GTXVette said:Also for the Bid to Come here to the Atlanta area the proposed area has been named Amazon Ga.
I think that was Stonecrest's own pitch, not the official Atlanta pitch. That was shady anyway (just like the Stonecrest government).
GTXVette said:Also for the Bid to Come here to the Atlanta area the proposed area has been named Amazon Ga.
I think that was Stonecrest's own pitch, not the official Atlanta pitch. That was shady anyway (just like the Stonecrest government).
I've heard Chicago is offering the biggest incentive package out of all of them.
Pittsburgh has got cheap labor and land, but mass transit and urban congestion could make it hard. Amazon HQ could revitalize an area where traffic is less congested. Someplace like Hazelwood or North Side would be far more accessible via highway than downtown, Hill District or Southside, which seems to be highly congested these days.
I personally think it'll end up someplace with a light rail going past the site. Even if under utilized currently, existing rail lines going past an Amazon HQ would get a lot of use in the future.
Geographically.. If the toronto is not chosen.. some where near the biggest nodes at CVG airport will be chosen.
This means every western edge of eastern time zone or very eastern edge of central....
You guys are all thinking at a low level... Amazon has major business in India and Europe. Currently speaking to Europe from Seattle is a pain in the butt... very little overlap. I'm thinking what they will do is move global ops to a better "location" and keep the software, buying people in seattle.
I'd be very happy to see them come to Chicago. I'd be very very happy to see them setup either directly downtown on the south side, or out in the southern suburbs. Seems like if they do come to Chicago they will go north or west, but a guy can wish.
In reply to Robbie :
they already have a node around kenosha and a few prime now facilities in chicago.
Fueled by Caffeine said:Geographically.. If the toronto is not chosen.. some where near the biggest nodes at CVG airport will be chosen.
This means every western edge of eastern time zone or very eastern edge of central....
You guys are all thinking at a low level... Amazon has major business in India and Europe. Currently speaking to Europe from Seattle is a pain in the butt... very little overlap. I'm thinking what they will do is move global ops to a better "location" and keep the software, buying people in seattle.
This was my thinking as well. Eastern time zone. Easier travel to Europe and better coverage of the US.
3 of the finalists are DC area, where Bezos has strong ties, so I'd say that region probably has the best odds of landing it.
Toronto is intriguing. It's a well known city internationally and is far enough east. TheVisa thing is a real consideration. It's pretty cold and snowy a few months per year. I don't know enough about infrastructure like highways and rail lines. Any implications for dealing internationally? Obviously they already do it quite a bit, but potential drawbacks of having an HQ in 2 countries?
Atlanta has a giant airport, but it's super busy already. Operations would be less affected by weather though.
Columbus and Indianapolis seem like similar cities with similar benefits and drawbacks to me. Between them, it would come down to location, and the deal they'd work out.
Nashville seems like a decent choice. Has a reputation for more culture than Indy or Columbus. Cost of living is relatively low, and there are some tax advantages.
NYC, Boston, and Philly have tons of big, established city advantages, but real estate and CoL would be super high. Amazon would also be competing with numerous other companies in those cities for potential employees.
haha WaPo takes a swipe at its boss' retail competitor.
I think Atlanta's airport, film/tv industry, housing options and public transit make it a great choice. The airport is one of busiest/arguably best in the world - except when the power goes out. There is also an executive airport close to downtown. You can live urban, suburban or country - with many options in price point.
As an actual user of the public transit (train for 8 years, bus and train daily for the last 2 years) from the north suburbs into center of the city - it isn't perfect but it works. It is very common for people to crap on Marta, but 95% of those who do it - have never actually ridden. Commuting by car seriously sucks.
So all that said - I suspect Toronto will be the Amazon HQ2 site.
Atlanta is a terrible idea. Regardless of what it looks like on a map, it's horribly congested. Moving product through that city would be ridiculous.
Newark is also a horrible idea. Unless they are looking for Urban Renewal credits , or to win at corporate crime rates.
In reply to OHSCrifle :
Interesting. Apparently we have opposing views!
You are right about the airport, but unless the Amazon fulfillment center is right next door AND they intend to move 95% of their product by air, the airport is not that significant.
You are also right about Marta. That could be a boon to their employees, but not really to their customers.
Seems to me first and foremost, Amazon needs to be able to move trucks. That rules out ATL as far as I am concerned.
And I don't know where there biggest needs are for reaching their customers. I think that should be a primary consideration.
