Amazon $5 bil co-HQ's in play

[marcuscnelson]

It's unclear to me whether we'd have the support of the state in making that happen. NC is giving Apple an $845 million grant, that's no small number. And bigger problem, even if we did have Tallahassee's support to bring a company like Apple to Florida, why would it be here instead of in Miami?

[thelakelander]

Why would Apple want to be in Jax? That would be the first question that would pop in my mind before thinking about how to pull and incentives package together. Could they even fill the jobs they would need?

[jaxlongtimer]

It's unclear to me whether we'd have the support of the state in making that happen. NC is giving Apple an $845 million grant, that's no small number. And bigger problem, even if we did have Tallahassee's support to bring a company like Apple to Florida, why would it be here instead of in Miami?

My point is you don't get if you don't try.  Your approach would lead to not even trying. 

My question is what are we doing to even position ourselves to pursue these opportunities?  As in the case of Amazon, these tech companies are looking for certain qualities in a community that we don't appear to currently possess in full.

As to your question of state backing, the state can back multiple sites and those local sites can layer on top of that.  NC supported this site but maybe also Charlotte.  No doubt, they just wanted to be sure it was in NC.

As to the NC state subsidy, much of this is because they have a personal income tax and they are reinvesting the Apple employees' expected income taxes back into attracting Apple.  Since Florida is a lower tax state, we wouldn't have to reinvest so much since we are not taking it out to begin with.  There are lots of ways to level the playing field.  It's all about being creative.

Why would Apple want to be in Jax? That would be the first question that would pop in my mind before thinking about how to pull and incentives package together. Could they even fill the jobs they would need?

How do we know the answer if we are not pursuing them?  How do we leverage our "failures" to build for success in the future?  If you read the article, you will see that NC was spurned several times by Apple before finally landing them.  You don't think they made adjustments along the way and worked to address Apple's desires?  Jax used this approach in pursuing the NFL.  Why not for major wins like this?

[thelakelander]

We certainly tried for Amazon and was pretty far away from what they were looking for. The best way to compete for these types of opportunities is to first start investing in yourself, your quality of life and establishing an environment they can actually work within.

How do we know the answer if we are not pursing them?  How do we leverage our "failures" to build for success in the future?  If you read the article, you will see that NC was spurned several times by Apple before finally landing them.  You don't think they made adjustments along the way and worked to address Apple's desires?  Jax used this approach in pursuing the NFL.  Why not for major wins like this?

What does Wake have that we don't that was very attractive to them? Those schools up there blow us away....What is our local comparable to Research Triangle Park?

[jaxlongtimer]

We certainly tried for Amazon and was pretty far away from what they were looking for. The best way to compete for these types of opportunities is to first start investing in yourself, your quality of life and establishing an environment they can actually work within.

Exactly!  And I don't think we do enough of that... we are too distracted by less meaningful projects that have little to no payback a few years after they are completed, if at all.  AV's and Lot J are just the latest examples of that.

Imagine if we boosted our primary, secondary and higher educational institutions, generally, and, specifically, to cater more to high tech needs.  And, improved our park system, accelerated urban core projects like the Emerald Trail, cleaned up more of the City, took transit to another level (no pun on raising it to the level of the Skyway ), etc.  I am sure the City knows the list by now but I wonder if anyone is focused on it.  It doesn't appear to be so.

[thelakelander]

^That's part of the struggle. We're still not really investing in ourselves. We're doing a lot more talking now and there's more will to spend money on enhancing our quality of life. Yet, we still haven't actually implemented any of these necessary investments.

[jaxlongtimer]

^That's part of the struggle. We're still not really investing in ourselves. We're doing a lot more talking now and there's more will to spend money on enhancing our quality of life. Yet, we still haven't actually implemented any of these necessary investments.

Imagine redirecting $240 million for Lot J and $400 million for AV's to growing our educational institutions!  That should take us to a higher level right there.  The return on investment in higher paying jobs, more employment and less crime would be amazing.  Far more than the original intended uses.

[jaxlongtimer]

Just read this little tidbit about Google:

The median employee compensation rose to $273,493 from $258,708 in 2019...

https://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-stock-momentum-will-be-tested-in-first-quarter-earnings-report/?src=A00220

Consider that's over 135,000+ employees at the end of 2020.  This is why we should be pursing more high tech jobs.

[CityLife]

^That's part of the struggle. We're still not really investing in ourselves. We're doing a lot more talking now and there's more will to spend money on enhancing our quality of life. Yet, we still haven't actually implemented any of these necessary investments.

Imagine redirecting $240 million for Lot J and $400 million for AV's to growing our educational institutions!  That should take us to a higher level right there.  The return on investment in higher paying jobs, more employment and less crime would be amazing.  Far more than the original intended uses.

