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Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

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Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#41

Post by shemnon42 »

100k wrote: post #29
bovermyer wrote: post #7

The Twin Cities are looking at courting Amazon for this. IMO, Minneapolis would be a great location for it. We fit the RFP criteria.

Yeah, the article doesn't address the Twin Cities, but it meets his criteria: - 3.5M metro area population - Very high education levels - Diverse population protected by strong civil rights - Major international airport (Delta hub; 16th largest in the US) - Very affordable - Large business community already (Cargill, Target, Best Buy, major Wells Fargo office, etc.) On the negatives, it is growing slower than other m…

> and the weather will be a turn off.

Wow, one of the few cities that competes poorly with Seattle weather.

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#42

Post by bradleyjg »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #31
jetblackio wrote: post #19

Seems like Denver would be good choice, considering how alike Seattle and Denver are. There's plenty of hiking, biking, camping, etc in the area, and it's central location is convenient for any travel to both the east and west coast. Denver also has an excellent craft brewery scene. Denver / Boulder are already tech hubs in their own right as well.

Shouldn't Amazon be more interested in the economic conditions, rather than hiking and biking and the brewery scene?

They have to be able to get top talent willing to move to whatever city they select.

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#43

Post by AshleyGrant »

bradleyjg wrote: post #38
ecshafer wrote: post #14

I think Philadelphia is a good choice. Center City is a 30 minute drive to Philly international airport. Land is relatively cheap, much cheaper than NYC, Boston, or dc. We have an ivy league school in the city, with another less than an hour away, as well as many other schools in the area. We have a large metro population with a good size technical and business industry already. We also have rail and sea shipping ava…

PHL has no trans-pacific flights. These are the American cities which you can fly to and from Shanghai nonstop: Chicago, Dallas, LA, NYC (+Newark), San Francisco (+San Jose), Detroit, Seattle, Boston. Atlanta starting next year. In Canada there's Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

PHL is a hub for American. There's no reason they couldn't start trans-pacific flights from PHL if the demand exists.

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#44

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

blaisio wrote: post #33

It's interesting, because they really need to pick a city that won't have trouble attracting software developers. Some large companies (like Epic) have trouble recruiting and have to pay people way more because they're so far away from normal tech hubs.

I think Epic also has trouble recruiting because they work on an outdated stack using an arcane (and often counterintuitive) programming language for an industry that is itself probably a few decades late to any tech (probably for good reason, but the point stands).

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#45

Post by AbortedWalrus »

ecshafer wrote: post #14

I think Philadelphia is a good choice. Center City is a 30 minute drive to Philly international airport. Land is relatively cheap, much cheaper than NYC, Boston, or dc. We have an ivy league school in the city, with another less than an hour away, as well as many other schools in the area. We have a large metro population with a good size technical and business industry already. We also have rail and sea shipping ava…

I posted this elsewhere but I'll repost here:

The Navy Yard literally ticks every box of their requirements:

30 Mile proximity to population center: It's IN the city.

45 Minute proximity to international airport: It's about 15 minutes drive from the airport, or you can take mass transit.

1-2 Miles from Major highways: It sits basically ON I-95 Close to Major arterial roads: Within 10 minutes of 295, NJ Turnpike, I-76

Access to mass transit at site: Bus routes to site, subway stop a 5 minute shuttle ride from site

500,000 sqft of development space: Currently prepped for 4,000,000 sqft of office development, shovel ready

Up to 8,000,000 Sq Ft of Development space beyond 2027: 13.5 Million square feet of space at full build out.

Literally every box ticked, in a tax haven. The city could justify a BSL expansion to the Navy Yard with this sort of development, so they could throw that in as a deal sweetener.

There is also the Schuylkill Yards district in planning which would involve capping the train yard next to 30th street station. Both Schuylkill Yards and the Navy Yard have master plans in place, and the Navy Yard is ready for this basically day one. Both are Keystone Opportunity Zones and have abatements on almost all state and local taxes.

Philly really is a perfect fit.

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#46

Post by pseudonymGuy »

rmason wrote: post #2

He needs to add Detroit to his list. Amazon already has two large warehouses and a small developer office there. The only negative on the list is a less than overwhelming public transport system. But they've got lots of cheap land, and both an international airport and an international border as well as three world class universities within an hours drive. Not to mention a metro area with a population of 4.5 million.

Which universities are within an hours drive? Michigan, obviously.

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#47

Post by AbortedWalrus »

bradleyjg wrote: post #38
ecshafer wrote: post #14

I think Philadelphia is a good choice. Center City is a 30 minute drive to Philly international airport. Land is relatively cheap, much cheaper than NYC, Boston, or dc. We have an ivy league school in the city, with another less than an hour away, as well as many other schools in the area. We have a large metro population with a good size technical and business industry already. We also have rail and sea shipping ava…

PHL has no trans-pacific flights. These are the American cities which you can fly to and from Shanghai nonstop: Chicago, Dallas, LA, NYC (+Newark), San Francisco (+San Jose), Detroit, Seattle, Boston. Atlanta starting next year. In Canada there's Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

Philadelphia is an hour by train to Newark Airport, which does non-stops to Beijing. It's not as ideal as it being in the local airport, but it's also not that far away.

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#48

Post by trevyn »

AshleyGrant wrote: post #43
bradleyjg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHL has no trans-pacific flights. These are the American cities which you can fly to and from Shanghai nonstop: Chicago, Dallas, LA, NYC (+Newark), San Francisco (+San Jose), Detroit, Seattle, Boston. Atlanta starting next year. In Canada there's Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

PHL is a hub for American. There's no reason they couldn't start trans-pacific flights from PHL if the demand exists.

This reminds me of the SFO-ZRH route that spun up as a result of Roche buying Genentech: http://travelskills.com/2015/06/24/trip-report-swiss-roche-c...

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#49

Post by prostoalex »

ecshafer wrote: post #14

I think Philadelphia is a good choice. Center City is a 30 minute drive to Philly international airport. Land is relatively cheap, much cheaper than NYC, Boston, or dc. We have an ivy league school in the city, with another less than an hour away, as well as many other schools in the area. We have a large metro population with a good size technical and business industry already. We also have rail and sea shipping ava…

Philadelphia has gross receipts tax https://business.phila.gov/overview-of-business-income-and-r...

Re: Few Cities Could Accommodate Amazon's New Headquarters

#50

Post by dsfyu404ed »

bradleyjg wrote: post #22
Upvoter33 wrote: post #3

Crazy not to add NYC to the list. Huge Google office there now, Facebook growing. Would be a good fit.

Cost of living and unwillingness to bend over backwards for tax breaks take NYC out of the running. I think their list -- Toronto, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas or Denver -- is pretty decent though Washington and Toronto seem less likely than the others (COLA and ex-US respectively). Except for being unwilling/unable to offer very high tax breaks, Chicago would be right up there too. But I have to imagine that'…

Nobody with half a brain opens an big location in the Boston area. If you don't hate money you go to NH.
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