Amazon $5 bil co-HQ's in play

[thelakelander]

Rochester? Who's from that city that also happens to be employed at Moody's?

[ProjectMaximus]

Considering the reports that Toronto and Boston have both been discussed heavily by Amazon execs in the last few years, they must certainly be high on the list. I agree about Philly being a great match, and Austin (tech + Whole Foods) and Pittsburgh (tech + two Amazon execs from there) as well.

That said, if it ain't coming to Jax I would personally love to see Baltimore get this.

[MusicMan]

Toronto and Boston are two of the most expensive cities to do business in North America.  You have to pay more for everything there, salaries, real estate, taxes......   Not sure if that will influence Amazon but you can't pay $50,000 there to anyone but a first year employee.

I like Baltimore too. Could see that getting it.

[thelakelander]

Lol, a Georgia city is offering to change its name to Amazon if it's selected...

Metros go wild in grab for Amazon HQ2

Becoming the home of HQ2, you need to realize, is not just some heavyweight business recruitment event. Nor is it simply, as one newspaper has named it, "the mother of all bidding wars."

It is a metropolitan anointing.

Already, we see dozens upon dozens of metros on steroids, employing a one-upmanship in marketing muscle, financial preening and political machismo.

We have a bevy of metros that all claim to have established "war rooms" with the sole mission of figuring out the right mojo to convince Amazon to come their way.

Detroit's war room has some 40 folks around the clock in a quest lead by Quicken Loans founder and city savior Dan Gilbert. "Amazon HQ2 Team Pittsburgh" -- as it has been dubbed -- operates its war room out of office space in Two PNC Plaza Downtown donated by the bank. Even Tulsa's got one.

Some metros feel obligated to throw their hat into the HQ2 ring even if they are not at their best at the moment. Gary, Ind., says it's in the game even as it fights Rust Belt fatigue. St. Louis says it should be The One, suggesting to Amazon its arrival would serve as a renaissance to a metro area hard hit by racial tensions.


Tucson gets the early novelty award by sending Bezos the city's trademark saguaro cactus as a gift. It was returned. But probably not forgotten.

Best yet (or most absurd), a new town born in 2016 and named Stonecrest in the Atlanta suburbs has offered to change its name to Amazon and will pony up 345 free acres for HQ2.

All this and much, much more around the country is viewed with shock, awe and some amusement by Craig Richard, the CEO of Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corp. In a salute to Florida's recent battle with Mother Nature, he calls the race of HQ2 our "Hurricane Amazon." It's a Cat 6 event, he said, looking for new ways to grasp its scope.

"This is like putting together a bid for the Super Bowl in three weeks," Richard said.

Full article: http://www.theledger.com/news/20171015/metros-go-wild-in-grab-for-amazon-hq2

[jaxnyc79]

Losing its soul to gain the whole world...

Lol, a Georgia city is offering to change its name to Amazon if it's selected...

Metros go wild in grab for Amazon HQ2

Becoming the home of HQ2, you need to realize, is not just some heavyweight business recruitment event. Nor is it simply, as one newspaper has named it, "the mother of all bidding wars."

It is a metropolitan anointing.

Already, we see dozens upon dozens of metros on steroids, employing a one-upmanship in marketing muscle, financial preening and political machismo.

We have a bevy of metros that all claim to have established "war rooms" with the sole mission of figuring out the right mojo to convince Amazon to come their way.

Detroit's war room has some 40 folks around the clock in a quest lead by Quicken Loans founder and city savior Dan Gilbert. "Amazon HQ2 Team Pittsburgh" -- as it has been dubbed -- operates its war room out of office space in Two PNC Plaza Downtown donated by the bank. Even Tulsa's got one.

Some metros feel obligated to throw their hat into the HQ2 ring even if they are not at their best at the moment. Gary, Ind., says it's in the game even as it fights Rust Belt fatigue. St. Louis says it should be The One, suggesting to Amazon its arrival would serve as a renaissance to a metro area hard hit by racial tensions.