It would take a while lot more than $640 million to make Jacksonville's schools even close to the caliber of Duke, UNC, Wake Forest, and NC State.

Duke's endowment is $12.16 billion
UNC's endowment is $3.8 billion
Wake's endowment is $1.35 billion
NC State's endowment is $1.42 billion

UNF's endowment is $116 million

Duke and UNC each have more than the combined endowments of the entire twelve universities in the State University System. Florida is still a young state economically and it's hard to compete with old money.

The grifters involved with One Spark tricked a lot of people in Jax into thinking it was a lot more than it was in terms of being a tech or startup hub, but the reality is that it still has a very long way to go to even be on the radar of any major players.

[jaxlongtimer]

^That's part of the struggle. We're still not really investing in ourselves. We're doing a lot more talking now and there's more will to spend money on enhancing our quality of life. Yet, we still haven't actually implemented any of these necessary investments.

Imagine redirecting $240 million for Lot J and $400 million for AV's to growing our educational institutions!  That should take us to a higher level right there.  The return on investment in higher paying jobs, more employment and less crime would be amazing.  Far more than the original intended uses.

It would take a while lot more than $640 million to make Jacksonville's schools even close to the caliber of Duke, UNC, Wake Forest, and NC State.

Duke's endowment is $12.16 billion
UNC's endowment is $3.8 billion
Wake's endowment is $1.35 billion
NC State's endowment is $1.42 billion

UNF's endowment is $116 million

Duke and UNC each have more than the combined endowments of the entire twelve universities in the State University System. Florida is still a young state economically and it's hard to compete with old money.

The grifters involved with One Spark tricked a lot of people in Jax into thinking it was a lot more than it was in terms of being a tech or startup hub, but the reality is that it still has a very long way to go to even be on the radar of any major players.

There is a big difference between invested endowments and spendable funds.  Spending (not investing) $640 million would take an endowment, at 3% returns, of $21+ billion.  And, I am not saying we can go from zero to 60 overnight, but it would be a big step forward from the present.  Also, if the funds are targeted toward software and hardware engineering, for example, vs. spreading it over an entire educational curriculum, facilities and student activities (as those endowments you mentioned likely do), it would be even more leveraged for this purpose.

[CityLife]

Of course there is a difference between endowments and spendable money, but I was merely highlighting how big the gap is between the two areas. For further comparison, UNC's yearly budget is $4 billion (30k students) compared to $320 million for UNF (17k students). The research triangle schools have advanced revenue streams that wouldn't even show up in an endowment.

Also, the $640 million you suggested would not have come as a lump sum payment from the general fund. It is from gas tax that is to be paid out over time and the Lot J portion was at least partially driven by revenue generating uses that do not exist without the project.

The research triangle is the envy of virtually every city in the country, due to having the aforementioned 4 major universities (including 2 of the best in the entire country) in close proximity. I like your optimism and drive to push things forward, but instead of trying to catch a unicorn, Jax should focus on something more achievable, imo. I'm not privy to what's feasible for Jax, but highly doubt it's major offices for Google, Apple, or Amazon.

[marcuscnelson]

We could probably snag some tech firm moving out of California or even one of the financial firms leaving New York, but the challenge is getting them here vs Miami.

DCPS is starting to gather the funds from the sales tax, so hopefully we'll see some of that money get put to use for building our K12 stuff. But going forward we probably need to tie DCPS and FSCJ closer together in terms of producing talented kids, and tie ourselves as close as we can to UF if we're going to try and compete in the longer run.

I personally fail to see how the U2C would provide a genuinely attractive transit option vs Charlotte's LRT or Miami's fixed people mover. But I'm not completely sure of the path to picking a more sensible option at this point. Either way, providing useful regional transportation is going to be important.

Beyond that, actually getting out of our own way and putting together a concentrated center of activity downtown is probably a priority. The type of talent we need to attract needs to want to live here.

[jaxlongtimer]

Of course there is a difference between endowments and spendable money, but I was merely highlighting how big the gap is between the two areas. For further comparison, UNC's yearly budget is $4 billion (30k students) compared to $320 million for UNF (17k students). The research triangle schools have advanced revenue streams that wouldn't even show up in an endowment.

Also, the $640 million you suggested would not have come as a lump sum payment from the general fund. It is from gas tax that is to be paid out over time and the Lot J portion was at least partially driven by revenue generating uses that do not exist without the project.

The research triangle is the envy of virtually every city in the country, due to having the aforementioned 4 major universities (including 2 of the best in the entire country) in close proximity. I like your optimism and drive to push things forward, but instead of trying to catch a unicorn, Jax should focus on something more achievable, imo. I'm not privy to what's feasible for Jax, but highly doubt it's major offices for Google, Apple, or Amazon.

