Amazon $5 bil co-HQ's in play

[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?

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

Don't underestimate Florida.  As of 2015, Florida did this:

Florida   Scripps Research Institute   $545,000,000   

And those were 2003 dollars (adjusted for inflation, might be pushing $800 million to a billion in today's dollars - on par with No. Carolina's offer to Apple).

In raw dollars, it easily passed or was on par with the biggest subsidies as of 2015 by states like California (to Northrop Grumman), Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky (for General Motors x2 and Toyota), Georgia (Hyundai), Connecticut (for United Technologies) and many others.

And, how much do you think the State has assisted Disney, Universal, Sea World, Busch Gardens, the cruise lines, etc. via "in kind" support like roads, expanded airports and ports, other infrastructure, tax benefits (Disney even has its own "tax district" outside of any local government), etc. 

Add the State's low tax structure as the ultimate subsidy for every business to come here.  Many state "subsidies" are really just a return of business taxes that Florida doesn't charge in the first place so appearances can be deceiving.

Here is the full list of largest subsidies by state as of 2015 from the Washington Post ("number" refers to the number of grants):

State   Parent company   Dollars   Number
Alaska   Teck Resources   $267,000,000   3
Alabama   ArcelorMittal   $1,073,000,000   1
Arkansas   Big River Steel   $139,500,000   1
Arizona   Thomas J. Klutznick Co.   $97,400,000   1
California   Northrop Grumman   $429,887,998   19
Colorado   Starwood Property Trust   $300,000,000   1
Connecticut   United Technologies   $400,000,000   1
District of Columbia   Western Development Corp.   $84,000,000   1
Delaware   AstraZeneca   $178,129,581   8
Florida   Scripps Research Institute   $545,000,000   1
Georgia   Hyundai Motor   $410,000,000   1
Hawaii   Hawaiian Electric Industries   $31,642   4
Iowa   Orascom Group   $251,000,000   1
Idaho   Areva   $276,000,000   1
Illinois   Sears   $531,717,810   9
Indiana   General Motors   $593,409,543   44
Kansas   General Motors   $417,866,917   6
Kentucky   Toyota   $551,883,698   30
Louisiana   Sempra Energy   $2,197,286,212   10
Massachusetts   Energy Management Inc.   $99,500,000   1
Maryland   Dominion Resources   $506,000,000   1
Maine   General Dynamics   $198,485,942   18
Michigan   General Motors   $1,989,982,174   114
Minnesota   Delta Air Lines   $838,000,000   1
Missouri   Cerner   $1,650,819,257   16
Mississippi   Nissan   $1,263,530,210   12
Montana   DirecTV   $2,415,000   2
North Carolina   Apple   $336,485,233   3
North Dakota   Oaktree Capital Management   $800,000   2
Nebraska   ConAgra Foods   $161,619,702   7
New Hampshire   General Electric   $268,119   3
New Jersey   Prudential Financial   $434,105,947   18
New Mexico   Intel   $2,659,370,233   41
Nevada   Tesla Motors   $1,287,000,000   1
New York   Alcoa   $5,600,376,849   13
Ohio   Fiat Chrysler Automobiles   $240,654,338   15
Oklahoma   Weyerhaeuser   $158,195,225   4
Oregon   Intel   $3,132,515,215   25
Pennsylvania   Royal Dutch Shell   $1,650,000,000   1
Rhode Island   General Growth Properties   $140,000,000   1
South Carolina   Boeing   $1,020,000,000   6
South Dakota   Terex   $2,205,000   1
Tennessee   Volkswagen   $818,800,000   11
Texas   Berkshire Hathaway   $802,720,000   29
Utah   Micron Technology   $171,061,598   5
Virginia   Huntington Ingalls Industries   $98,000,000   1
Vermont   General Electric   $13,322,120   8
Washington   Boeing   $11,945,527,815   52
Wisconsin   Brunswick   $123,000,000   2
West Virginia   Cabela's   $127,523,480   2
Wyoming   Brain Farm Digital Cinema   $96,935   1

GRAPHIC: Good Jobs First. Published March 17, 2015.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/03/17/the-united-states-of-subsidies-the-biggest-corporate-winners-in-each-state/

[CityLife]

I'm glad you posted this. In my previous response, I almost posted that people in Jax need to study what Palm Beach County did to attract Scripps and the Max Planck Institutes and what Orlando has done in Lake Nona. Each of them were long term and calculated efforts, with buy in and commitment from local leaders. Scripps is in my neighborhood in Jupiter, so I'm familiar with it. It wasn't wholly funded by the state. The $545 million was a combination of state and local dollars. I believe the state's total payout was $300 million, which was paid out over a long period.

What would Jacksonville spend $300 million of state dollars on it it could? I legitimately don't know, because I don't think the City even does...

