So... Amazon has finally released their final 20 cities they will be choosing from to build their second headquarters. Any surprise of the list? Which 5 cities do you think it will be narrowed down to? What's your favorite? And oh... NYC made the list...
Atlanta
Austin, Tex.
Boston
Chicago
Columbus, Ohio
Dallas
Denver
Indianapolis
Los Angeles
Miami
Montgomery County, Md.
Nashville
Newark
New York
Northern Virginia
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Raleigh, N.C.
Toronto
Washington, D.C.
Just curious, what's the point of amazon announcing this top 20? In the grand scheme of things this list is largely irrelevant - just selecting 20 of the largest cities...
Is it just to draw increased hype surrounding the eventual decision?
Agreed -- it's essentially them telling the audience that the day is just getting closer. Would have been more meaningful if they just announced the 5 contenders instead. I'm pretty sure at this point they have a good idea of where they want to place their 2nd HQ.
They most likely started off with two or three cities chosen. They are doing this dog and pony show to get all of the cities to compete for the best abatements so they can leverage it against the city that they actually wanted to move to originally.
"Columbus assembled an incentives package in which Amazon would receive a 15-year, 100% property-tax abatement at every site included in HQ2" This is estimated to save Amazon up to $2.3B
"Chris Christie and state legislative leaders said they would offer Amazon tax breaks worth $7 billion over the next decade"
Could you imagine trying to negotiate with a company with the cards stacked this much in their favor?
Absolutely, and if I were with Amazon I would be continuing the dog and pony show.
The Dallas area local governments (Frisco, McKinney, Allen) are already preparing the Tax Incentive Plans for a prospective Amazon HQ in the $$$ BILLIONS $$$. These locals have rather large coffers to throw money at corporations. Toyota HQ relocated in 2017 and JPMorgan is almost online with another HQ in early 2018 and each one received significant TIP and development funds from the city.
Yup. This is simply to leverage the best tax break and land price.
"Well, Boston...Atlanta and Georgia offered us this level of tax breaks, and its a shitpot cheaper to build in Dallas, so we're going elsewhere.
...
Oh, what's that? You'll abate all our taxes, build our buildings for free, and provide other necessary favors at our every whim so you can do nothing more than collect our workers' payroll taxes? Where do we sign?"
Well, I think the idea is that everyone wants to have the 2nd HQ in their city mainly due to the revenue it would bring to the state and the jobs it would create. On the side, they would also contribute to the community by doing some charitable things (possibly). But the main reason is to show where the money that the company would generate would go to and where people can see jobs will be created. But just my opinion, not entirely sure though.
To squeeze more tax incentives from those cities. Curious what is the # of republican vs democrat cities and states on the list
Ding Ding Ding, i bet they continue to narrow it down to even smaller lists to keep the bidding war going.
interesting the broke down Northern VA, DC, and Montgomery County, MD vs. grouping them as the DC metro area. These are all within ~25 mile radius of each other.
Suspect that means the DC area is a very strong contender, and Amazon is letting the different municipalities duke it out over the incentive package.
Actually they're slightly different in that you've got Virginia vs. Maryland (state tax breaks, not just local)
Then D.C. of which I'm wholly unsure of the tax situation.
All three submitted separate bids. As mentioned, they offer different incentives and hubs of activity that meet Amazon's interests. Baltimore also submitted a bid, but I guess that's a completely different story and apparently a no-starter.
From what I've read/heard, the DC metro area is a very attractive area for a number of reasons, and so when they saw three different bids in the general vicinity, they got to thinking that they could leverage the bids to get better incentives.
One of my best friends from HS is the chief of staff for somebody on their strategy team and said that Boston and DC are the locations that Bezos and senior leadership like the most, but that the packages weren't the most attractive. So we'll see. I think it's shrewd but pretty fucked up how they generated this bidding war amongst different cities. Wonder if other large and influential firms will follow suit down the road.
Has someone informed @rufus1234?
PrestigeCaller Rank the Amazon 2nd HQ cities by prestige tier
Boston, Atlanta, and New York City can literally tell Amazon to fuck off and call them when the final 5, of which they will definitely be in, is announced. Columbus, OHIO!!! competing against New York City?!? Haha lol suuuuuure.. What's the saying though? A students work for B students and C students work for the Government. This stupid shit show will probably work and the local Govs will get on their knees and open their mouths for Amazon.
