voltage and capacity, slab thickness and condition, crane or lifting provisions, compressed air, coolant handling, and ventilation. A distribution shell with 6-inch slab-on-grade and 277/480V lighting panels is not a machining building. Issue #6's spec building analysis covers why the building type matters more than the building's existence.
Passing answer. For workforce: OEWS employment estimates for CNC machinists (SOC 51-4041), tool and die makers (SOC 51-4111), inspectors and testers (SOC 51-9061), and industrial machinery mechanics (SOC 49-9041) within a defined drive-time labor shed, plus IPEDS completions in relevant CIP codes from institutions within the same shed. Both datasets are publicly downloadable from BLS and NCES. For the building: a facility data sheet showing actual electrical service, not utility availability at the property line, along with slab and foundation specifications, crane provisions, compressed air capacity, and the coolant and oily-waste discharge path. If no building exists, the site's utility will-serve letter and development timeline replace the facility sheet, but the screening conversation gets harder.
Cost to retire. The workforce compilation costs staff time and familiarity with OEWS and IPEDS data structures. No external expenditure required. The building data sheet costs a site visit, an electrical panel inspection, and a conversation with the building owner about slab cores and utility records. If the building needs electrical upgrades or slab work to qualify, the cost shifts from evidence to capital, and you are deciding whether to invest before having a prospect or to document the gap and the upgrade path.
Wet-process food and beverage
The early screen. Site consultant Michael Mullis has described the food processing screening sequence as logistics first, then water, wastewater, and electricity, then labor. Logistics is largely fixed: highway access, rail, proximity to raw material supply or distribution markets. A city either has it or doesn't. Wastewater compatibility is the first technical proof in that sequence the city actually controls.
Wastewater screens early for wet-process food because of the discharge chemistry. EPA's 2023 meat and poultry technical document reports median wastewater flows of 52,100 gpd for meat first-processing and 109,000 gpd for further-processing facilities among indirect dischargers. Even modest regional processors generate flows and pollutant loads that require classification as a significant industrial user by the POTW (publicly owned treatment works), monitoring, and potentially pretreatment. EPA's review of New Hampshire industrial-user permits found actual food-processing discharges ranging from 2,000 gpd for an ice-cream plant to 48,000 gpd for a brewery, with BOD, TSS, COD, nutrient, and metals monitoring requirements at the brewery scale.
Engineering guidance for brewery wastewater reports planning-level BOD of 1,500 mg/L at the low end and 4,500 mg/L as an average, with excursions as high as 35,000 mg/L when a bad batch is dumped. Those concentrations are multiples of typical municipal POTW influent.
Passing answer. Issue #1's wastewater screening piece covers the full documentation mechanics. The short version: a POTW determination covering average and peak flow capacity, BOD and TSS mass-loading limits, FOG (fats, oils, and grease) limits, pH and temperature ranges, local limits for the relevant parameters, hydraulic and organic headroom, pretreatment requirements, surcharge basis, permit classification, review timeline, and any upgrade dependencies. "We have capacity" without those specifics fails the screen.
Cost to retire. The first call to the POTW director costs nothing. Published municipal application fees range from $0 in Vancouver, Washington to $120 in Riverside to $616 in Los Angeles to $5,277–$29,903 in San Diego depending on classification. The preliminary compatibility determination — can this system accept this type of discharge, and under what conditions — sits at the low end or costs nothing. The live permit, sampling, engineering, and pretreatment infrastructure are separate and potentially substantial. But the screening question is whether the system can accept the discharge at all.
If you have not had the POTW conversation, that is your first preparation investment.
Battery and EV component supply chain
The early screen. This category fragments into at least four distinct screening profiles. The preparation priority depends entirely on which one applies.
Module and pack assembly can be an existing-building tenant improvement. California's 2026 records show a module-and-pack facility on less than five acres receiving a categorical environmental exemption, and a battery-module project limited to tenant improvements — compressed-air drops, power drops, walls, plumbing — also categorically exempt. For this process, the early screen resembles precision machining: building compatibility, electrical service, workforce.
Electrode coating and cell manufacturing screens differently. Toyota's North Carolina facility was initially permitted as a minor source for hybrid-battery lines. Adding EV-battery lines with electrode coating, electrolyte handling, and solvent recovery reclassified it as a Title V major source because VOC emissions exceeded 100 tons per year. Title V applicability begins at 100 tpy of a criteria pollutant or 10 tpy of a single hazardous air pollutant. Federal rules allow up to 18 months for final action after a complete Title V application. For this process, the early screen is air-permit applicability and timeline.
Active-material production requires coordinated land-use, air, wastewater, hazardous-waste, stormwater, and fire review. DOE's environmental assessment for a silicon-carbon anode-material plant documents 46 acres, 170,000 gpd of water, 100,000 gpd of wastewater, and 254 jobs, with emissions below the prevention-of-significant-deterioration threshold but still requiring minor new-source review. The early screen here is whether the city can coordinate multiple permit streams on a timeline the project can accept.
Recycling introduces RCRA questions. EPA says the recycling process itself generally does not require a federal RCRA treatment permit under the recycling exemption, but storage of hazardous batteries or black mass — the shredded electrode material recovered before metals separation — ahead of recycling can require a Part B permit.
Passing answer. A process-applicability memorandum identifying the specific battery process, the chemicals involved, emission units and potential emissions, wastewater streams, waste classification, storage requirements, fire code implications, expected utility loads, permits required, agencies with jurisdiction, and critical-path dates. The city cannot produce this alone; the prospect must disclose its process. But the city can determine in advance whether its air-quality attainment status, POTW capacity, zoning, and permitting timeline are compatible with each process type, and have that determination documented before the RFI arrives.