[CityLife]

....Which leads to this post. If you ever want to figure out why Jax has gotten passed by so many others, look no further than the Jax Chamber website. This is truly, truly embarrassing. If you are an out of state/country business, what does this website tell you?

https://www.myjaxchamber.com/

I can't even find anything about Mayo Clinic or UF Health on the website. The website is on par with what I would expect from a place like Lake City or Palm Coast. Heck, even Macon, Georgia has a better website and that is the only podunk place I checked. https://www.maconchamber.com/#/

Now look at the Palm Beach County Business Development Board website. https://www.bdb.org/

How about Orlando's https://business.orlando.org/

[JBTripper]

©2013 JAX Chamber

Yikes.

....Which leads to this post. If you ever want to figure out why Jax has gotten passed by so many others, look no further than the Jax Chamber website. This is truly, truly embarrassing. If you are an out of state/country business, what does this website tell you?

https://www.myjaxchamber.com/

I can't even find anything about Mayo Clinic or UF Health on the website. The website is on par with what I would expect from a place like Lake City or Palm Coast. Heck, even Macon, Georgia has a better website and that is the only podunk place I checked. https://www.maconchamber.com/#/

Now look at the Palm Beach County Business Development Board website. https://www.bdb.org/

How about Orlando's https://business.orlando.org/

[jaxlongtimer]

....Which leads to this post. If you ever want to figure out why Jax has gotten passed by so many others, look no further than the Jax Chamber website. This is truly, truly embarrassing. If you are an out of state/country business, what does this website tell you?

https://www.myjaxchamber.com/

I can't even find anything about Mayo Clinic or UF Health on the website. The website is on par with what I would expect from a place like Lake City or Palm Coast. Heck, even Macon, Georgia has a better website and that is the only podunk place I checked. https://www.maconchamber.com/#/

Now look at the Palm Beach County Business Development Board website. https://www.bdb.org/

How about Orlando's https://business.orlando.org/

In fairness, the Chamber's main recruiting site is under the JaxUSA Partnership at:  https://jaxusa.org/.  This appears to be more like the Chamber links cited above.

That said, I have read we have one of the largest Chamber memberships in the US.  My guess, based on the web site, is our Chamber has a disproportionate interest in maintaining memberships.  They have a lot of overhead including their nice Class A building and a CEO who makes mid-6 figures (and wants to promote himself as he runs for mayor).  Reflecting our elected officials, more misplaced priorities.

At a minimum, the Chamber website should make it more obvious that JaxUSA is the place to go for out-of-town recruitment.  It barely merits a mention on the Chamber site and then only after clicking on a drop down menu.  Further, the link to the JaxUSA site is buried half way down the page in small type.  Really?  This is the best they can do?  Definitely Podunk for an organization who's main mission is to promote jobs coming to the City.

[MusicMan]

"What would Jacksonville spend $300 million of state dollars on it it could?"

Well, the clown cars on the skyway, for one.....

[bl8jaxnative]

I'd love to see a video where they take some clips from u2C promo, speed it up and play the Benny Hill theme song.

[thelakelander]

That would be hilarious!

[jaxlongtimer]

Intel is proposing a mega project a la Amazon: $60 to $120 billion for multiple fab facilities on one super-campus with 10,000 employees.

Criteria appear to include land, infrastructure, energy, and proximity to universities (to recruit employees).

I am guessing a 1,000 acre Cecil mega-site might be of interest depending on how close to universities they want to be.  At that location, they would be within about 1 hour of UF, minutes from Jax area colleges and about 3 hours from FSU and UCF.

Anyone want to opine on Jax's chances of landing this one?

...."We are looking broadly across the U.S.," Gelsinger told the Washington Post. "This would be a very large site, so six to eight fab modules, and at each of those fab modules, between 10- and $15 billion. It's a project over the next decade on the order of $100 billion of capital, 10,000 direct jobs. 100,000 jobs are created as a result of those 10,000, by our experience. So, essentially, we want to build a little city."

At this point, Intel does not disclose which nodes the first module of the fab will support. Yet, since it will start operations sometime in 2024 at the earliest, the new facility will probably produce chips using the Intel 4 and the Intel 3 manufacturing technologies. Eventually, the fab complex will adopt more advanced fabrication technologies. The production capacity of the upcoming fab is unknown, so is its location. Intel needs to build its next manufacturing in a location with well-developed infrastructure, adequate supply of water and energy. Also, the company plans to build it near big cities with universities in a bid to higher qualified personnel.

"We're engaging with a number of states across the United States today who are giving us proposals for site locations, energy, water, environmentals, near universities, skill capacity, and I expect to make an announcement about that location before the end of this year," Gelsinger said....

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-spend-up-to-120-billion-on-new-us-manufacturing-hub

[marcuscnelson]

I wouldn't have a ton of faith in landing it, but I'm not opposed to putting out a bid anyway. Nothing wrong with giving it the ol' college try.

From a positioning standpoint, a place like Lake Nona might be able to put one over on us. It's also unfortunate that a site near Cecil means that they wouldn't be able to really enjoy being in the city. They'd be effectively connected to likely Oakleaf from a livability standpoint, which might not be optimal for the types of workers they'd want to attract.

