Amazon HQ2 thread

[Sun Belt]

Stupid question: Is Seattle in the running to land H2Q?

[10023]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

OK, today is the "due date" for Amazon's RFP so I'm re-opening this thread. Before we proceed, a few reminders:

1. Your city is almost certainly NOT going to get the HQ2 so you are wasting your time trying to defend it.
2. Jeff Bezos is NOT going to read your arguments in favor of your city so you are wasting your time trying to defend it.
3. Since the deadline has now passed, your city has already submitted its proposal, and so your defenses of your city have ZERO chance of making their way into your city's proposal.

Therefore the only sane thing to do at this point is to just chill out and wait for the results, sometime next year.

I'll inaugurate the re-opening of this thread with this:

Bids for Amazon's second headquarters are due Thursday — here are the cities in the running

Can we still encourage them to unveil the pick in the form of a multi-part series a la The Bachelor, where the winning city gets the final rose from Jeff Bezos himself?

At least eliminate cities one by one live on TV...

[JManc]

My vote is for 'Wisstuh' Massachusetts. That would be a wicked pissah if they got it and Boston didn't.

[the urban politician]

I don't think Bezos will choose Boston. Who can live somewhere that has such crappy pizza?
Bad pizza=low productivity

[Steely Dan]

^ since when did boston become known for crappy pizza?

given its significant italian american community, i'd think that good pizza likely predominates.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I think that's because you're talking to a Chicagoan.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ since when did boston become known for crappy pizza?

given its significant italian american community, i'd think that good pizza likely predominates.

Boston style pizza?

Never heard of it?

My point exactly...

[SLO]

Originally Posted by 10023

Can we still encourage them to unveil the pick in the form of a multi-part series a la The Bachelor, where the winning city gets the final rose from Jeff Bezos himself?

At least eliminate cities one by one live on TV...

Yeah, lets make it a reality show where the top 20 city mayors share a house and one by one get picked off until the final rose is awarded and we see #2 slump off into a limo to whisk them to airport empty handed.
Or maybe they can put golden tickets in Wonka bars!?

Saying that, I'm betting on DFW, I give it a 50/50 shot.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I think that's because you're talking to a Chicagoan.

Both Urban and Steely are from Chicago

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Both Urban and Steely are from Chicago

Well, clearly Urban is more of a Chicagoan than Steely, since he has the proper Chicagoan attitude toward Boston pizza.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Well, clearly Urban is more of a Chicagoan than Steely, since he has the proper Chicagoan attitude toward Boston pizza.

i'm a Pizzatarian.

i worship the one and only true Pizza God, Lord Chessus Crust.

I dutifully worship him wherever and however he might deliciously manifest himself.



Pizza be with you!

[mrnyc]

just to muddy the waters — its also a random deadline they can move around and decide anytime they choose

[C.]

Woo Woo!!! This thread is back up and running.

[Obadno]

We all know who is getting it




Don't believe me ???

FIGHT ME

[James Bond Agent 007]

I have a feeling I'll be bumping this post several times.

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

OK, today is the "due date" for Amazon's RFP so I'm re-opening this thread. Before we proceed, a few reminders:

1. Your city is almost certainly NOT going to get the HQ2 so you are wasting your time trying to defend it.
2. Jeff Bezos is NOT going to read your arguments in favor of your city so you are wasting your time trying to defend it.
3. Since the deadline has now passed, your city has already submitted its proposal, and so your defenses of your city have ZERO chance of making their way into your city's proposal.

Therefore the only sane thing to do at this point is to just chill out and wait for the results, sometime next year.

I'll inaugurate the re-opening of this thread with this:

Bids for Amazon's second headquarters are due Thursday — here are the cities in the running

[bnk]

Short and simple









https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-hq2-likely-one-six-222812878.html

Amazon HQ2 Will Likely Be One of These Six Cities


Barb Darrow

Fortune

October 18, 2017

The deadline for cities to apply to become Amazon’s second headquarters (or HQ2) is Thursday. While proposals have come from all over the map, it is unlikely that any metro area with fewer than 4 million people will make the grade, according to Everest Group, a Dallas-based consulting and research firm.

Only cities of that size are likely to have the both the basic infrastructure and base of skilled employees to supply Amazon’s needs. Amazon amzn has said the new location could eventually employ 50,000 skilled people with average annual salaries of more than $100,000. These are not blue-collar jobs, and filling skilled jobs in these numbers is not easy, Eric Simonson, managing partner of Everest’s research group, told Fortune.

Given that, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Washington D.C. will likely be Amazon’s top candidates, according to Everest.

...

No other company’s office expansion plan comes close to this in scale and that poses challenges, according to Everest’s research. ...

It would be difficult for cities like Pittsburgh, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Charlotte, Cincinnati, or Denver to scale up to 50,000 skilled workers over the next decade, according to Everest.


...

[James Bond Agent 007]

I've seen a half-dozen analyses in the past few weeks explaining what cities are likely to get HQ2. Some of them have the same cities, some don't. One of those lists the other day had Austin as #1 and Chicago wasn't even on the list.

All are to be taken with a massive grain of salt,

[James Bond Agent 007]

And I just learned my former employer made a bid!

Tulalip Tribes submit their own Amazon HQ2 bid

The deadline to submit bids for a second Amazon campus, known as HQ2, is upon us, and the number of local bids has jumped to three. Tulalip Tribes, in addition to participating in a regional proposal with King and Snohomish counties, have submitted their own proposal to house the online giant.

The Tulalip proposal suggests a “horizontal campus rather than an urban high-rise one,” according to a release from the tribe. They’re offering 400 acres by Quil Ceda Village, and imagine mostly low-rise buildings with a maximum of six stories.

Guaranteed if I was still working there I'd have been working on that bid.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Y'know I think I might feel sorry for the people at Amazon who have to sift through all these bids, score them and figure out which ones are the best. What a pain in the ass task! And you've got to read all kinds of chamber-of-commerce-y boosterism b.s. on all the proposals.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

the only sane thing to do at this point is to just chill out and wait for the results, sometime next year.

No, the sanest thng to do is to importune your elected leaders NOT to give Bezos and/or Amazon a dime of taxpayer money for this project. But even if you avoid that debacle, it's quite likely your town (or neighborhod if it's already one of America's largest cities) will suffer growing pains:

The Amazon Effect: How taxpayers are funding the disruption of the U.S. economy

By Craig M. Douglas – Director, Editorial Research & Analysis ,
Oct 11, 2017, 8:00am PDT Updated Oct 12, 2017, 7:16am

. . . Americans have supported the Bezos surge in two distinct ways: by buying everything from dog food to diamonds on Amazon.com and by kicking in at least $1.24 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies and incentives that have fueled the company’s growth across the country. That figure does not include hundreds-of-millions of dollars in additional breaks from deals to phase in state sales taxes, nor does it include dozens of hard-to-quantify tax abatements and land arrangements struck with a mosaic of towns, counties and school districts along the way . . . .

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/10/11/the-amazon-effect.html

Promises of incentives for HQ2, as Amazon calls its new headquarters, are already coming in. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Monday announced the state and the city of Newark will offer a potential $7 billion in tax incentives over 10 years, tied to Amazon’s pledge to create 50,000 new corporate jobs . . . .

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-has-...-expertise-with-in-house-team-1508405401

But the winner will have to spend megabucks on infrastructure for all that Amazon imagines as well as handing over the keys to the treasury to Jeff.