Tucson gets the early novelty award by sending Bezos the city's trademark saguaro cactus as a gift. It was returned. But probably not forgotten.

Best yet (or most absurd), a new town born in 2016 and named Stonecrest in the Atlanta suburbs has offered to change its name to Amazon and will pony up 345 free acres for HQ2.

All this and much, much more around the country is viewed with shock, awe and some amusement by Craig Richard, the CEO of Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corp. In a salute to Florida's recent battle with Mother Nature, he calls the race of HQ2 our "Hurricane Amazon." It's a Cat 6 event, he said, looking for new ways to grasp its scope.

"This is like putting together a bid for the Super Bowl in three weeks," Richard said.

Full article: http://www.theledger.com/news/20171015/metros-go-wild-in-grab-for-amazon-hq2

[Pastor Eric Wester]

For a Maryland perspective on chances for Baltimore (light rail and direct highway access to vibrant airport, nearby urban core and high caliber universities) see a Washington Post article in Sunday's edition (Metro section). Authors Christopher Summers and Stephen J. K. Walters suggest tax concessions combined with a waiting campus (final completion in 2019) being finalized by Under Armour's Kevin Plank present a legitimate possibility. For those of you watching closely....I have no prediction.

[Lunican]

This whole thing seems ridiculous. Why does Amazon even need an "HQ2" with 50,000 employees? 

Walmart employs 18,000 people at their headquarters in Bentonville with a revenue of $486 Billion and Amazon needs a second headquarters with 50,000 people to sell crap online? Their revenue is only $136 Billion and what Walmart does is definitely more difficult.

Oh yeah, and now that Walmart plans to ramp up online sales Amazon better watch out.

It just seems unrealistic to me. I think Amazon likes to stay in the news and this has everyone talking about how fast they are growing and how they will dominate the market.

[Jim]

This whole thing seems ridiculous. Why does Amazon even need an "HQ2" with 50,000 employees? 

Walmart employs 18,000 people at their headquarters in Bentonville with a revenue of $486 Billion and Amazon needs a second headquarters with 50,000 people to sell crap online? Their revenue is only $136 Billion and what Walmart does is definitely more difficult.

Oh yeah, and now that Walmart plans to ramp up online sales Amazon better watch out.

It just seems unrealistic to me. I think Amazon likes to stay in the news and this has everyone talking about how fast they are growing and how they will dominate the market.

Amazon is way more than just an e-store front.

The own Audible, Twitch, Whole Foods, have one of the largest data center solutions on Earth, Kindle tablets and services, Music, Video, production studios....and on and on.

Wal-mart is a small operation compared to the breadth of Amazon.

[jaxlongtimer]

Looks like some cities may realize the futility of running in this "horse race."  San Antonio has withdrawn, apparently not willing to sell itself out with unaffordable incentives.

San Antonio's economic development leaders explored a potential bid to attempt to woo Amazon's second headquarters, but have decided not to submit the paperwork that's due on Oct. 19, officials confirmed to the Business Journal.

Amazon.com Inc. put out an open call for cities across North America to pitch the technology giant, economic incentive packages in hand, in an open request for proposals last month. The Seattle-based company seeks to bring 50,000 new jobs to the market it chooses for its so-called HQ2.

"After mobilizing our project team of private and public-sector partners, we conducted a robust review as part of our regular proposal development process," Erica Hurtak, spokeswoman for the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, said in a statement.

Hurtak touted San Antonio's quality of life, affordable housing and current workforce.

"But we can always get better. We determined that as aspirational as we are about our community's potential, we simply wouldn't be highly competitive from a real estate and incentives perspective," Hurtak said.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff also penned an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. For a full copy of the letter click here.

"As aspirational and confident as we are about our community, we're not submitting a formal proposal," the letter said. "It's hard to imagine that a forward-thinking company like Amazon hasn't already selected its preferred location ... blindly giving away the farm isn't our style."