I have a fairly odd question. Does drone delivery have any impact? I did say odd. 
SVreX said:In reply to OHSCrifle :
Interesting. Apparently we have opposing views!
You are right about the airport, but unless the Amazon fulfillment center is right next door AND they intend to move 95% of their product by air, the airport is not that significant.
You are also right about Marta. That could be a boon to their employees, but not really to their customers.
Seems to me first and foremost, Amazon needs to be able to move trucks. That rules out ATL as far as I am concerned.
And I don't know where there biggest needs are for reaching their customers. I think that should be a primary consideration.
I don't think that headquarters needs to be with a distribution/production center. Otherwise they'd just be in Cincinnati and be done with it. Look at Caterpillar, ADM--headquarters are at least 50 miles from any production centers. That matters a lot for smaller companies, but for Amazon? Not that important.
In reply to SVreX :
No product at this hq2 thing. It’s all administrative and development people. Amazon has their products at their distribution centers of which this isn’t one. The only thing they need to move in and out are the 50,000 employees and supporting vendors / contractors. These are average $100k salary jobs which is why cities are falling all over themselves to land it.
Ian F said:mad_machine said:I am glad this area was never in the running, though I think some parts of Northern NJ are
Don't hold your breath. "Philadelphia" could also mean "South Jersey"...
I'm torn on the idea... while part of me thinks Philly would be a good fit for Amazon, I also agree with the cons regarding giving away so much in tax incentives.
Pros: fairly central to DC and NYC, so a good talent pool for existing workers. A major international airport. International shipping docks. Existing (if rather outdated and in need of upgrading) public transportation system including a regional rail system (that could REALLY use an infusion of investment which Amazon could force). Philly has much of the social and art scene Amazon seems to be interested in, but at a lower cost than either NYC or DC (or their surrounding areas), and with fairly easy access to either of those cities if desired. Despite popular jokes, Philly is a surprisingly "friendly" city.
Cons: traffic around here is already a mess and pumping another 50K jobs concentrated into one area wouldn't help that. The transportation systems around here are designed to get workers into Philly, not the other way around so to take full advantage of that system they would really need to be located as close to Center City as possible, which increases costs substantially. Housing costs in the city are already fairly high and another 50K decent paying jobs wouldn't help that any (although it would potentially help the city off-set whatever incentives offered to Amazon). 50 thousand is a lot of people and I'm having a hard time visualizing where a facility that large could be located in the Philly region without severely taxing already stretched infrastructure systems.
Basically, I am somewhat of the opinion that Philly would be better for Amazon than Amazon would be for Philly, so I could take it or leave it. But as long as the city planners don't offer too much to get them here, it might be a good thing.
“Giving away the tax benefit”.
Not that simple. Sure Amazon the company gets the “tax benefit”. But employees all get a paycheck and they don’t get any tax breaks.
So the taxes people pay will probably more than offset the taxes lost due to the sweetheart deal Amazon gets.
Another case of the rich getting richer at the expense of the people doing the work.
Warren Buffet said it best. With the wealth of America nobody should ever have to worry or pay for healthcare retirement home or food. If we put a fair tax on the wealthy. None of them would leave because they’d still have the best deal here. And if they did leave there are 7 billion people who would love to take their place and pay a fair tax besides.
I don’t see them coming to New York. The proposed location I saw on the news the other day was for Red Hook, Brooklyn which is possibly the most inaccessible locations in the city with little public transportation, major highways that are hopelessly clogged most of the days and night, and two of the worst airports on the planet. If your business didn’t need a Manhattan address to meet other companies at I don’t see why you would locate anything in NYC.
This exercise is for office buildings and not fullfillment centers. Discussions about infrastructure beyond that which would help people commute is irrelevant.
In reply to Wally :
But I thought NYC was the center of the known universe (or at least that's what a New Yorker once told me...)! 
STM317 said:Fueled by Caffeine said:Geographically.. If the toronto is not chosen.. some where near the biggest nodes at CVG airport will be chosen.
This means every western edge of eastern time zone or very eastern edge of central....
You guys are all thinking at a low level... Amazon has major business in India and Europe. Currently speaking to Europe from Seattle is a pain in the butt... very little overlap. I'm thinking what they will do is move global ops to a better "location" and keep the software, buying people in seattle.
Toronto is intriguing. It's a well known city internationally and is far enough east. TheVisa thing is a real consideration. It's pretty cold and snowy a few months per year. I don't know enough about infrastructure like highways and rail lines. Any implications for dealing internationally? Obviously they already do it quite a bit, but potential drawbacks of having an HQ in 2 countries?