I get your perspective but there are cities that started with less than Jax and are passing us by.  Even Orlando has a decent tech industry.  And, cities like Nashville (just attracted a big Amazon center and now Apple) are moving ahead of us too.  What are these cities doing differently than us?  That is the question.

In many respects, I think we may be selling ourselves short - that we have more assets than we give ourselves credit for.  This makes me think it is very much a lack of leadership and marketing focus aside from other issues we may have.

For example, we have had some big wins leading to a robust and large (some reports say among the world's largest) fintech industry here so we aren't completely backwoods.  Medical technology could also be more front and center.  We should be leveraging this status quo to attract more diverse tech jobs around those cores but I don't see where the City has its act fully together to do so.

I might add that what is not well recognized is how many tech employees work from home here because they can live wherever they wish.  I was told by a technology company employee once that they have over 400 mostly home-based employees living here.  Most report to various out-of-town corporate divisions and there is no central facility here to identify them.  How many others in our midst here work for big tech companies?  What could we do to build upon these opportunities, especially with COVID's impact?

As to funding, I have understood that the $640 million I brought up would be immediately available because it would be bonded.  Just like the school board tax.  I will agree that without revenue from Lot J, that $240 million would not be bondable.  My real point was to show that this City can find hundreds of millions of dollars when it wants to.  As such, I don't buy that we don't have the money to invest to bring us up to a higher level.  Instead, we squander it on low or negative ROI projects.

A few more tidbits:

Apple's web site says they have at least 250 employees in 29 different cities and have increased by 28x its employment outside of California since 2000.  Plus this:

Apple plans to grow its employee base in regions across the United States over the next three years, expanding to over 1,000 employees in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City each, and adding hundreds of new jobs in Pittsburgh, New York, Boulder, Boston and Portland, Oregon. The company recently opened its newest office in Nashville, Tennessee and Apple's Miami office is projected to double in size.

And this:


Google has operations in dozens of US cities but only one in Florida (Miami):  https://careers.google.com/locations/?src=Online%2FHouse%20Ads%2FAdSitelinks

Microsoft is more centered on large cities:  https://careers.microsoft.com/professionals/us/en/locations#North-America

[thelakelander]

I get your perspective but there are cities that started with less than Jax and are passing us by.  Even Orlando has a decent tech industry.  And, cities like Nashville (just attracted a big Amazon center and now Apple) are moving ahead of us too.  What are these cities doing differently than us?  That is the question.

In many respects, I think we may be selling ourselves short - that we have more assets than we give ourselves credit for.  This makes me think it is very much a lack of leadership and marketing focus aside from other issues we may have.

To be honest, these places are out of our league economically. While we were once larger, those two cities in particular, passed Jax by back in the 1980s and 90s....before the urban real estate booms of the past two decades that they took full advantage of and that we flopped on. While it is important not to sell ourselves short, we also have to be realistic on our short comings, where we need to make quality of life investments and how long it takes for those things to play out successfully. A Raleigh, Orlando or Nashville may land something sexy today but that's also a result of 30 years of hard work in the making with some of these communities.

For example, we have had some big wins leading to a robust and large (some reports say among the world's largest) fintech industry here so we aren't completely backwoods.  Medical technology could also be more front and center.  We should be leveraging this status quo to attract more diverse tech jobs around those cores but I don't see where the City has its act fully together to do so.

This would suggest more focus on what our community is well poised to take advantage of. There's a lot of good paying jobs with many industries catered to our community. We certainly should go after these opportunities and we can, without wasting too much energy going after big fishes we don't have the capacity to catch or keep alive long term in our fish bowl.

A few more tidbits:

Apple's web site says they have at least 250 employees in 29 different cities and have increased by 28x its employment outside of California since 2000.  Plus this:

Apple plans to grow its employee base in regions across the United States over the next three years, expanding to over 1,000 employees in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City each, and adding hundreds of new jobs in Pittsburgh, New York, Boulder, Boston and Portland, Oregon. The company recently opened its newest office in Nashville, Tennessee and Apple's Miami office is projected to double in size.

All of these places are an economic tier above Jax and it's set of peers. The smallest metro on this list, still has 2 million people (Boulder is an extension of Denver, IMO). That's significantly larger and that's not even counting the vibrant downtown, being a state capital, major tourist destination and being home to multiple places of higher learning like Vanderbilt. That's something to keep in mind too, without going to route of selling ourselves too short.

[jaxjags]

It's unclear to me whether we'd have the support of the state in making that happen. NC is giving Apple an $845 million grant, that's no small number. And bigger problem, even if we did have Tallahassee's support to bring a company like Apple to Florida, why would it be here instead of in Miami?

Similar to support given to Boeing in Charleston SC.  I don't see FL doing that.