Suggestion that San Antonio would be pulling out of a potential bid for Amazon was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.

The announcement comes just after Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn wrote an open letter to Bezos pitching Texas — though not a particular city — for the new HQ2.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2017/10/12/san-antonio-pulls-out-of-pursuit-of-amazons-new.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

[MusicMan]

"Wal-mart is a small operation compared to the breadth of Amazon."

You got that wrong.

With $482 billion in revenue, Wal-Mart sells more than Apple, Amazon and Microsoft put together, according to Fortune's annual ranking of companies by revenue, released yesterday (June 6 2016). It's bigger than the No. 2 company, Exxon Mobil, and No. 3, Apple, combined. Its sales are greater than the GDP of Poland.

[JBTripper]

This whole thing seems ridiculous. Why does Amazon even need an "HQ2" with 50,000 employees? 

Walmart employs 18,000 people at their headquarters in Bentonville with a revenue of $486 Billion and Amazon needs a second headquarters with 50,000 people to sell crap online? Their revenue is only $136 Billion and what Walmart does is definitely more difficult.

Oh yeah, and now that Walmart plans to ramp up online sales Amazon better watch out.

It just seems unrealistic to me. I think Amazon likes to stay in the news and this has everyone talking about how fast they are growing and how they will dominate the market.

Clearly you have no concept of what it takes to run an e-commerce operation. Fanatics employs hundreds of people at their corporate headquarters in Jacksonville, and they do less than 1 1/100th of the revenue of Amazon at $1b annually. It actually takes quite a lot of people to sell crap online.

[Jim]

"Wal-mart is a small operation compared to the breadth of Amazon."

You got that wrong.

With $482 billion in revenue, Wal-Mart sells more than Apple, Amazon and Microsoft put together, according to Fortune's annual ranking of companies by revenue, released yesterday (June 6 2016). It's bigger than the No. 2 company, Exxon Mobil, and No. 3, Apple, combined. Its sales are greater than the GDP of Poland.

I said breadth, Music man.  Not revenue. 

Wal-mart is a very narrow company for its size.  Its overwhelming focus is on its retail stores.  Amazon has an incredibly wide scope of business from e-commerce, data centers, cloud computing, music/movie streaming, Whole Foods, Twitch, Kindle, Audible, etc.....

[MusicMan]

I hear ya.  How many individual products are sold at Wal Mart?  Food, clothing, housewares, furniture, sporting goods, media, TV's, pharmaceuticals, gasoline, electronics, plants and landscape items, crafting goods, books, pet supplies ........................

Pretty broad consumer list there. I hear they are going to be offering e commerce soon, correct? 

These fields :e-commerce, data centers, cloud computing, music/movie streaming, Whole Foods, Twitch, Kindle, Audible, etc.....

are incredibly competitive. 

[Jim]

You are missing my point.  The corporate structure needed to support a retail chain (regardless of the range of items they sell) is much more narrow versus a company with a highly diverse business model with dozens of divisions and broad in scope.

Amazon revenue: $136 billion.
Kroger revenue: $115 billion.

Not much difference in revenue but vastly different in terms of diversity and scope of operations.  Would you presume Kroger needs the same HQ requirements as does Amazon just based on revenue?

[jaxlongtimer]

Good coverage of Jax's bid effort.  Full article at:

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/jacksonville-making-a-pitch-for-amazons-new-headquarters-how-will-it-stack-up

The bid is due Thursday, but Curry's office is not saying what's in it, such as the proposed sites or taxpayer incentives that would be offered.

A mayor's office spokeswoman also declined to say which entities were assisting in crafting the bid or when the city will officially submit its package to Amazon.

However, JAX Chamber, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, Jacksonville Aviation Authority and city utility JEA say they are involved.

Curry said in a statement Oct. 6 he believed "Jacksonville has all the attributes that make for a great place to do business — including a strong labor force, a low cost of doing business and a great quality of life."

Curry did not specify if he would include the labor force extending into other North Florida counties.