NYC and LA are false flags, placed there to incentivize the smaller cities to come up with better packages. Amazon will be opening a large office in the Hudson Yards office complex, which will mainly house AWS, advertising (a fast growing business within Amazon), and fashion. But the company has no intention of setting up HQ2 there.
The senior leadership (known as the "S-team" within Amazon) is leaning towards Boston, but ultimately, it's Bezos' call. The two primary variables that they are optimizing for are human capital (the ability to attract and retain top engineering talent, especially young single professionals), and public transportation, as half of the Seattle employees don't drive, and the company wants to maintain the commuter culture in HQ2. Other variables such as tax incentives and space are secondary, merely to sweeten the pot.
I wonder what Amazon’s response would be if one of these cities offered to put $3 billion into public transportation (or whatever the number would be) rather than giving it directly to Amazon in incentives, breaks, deferments etc. Totally not saying you’re wrong, it would just be interesting to see if they would put their money where their mouth is.
Dude in Boston, it costs roughly $1 billion to add one train station. An extra 3 stations makes a transit system better, but not going to move the needle in their favor.
Expanding public transportation is super expensive (thanks to unions and contractors and general government inefficiency) and time consuming. Amazon wants a city with an existing robust transportation network.
Amazon would to tell them to fuck off. $3 billion directly in your pocket is better than $3 billion for the city they operate in. Why settle for crumbs when you can take the whole pie?
Unless NYC wants to give them space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and build a subway directly there. That’d make the Brooklyn Tech Triangle pretty legit.
Son of a bitch. Albany had such a strong presentation, I thought my hometown was a shoe-in.
http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/What-Amazon-in-Albany-might-…
IMO likelihood of Amazon HQ#2 Spots.
1) Chicago 2) Atlanta 3) Dallas 4) Boston 5) Columbus.
Anyone agree or have opposing thoughts?
I think you should replace Dallas with Austin, the tech scene there is just much better, also think Columbus has no chance.
I do like Austin and how cheap it is there but the appeal of a bigger city like Dallas which has more developmental abilities, transit system, good source of talent, etc. I like Columbus's geographic region, rather good chance to grab major university talent nearby in neighboring states, cheap real estate, and chance to have a major impact in that city and place a culture that will be their own. We shall find out soon enough haha.
Pretty much agree with you:
I think you're crazy for including Columbus. It'd be insanely hard to recruit any talent which is a huge priority for them.
Haha we shall see if they throw us a curveball and pick Columbus. You heard it here first ;)
It's really Boston or Atlanta. Atlanta is perfect for them and for Bezos. Georgia is a fiscally conservative state and very welcoming for Business and tax incentives, which helps Amazon Corporate. Atlanta is a socially liberal city in the south, but not really the "south", which appeals to Bezos and his more liberal mindset. He just donated $30 million to the Dreamers. Atlanta is affordable and probably the top international airport in the US. Also, and this is really unrelated, but Atlanta is a majority black city, which doesn't really mean anything, but I thought it showed its liberal tendencies by its racial demographics. Lots of tech geeks making 6 figures are liberals, whereas lots of finance hardos making 6 figures and conservatives. ATL it is.
The way I see Atlanta / Boston is basically the choice between Georgia Tech and MIT. The massively cheaper, very high performing tech school (/location) versus the much more expensive, incrementally better tech school. If Amazon must be next to the "best talent at any cost" they will locate in Boston. Otherwise, Atlanta is a clear choice and they would own the city.
Logistics wise, ATL is the much better choice, obviously, with the airport and logistics infrastructure.
I agree with Atlanta 100% especially because they can recruit hard there. Georgia Tech, Emory, UGA, etc.
I live in Philly, and seeing Philly on the list made me lol so hard.
Sure we have a ton of good schools and tech talent, but public transport / commuter appeal? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA......
Heard from someone familiar with the matter it's Atlanta...
I would think its: - Atlanta - Dallas - Austin - Chicago - Boston - DC
Not in any order. I would add Denver but maybe too far West.
I agree with this list. In fact, I would be floored if they actually went with a city other than one of these 6 (and maybe Denver). As others have said, I think they are just dragging this thing out to possibly increase the bids from the few cities they are actually considering and/or increase media hype around this.
Any chance Nashville has a shot, or is it just a placeholder?
Denver or Austin due to the young professional attractiveness and both cities are experiencing modest growth.
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