We've got a massive highway system, an extremely high-traffic airport, good rail access and ports for shipping by boat. Toronto also has fairly low corporate taxes, so there's another benefit. It's interesting that the Toronto bid was shortlisted despite the lack of tax breaks for Amazon.
secretariata said:In reply to Wally :
But I thought NYC was the center of the known universe (or at least that's what a New Yorker once told me...)!
It's not just a new Yorker thing.
If we define the known universe as everything we can see (and we can see really dang far in all directions about equally), then even the position of the earth on opposite sides of the sun is a miniscule rounding error. Since NYC is, in fact, at the center of what we can see, it must therefore be the center of the known universe.
In reply to secretariata :
It is but the area they showed on the news is sort of a black hole. It was a navy yard and a shipping hub when cargo ships were smaller and unloaded by hand but since then. It’s been largely ignored until recently becoming a bit of a hipster frontier but there are only so many people willing to commute on penny farthings.
Casual Six said:STM317 said:
Toronto is intriguing. It's a well known city internationally and is far enough east. TheVisa thing is a real consideration. It's pretty cold and snowy a few months per year. I don't know enough about infrastructure like highways and rail lines. Any implications for dealing internationally? Obviously they already do it quite a bit, but potential drawbacks of having an HQ in 2 countries?
We've got a massive highway system, an extremely high-traffic airport, good rail access and ports for shipping by boat. Toronto also has fairly low corporate taxes, so there's another benefit. It's interesting that the Toronto bid was shortlisted despite the lack of tax breaks for Amazon.
Of course they exist there, but are the roads efficient and well laid out, or are they constantly jammed? How easy is it to get from Toronto to other nearby cities? Is the rail used for public transit at all, or just movement of goods? Is there a decent location that meets Amazon's proximity parameters?
STM317 said:Casual Six said:STM317 said:
Toronto is intriguing. It's a well known city internationally and is far enough east. TheVisa thing is a real consideration. It's pretty cold and snowy a few months per year. I don't know enough about infrastructure like highways and rail lines. Any implications for dealing internationally? Obviously they already do it quite a bit, but potential drawbacks of having an HQ in 2 countries?
We've got a massive highway system, an extremely high-traffic airport, good rail access and ports for shipping by boat. Toronto also has fairly low corporate taxes, so there's another benefit. It's interesting that the Toronto bid was shortlisted despite the lack of tax breaks for Amazon.
Of course they exist there, but are the roads efficient and well laid out, or are they constantly jammed? How easy is it to get from Toronto to other nearby cities? Is the rail used for public transit at all, or just movement of goods? Is there a decent location that meets Amazon's proximity parameters?
The traffic is actually not bad. The longest slowdown I've slogged through since coming back to Ontario added 8 minutes to my trip, which really isn't that bad. It's fairly easy to get to Toronto from Pickering, Ajax, Oakville, Burlington, Milton, etc. Major rail lines are primarily commercial, although there is the GO Train for public transit. As for suitable locations, there are at least four in Toronto proper.
As an aside from Amazon HQ, I can confirm that Amazon will be opening a very large Fulfillment warehouse on Staten Island, NY. Right next to the Goethals Bridge and Howland Hook shipping terminal. More trucks, more traffic, on a already congested area. But nobody here wanted NASCAR to open a track. Money talks, BS walks.
dculberson said:In reply to SVreX :
No product at this hq2 thing. It’s all administrative and development people. Amazon has their products at their distribution centers of which this isn’t one. The only thing they need to move in and out are the 50,000 employees and supporting vendors / contractors. These are average $100k salary jobs which is why cities are falling all over themselves to land it.
Got it. Didn't realize that.
I still wouldn't want to count on the ATL transport infrastructure to allow 50,000 employees to get to work!
STM317 said:Of course they exist there, but are the roads efficient and well laid out, or are they constantly jammed? How easy is it to get from Toronto to other nearby cities? Is the rail used for public transit at all, or just movement of goods? Is there a decent location that meets Amazon's proximity parameters?
The part of Highway 401 that passes through Toronto is North America's busiest highway and one of the widest. One of the benefits of Toronto is easy access by road or rail for commuters. It's probably a much more populous are than most people here realize, roughly 10 million people. There's lot's of good and lot's of bad about Toronto but I'm not sure the good could outweigh the incentives offered by some of the other cities.
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