Week 6 — What Changed and Why

Apr 16, 2026

This is the most active the board has been since we launched. Three metros moved into or within striking distance of NOW, one long-term watch item finally confirmed its downside, and a metro we excluded in Week 2 just came back as the top-ranked market on the board. There's a lot to unpack.

In Week 2, Columbus was excluded. The Intel investment was real, but the Progress score came back at 0.05 — the catalyst was too far along in its operational arc to offer meaningful repricing delta. We said at the time: that's not a verdict on the city, it's a verdict on the entry point.

This week Columbus enters NOW at 8.55, the highest score on the board.

Before getting to what strengthened the Columbus thesis, an honest update on Intel is warranted.

Intel's Ohio One campus in New Albany — the original anchor of the Columbus story — has slipped considerably. In a March 2026 filing with Ohio regulators, Intel confirmed the first fab won't be complete until 2030, with production beginning 2030–2031. A second fab follows in 2031–2032. The company still faces pressure to secure external foundry customers for its next-gen 14A node or risk halting work entirely. Ohio's $600M onshoring grant carries a December 31, 2028 performance benchmark — a deadline the current schedule does not appear to meet. Intel is reinvesting in foundry projects in 2026 on the back of AI-driven demand, which is an encouraging signal, but production-level workforce arrivals in New Albany are a decade away.

This is a material change from the Intel story that helped drive early Columbus enthusiasm. We are not treating Intel as a near-term catalyst. We are treating it as a long-duration optionality play — the land is under construction, the commitment is real, but it does not drive near-term workforce arrivals or housing repricing.

The reason Columbus enters NOW at 8.55 is not Intel. It is everything that has layered in alongside it. Three additions stand out.

Anduril's Arsenal-1 is a $910M advanced manufacturing facility on 500 acres near Rickenbacker International Airport — 20 minutes south of downtown Columbus. It is the largest single direct job creation project in Ohio history, committing to 4,000+ direct jobs by 2035 with production beginning July 2026. The workforce spans production-line roles (accessible with a high school diploma) through defense-tech engineering, which means wage pressure across multiple income bands rather than a single narrow tier. The Rickenbacker corridor, Groveport, Canal Winchester, and Obetz are the most proximate submarkets.

Honda and LG Energy Solution committed $4.2B combined to Ohio — $3.5B for an EV battery plant in Fayette County and $700M to retool existing plants in Marysville, East Liberty, and Anna. Construction is nearly complete as of February 2026, with 2,527 new jobs created across the network. The Marysville and Union County corridor is the most direct housing beneficiary, though the workforce draw is regional across the Columbus MSA.

Amazon's $10B data center commitment to Ohio is the component we weight most cautiously. Data centers generate limited permanent workforce — roughly 4,500 permanent jobs statewide from the entire Ohio buildout per independent research. We do not count this as a primary repricing catalyst, but it contributes to the broader economic signal that Columbus is absorbing sustained large-scale capital.

The Progress score has advanced — construction milestones are hitting across all three, and the workforce arrival timeline is no longer theoretical.

The framework excluded Columbus because the timing was wrong. The framework is bringing it back because the timing is now right. That's the system working as designed, and we want to be clear about the logic rather than just moving the number.

Sherman ticks down slightly to 7.99 and Indianapolis moves up to 7.82. Neither is a meaningful change — both remain firmly in NOW. What's worth noting is the gap between them is narrowing. Indianapolis's multi-catalyst stack continues to compound: Eli Lilly construction progressing, IU Health opening on the 2026 timeline. Sherman's thesis is intact but is now further into execution than it was in Week 1. The delta between the two will be worth watching over the next few cycles.

Kansas City slides from NEXT (6.0) to LATER (5.33). The Panasonic EV battery stack is real and operational — this isn't a catalyst failure. What the scoring reflects is that an operational catalyst is, by definition, further along in its arc. The repricing window is narrower than it was when Kansas City first entered NEXT. Still a market worth underwriting; just with more precision about what's left to capture.

Louisville jumps from FUNNEL (3.0) to LATER (5.46) in a single cycle — one of the larger single-week moves we've seen. The GE Appliances investment at Appliance Park has been building quietly, and the scoring now reflects a catalyst stack that has matured to the point of active monitoring.

Louisville was in our original Week 1 board and was subsequently moved to FUNNEL as the investment profile looked more legacy than generative. The re-entry at LATER suggests the thesis has evolved. We'll be watching whether it continues to build toward NEXT or stabilizes here.

Syracuse advances from 4.2 to 5.12. The $100B Micron fab still has a 2030 production timeline — that hasn't changed. What's changing is everything being built around it. A second Micron business park was greenlit. South Korean suppliers are committing to the Clay area. The ecosystem that has to exist before a fab can operate is assembling ahead of schedule.

Syracuse won't be a deploy-now market until workers are actually arriving. But the distance between here and NEXT is shrinking faster than we initially modeled.

In Week 5 we flagged Memphis with a critical alert: major employer job cuts creating uncertainty. This week the score drops from LATER (3.6) to FUNNEL (2.55). The FedEx anchor thesis — 30,000 permanent jobs — hasn't collapsed, but the uncertainty introduced by the job cut news has compressed the repricing case enough to move it out of active consideration.

Memphis is a reminder that the board isn't just about catalysts arriving — it's also about catalysts holding. We'll continue tracking it, but it's not a market we'd be underwriting today.

San Antonio is at 5.46 — tied with Louisville at the top of LATER, and 0.04 away from NEXT the last time we measured. One more cycle of Progress advancement and it crosses over.

Bossier City enters LATER at 4.64 on the strength of Amazon's $12B data center campus. We've been cautious about data centers throughout this process — they don't typically generate the workforce concentration that drives housing repricing. We'll be transparent about why Bossier City scores where it does and whether that thesis holds up under closer scrutiny.

Hero × Progress framework. Tier boundaries: NOW 7.5–10.0 / NEXT 5.5–7.4 / LATER 3.5–5.4 / FUNNEL <3.5 All predictions tracked and published. Not investment advice.