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Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

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Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#391
post #229

I was hoping the Twin cities would get a nod. Maybe it could still happen if Amazon buys Target. Denver makes a lot of sense. It's a nice place for executives to live, not far from ski resorts which makes the winter bearable. Los Angeles would be great too but traffic is a nightmare. It might make sense for them to be close to Hollywood as well. You'd want to be in the South bay since anyone with money will want to l…

> Maybe it could still happen if Amazon buys Target.

I was going to say that I could never see that happening but then I remembered they bought Whole Foods.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#392

My money is on one of Nashville, Indianapolis or Columbus with Pittsburgh as a dark horse. Amazon is going to be looking to build a major campus (say 5-10 big buildings) right in the center of town (as they've done here in Seattle) and that's just not feasible in expensive cities like LA, Boston, NYC, Chicago or DC. Denver is too far west, Miami, Atlanta and Raleigh too far southeast. Newark and Philadelphia don't ha…

>There's no way Seattle and Dallas are going to form a family

What does that mean? My top five (unordered) guesses are Raleigh, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Columbus.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#393

My money is on one of Nashville, Indianapolis or Columbus with Pittsburgh as a dark horse. Amazon is going to be looking to build a major campus (say 5-10 big buildings) right in the center of town (as they've done here in Seattle) and that's just not feasible in expensive cities like LA, Boston, NYC, Chicago or DC. Denver is too far west, Miami, Atlanta and Raleigh too far southeast. Newark and Philadelphia don't ha…

Nashville makes the most sense to me. Centrally located for the midwest and Atlantic seaboard. Great central roadway hub. Airline flights can be increased easily with demand. Relatively low-cost of living, cheap land and cheap labor. Moderate weather. Very low likelihood of terrorist attack.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#394

My money is on one of Nashville, Indianapolis or Columbus with Pittsburgh as a dark horse. Amazon is going to be looking to build a major campus (say 5-10 big buildings) right in the center of town (as they've done here in Seattle) and that's just not feasible in expensive cities like LA, Boston, NYC, Chicago or DC. Denver is too far west, Miami, Atlanta and Raleigh too far southeast. Newark and Philadelphia don't ha…

Northern Virgina has quite a few areas including Tysons that would 'fit' (it is HQ to "Intelsat, Gannett, Hilton Worldwide, Freddie Mac, Capital One and Booz Allen Hamilton") [1]. Montgomery County, on the other hand, is definitely a weird choice.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tysons,_Virginia

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's funny concentration of options right by - and including - Washington D.C.

That's just because the DC area is so spread out. You don't really have to be in DC "proper" to get the benefits of the area. Which I think is different than a lot of other major metro areas. You see the same thing with New York paired with Newark.

An Amazon HQ2 in Northern Virginia would cripple the already strained road infrastructure, especially given Metro's existing difficulties. Dulles seems like an obvious choice given the tech corridor and proximity to IA but 28 and the toll road are incredibly crowded as it is.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#397

Amazon would have the greatest impact in Atlanta. You could argue that Atlanta is the economic, cultural, and geographical center of the Southeastern United States. It has the busiest airport in the world and is a major rail hub. There are already dozens of major corporations headquaratered in Atlanta. There is no shortage of talent, with a top-5 engineering school in Georgia Tech. Yet there are things missing which…

From what I’ve heard, there’s a bunch of mostly unused land south of the football stadium that has been slowly being bought up over the last year or so. Obvious speculation is that it’s either Amazon or someone betting that Amazon will want to buy a big chunk of land near downtown...

The "Gulch":

http://www.myajc.com/business/new-filings-for-huge-project-a...

http://atlantaintownpaper.com/2017/11/gulch-become-amazons-n...

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#398
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the problems of trying to get US visas This assumes that politicians eager to get Amazon are not able to speed up and fix that process which they certainly would be motivated to do. [1] [1] This is not 'your shitty startup with 10 employees'. It's Amazon and the brass ring.

NAFTA has a provision for no-visa entry as an "internal transfer". Having a Canadian office is not unheard-of to invoke this position, by stationing an employee they really want at a US office in a Canadian office and then transferring. While politicians may be motivated, there's no indication they would be motivated more by THIS business than by ANY OTHER business, all of which have the same concerns, have had the s…

You need a Canadian passport to use nafta and that takes around 5 years at least

What US companies do in Canada is often have an office where people can work on a temp visa while waiting for their status in the US

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#399
post #286
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Assuming Amazon is going to create an HQ somewhere in America, consider the two situations: 1) Current situation, they will eventually get a very large tax cut from wherever they select. 2) Hypothetical situation: local tax breaks are not allowed, Amazon selects a location and pays the local taxes that it avoided in situation #1.

Only looking at tax revenue and not the overall impact of 50,000 new non-McJobs and a potential new techhub catalyst is pretty myopic.

Re: Amazon announces candidate cities for HQ2

#400
post #126

Something about this just makes my stomach sick... A massive corporation is pitting governments against each other for its own gain, often to no benefit of the local population. I'm scared to see the numbers of "incentives" that local politicians try and hand out to Amazon. There's little evidence that the public money used/lost will ever be recouped. One of the worst cases of this happening so far is the Foxconn dea…

> Something about this just makes my stomach sick...

Ditto. I just don't know what you can do about it though short of some sort of federal law that makes it illegal.

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