Cost to retire. For module and pack assembly, the preparation cost resembles machining: building data, electrical service confirmation, workforce compilation. For electrode or active-material production, the city needs its attainment status (free, from EPA's Green Book), its state air-permitting timeline for minor and major sources (free, from the state agency's published procedures), and its POTW's capacity and willingness to accept industrial wastewater with the relevant chemistry — the same conversation described above. The project-specific air-permit application belongs to the prospect. The city's preparation investment is knowing whether the permit path exists and how long it takes.
Building materials
The early screen. This category is too broad for a single screening sequence. A precast concrete pipe plant, a cement kiln, a wallboard operation, and an engineered-wood facility share a category label and almost nothing else in preparation terms.
For heavy precast products, outbound freight screens early. Tindall selected a 230-acre Kansas site for wind-tower bases around outbound rail logistics. FIT Precast's 154,000-square-foot concrete-pipe facility in North Carolina listed Norfolk Southern among its project partners. When the finished good is heavy and low-value per pound, the logistics question — highway access, rail serviceability, proximity to the construction market — precedes power, workforce, and everything else.
For thermal mineral processes (cement, lime, clay products, glass), fuel supply and air permitting screen early. EIA's 2022 manufacturing energy survey shows natural gas reported by 313 of 364 clay-building-material establishments and 94 of 159 cement establishments. A city targeting a thermal mineral process needs to know its gas service capacity and pressure, its air-quality attainment status, and its state's permitting timeline for combustion sources.
Passing answer. For precast: confirmed rail serviceability, meaning operator-confirmed rather than proximity-inferred, since BNSF requires a conceptual layout before evaluating feasibility; a highway route for heavy-haul; and sufficient acreage for outdoor storage and curing. For thermal processes: a gas service confirmation from the utility specifying peak-hour flow capacity (therms/hour or MCF/hour), delivery pressure (psig), service classification (firm versus interruptible), whether the existing main and regulator station can deliver the required volume, and any line-extension or upgrade timeline. Attainment status and the state's combustion-source permitting path complete the answer. A prospect whose gas supply depends on an interruptible contract or a main extension is in a different competitive position than one with firm service from an existing main, and the city needs to know which it is offering.
Cost to retire. Rail feasibility review requires submitting a conceptual layout to the serving carrier. Neither BNSF nor Norfolk Southern publishes a standard fee for this review, so the submission costs staff time and a site drawing. Gas service confirmation is a utility conversation, the same kind of inquiry as a large-load application for electric service and similarly inexpensive at the inquiry stage. Attainment status is a free lookup.
Cost-to-retire reference
| Preparation item | Documented cost | Source |
|---|---|---|
| OEWS/IPEDS labor-shed compilation | Staff time; data is publicly downloadable | BLS, NCES |
| POTW compatibility inquiry | Staff time to $616 for application | Municipal fee schedules |
| Utility large-load application | $1,000–$1,500 before system study | Pedernales Electric Cooperative |
| Phase I ESA (ASTM E1527-21) | $3,300 for 87 acres | NC industrial site assessment, 2026 |
| Wetland delineation with Corps confirmation | $12,200 for 87 acres | Same source |
| Preliminary geotechnical survey | $17,000 for unevaluated portions | Same source |
| Rail feasibility submission | Unpublished; staff time for layout | BNSF, Norfolk Southern procedures |
State predevelopment programs can bundle several of these items: FAST NY and Virginia's VBRSP, which offers up to $500,000 per site. The sequencing question comes before the funding application: which item retires the uncertainty that would eliminate you first?
Sequencing the budget
The preparation budget should buy the cheapest proof that resolves the most eliminative uncertainty for your declared process. For precision machining, that is probably a workforce compilation and a building data sheet, both staff-time items. For wet-process food, it is the POTW compatibility determination. For battery module assembly, it resembles machining; for electrode or cell manufacturing, it is the air-permit applicability and timeline determination. For heavy precast, it is the rail feasibility submission.
The first investment is almost always documentation. What you are buying is the answer to whether the gap is closable at all. Issue #5's four-causes framework distinguishes an asset failure, where the capacity doesn't exist, from an evidence failure, where the capacity exists but isn't documented. The cheapest preparation investment tells you which kind you have. If the POTW can accept the discharge, you document it and move to the next screen. If it can't, you learned that before spending money on workforce marketing or site grading for a prospect that was never going to land.
A director targeting multiple sectors should look for where the documentation efforts overlap. Workforce compilation for CNC machinists serves both precision machining and battery module assembly pursuits. The POTW compatibility determination serves both food processing and battery active-material production. A building data sheet with actual electrical service, slab specs, and process-utility capacity is usable across any existing-building manufacturing target. The $40,000 goes furthest when it retires proof that would eliminate the city from the largest number of pursuits at once.
- Site certification maintenance intervals: SiteOhio requires recertification every three years with updated site information, while other state programs have less explicit revalidation cycles — a gap worth tracking as Virginia's VBRSP tier system and similar frameworks evolve.
- Power readiness as separate investment: New York's $300 million POWER UP initiative treats electric infrastructure as a distinct preparation layer beyond general site certification, with first awards totaling over $38.9 million in April 2026.
- Phase I shelf life: A state site-certification program may accept a Phase I ESA completed within five years, but ASTM E1527-21 transaction reliance presumes viability only within 180 days of acquisition, with specified update requirements for assessments up to one year old.
- Wastewater rule changes pending: EPA withdrew its proposed 2024 meat and poultry effluent guideline revision in August 2025, leaving the existing Part 432 rules in place — but the underlying technical development document contains flow and pollutant data that cities targeting food processing should review now.