[jaxlongtimer]

I wouldn't have a ton of faith in landing it, but I'm not opposed to putting out a bid anyway. Nothing wrong with giving it the ol' college try.

From a positioning standpoint, a place like Lake Nona might be able to put one over on us. It's also unfortunate that a site near Cecil means that they wouldn't be able to really enjoy being in the city. They'd be effectively connected to likely Oakleaf from a livability standpoint, which might not be optimal for the types of workers they'd want to attract.

Intel will likely be looking more for high tech manufacturing workers than software engineers so their labor needs might favor an area like Jax a little more.  Also, this is 10,000 workers, not the 50,000 Amazon was looking to host so the city size might be a better match.  Lastly, I have to believe that it will take closer to 1,000 acres (or more) to handle their build out and I doubt there is any significant city that can offer that kind of land "close in" or even in their inner suburbs.  Cecil may be as good as it gets in terms of relative distance.  A project like this will pull people from many miles around, far beyond the distance to Oakleaf, no matter where they go.  As such, I don't think that would really be a factor.

Regarding energy, an intriguing possibility for a Florida facility would be pairing it with an on-site or utility matched solar farm.  Cheap and reliable power would have to be of great interest.  They apparently also care a lot about availability of water.  That may rule out the entire western US given their ongoing drought conditions.  We won't even mention trying to keep forest fire smoke out of their clean rooms.

[marcuscnelson]

I was thinking Lake Nona in terms of the general atmosphere of the area developing, plus the proximity to UCF which is big on engineering if I remember right. I feel like it'll be tough to really make the case for Florida over the existing new tech hubs like Texas and North Carolina. Even if they're different from software workers, generally they'll try to consolidate in the same areas.

Of course, one of the most important things is going to be where whoever is in charge of this wants to live. That's how we landed Bill Foley and Fidelity two decades ago. So Jacksonville would have to answer the question of why that person would want to live here, and why they should.

[thelakelander]

Their Arizona operation is 14 miles from Arizona State University, not one to three hours away. I'd find it very hard to believe that Cecil Field would be the type of location this type of operation would be seeking. It will be interesting to who gets selected and close or dramatically different that site will be in comparison to Cecil.

[fsu813]

Intel is proposing a mega project a la Amazon: $60 to $120 billion for multiple fab facilities on one super-campus with 10,000 employees.

Criteria appear to include land, infrastructure, energy, and proximity to universities (to recruit employees).

I am guessing a 1,000 acre Cecil mega-site might be of interest depending on how close to universities they want to be.  At that location, they would be within about 1 hour of UF, minutes from Jax area colleges and about 3 hours from FSU and UCF.

Anyone want to opine on Jax's chances of landing this one?

...."We are looking broadly across the U.S.," Gelsinger told the Washington Post. "This would be a very large site, so six to eight fab modules, and at each of those fab modules, between 10- and $15 billion. It's a project over the next decade on the order of $100 billion of capital, 10,000 direct jobs. 100,000 jobs are created as a result of those 10,000, by our experience. So, essentially, we want to build a little city."

At this point, Intel does not disclose which nodes the first module of the fab will support. Yet, since it will start operations sometime in 2024 at the earliest, the new facility will probably produce chips using the Intel 4 and the Intel 3 manufacturing technologies. Eventually, the fab complex will adopt more advanced fabrication technologies. The production capacity of the upcoming fab is unknown, so is its location. Intel needs to build its next manufacturing in a location with well-developed infrastructure, adequate supply of water and energy. Also, the company plans to build it near big cities with universities in a bid to higher qualified personnel.

"We're engaging with a number of states across the United States today who are giving us proposals for site locations, energy, water, environmentals, near universities, skill capacity, and I expect to make an announcement about that location before the end of this year," Gelsinger said....

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-spend-up-to-120-billion-on-new-us-manufacturing-hub

Step 1:

Put a MovetoJax.net billboard outside the Intel HQ.

Step 2:

Wait.

[jaxlongtimer]

Their Arizona operation is 14 miles from Arizona State University, not one to three hours away. I'd find it very hard to believe that Cecil Field would be the type of location this type of operation would be seeking. It will be interesting to who gets selected and close or dramatically different that site will be in comparison to Cecil.

Intel also has huge operations in New Mexico and Oregon.  The closest significant universities appear to be the Univ. of New Mexico and Univ. of Portland.  As the crow flies, they are in the range of 10 to 15 miles apart in each location.  On this basis, UNF is about 21 miles.  I would think UNF might be on par in many respects with those schools and that an additional 7 to 10 miles would not be that meaningful.  If those schools have programs of interest to Intel, I would imagine it's because Intel underwrote them or had those universities otherwise develop them to attract and/or retain Intel in the first place.  If so, Intel could facilitate that model wherever they choose to go if it isn't already in place.  Regardless, we will know in due course how this plays out.  I am sure Intel will have lots of options nationwide.