19 ms·

Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

• seizethecheese 9y ago
  While I think it's true that this is at least partially motivated by potential tax-incentives, it's also a smart diversification move by Amazon. Right now they're at the mercy of the Seattle voter, which is a dangerous place to be for a large corporation. Diversifying headquarters creates competition and gives them leverage.
• VeronicaJJ123 9y ago
  Make it in Canada please.
  • kohanz 9y ago
    Kitchener-Waterloo? edit: just thought it would be a suitable talent hub. Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Maybe Toronto would be more suitable?
    • obstacle1 9y ago
      Wouldn't really make sense, an HQ would need to be in an actual city, not a sprawling suburban bedroom community. Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal.
      • sneak 9y ago
        Why would it need that?
      • kohanz 9y ago
        How many big tech HQ's meet that criteria?
      • ghaff 9y ago
        Why? Tons of huge multinationals have headquarters that are not in a downtown. And Silicon Valley isn't exactly an "actual city." [ADDED: In fact, I'd be a bit surprised if they end up in a downtown core--certainly of a "hot" city where real estate is scarce and expensive. For example, while they're putting in a Boston office, it's about 2% of the 50K employees number.]
        • asr 9y ago
          But Amazon is part of a generation of companies which see some value in pushing back against this trend.[1] Microsoft moved to Redmond; Amazon moved downtown. If they really want a second HQ to mesh with the first culture-wise, they are likely going to look to put it close to a downtown core. (Although if they are going to attract 50k workers they probably want a bit of land adjacent to the core, similarly to how in Seattle they located in what used to be a not-so-developed area where Paul Allen had purchased a lot of real estate to try to create a park, and Amazon has really made it part of downtown on their own.) [1] https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/4kc8ovgnyf996yn https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/4kc8ovgnyf996yn ("we made a conscious choice to invest in downtown Seattle—even though it would have been cheaper to move to the suburbs")
      • trevyn 9y ago
        The RFP explicitly states that they prefer "Metropolitan areas with more than one million people", but that the site does not have to be "An urban or downtown campus".
        • obstacle1 9y ago
          Great. The population of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge combined is just over 500k [1]. Disqualified, then. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-Cities_(Ontario) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-Cities_(Ontario)
      • Pxtl 9y ago
        KW is not a bedroom community. It's sprawling, yes, but it's too far from Toronto to function as a bedroom community. KW stands on its own.
        • obstacle1 9y ago
          Sorry, you're absolutely right. I misspoke about it being a bedroom community.
    • mark212 9y ago
      RFP says 45 minutes to an airport with direct flights to Seattle, SF, NYC, and Washington DC. I don't know the area but it seems to me that YYZ is too far away to qualify
      • madcaptenor 9y ago
        Seems easy enough to make a list of all those airports.
        • madcaptenor 9y ago
          Alright, I did it, based on OpenFlights route data (https://openflights.org/data.html https://openflights.org/data.html). The list is: Albuquerque, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis, Toronto. Both Chicago airports are on the list, as are Fort Lauderdale (FLL) and Long Beach (LGB), but this is about metro areas, not airports. I also manually filtered out Honolulu.
          • ghaff 9y ago
            So long as airport infrastructure is in place, it's trivial for airlines to add routes based on demand. There are a lot of airports, such as former Air Force bases, that could handle significantly increased demand. You can find a lot of fairly large city pairs without non-stops but that's usually because neither are hubs and there isn't quite enough demand.
            • madcaptenor 9y ago
              That's true. But is Amazon going to be big enough to create enough demand that airlines would make those additions? (Not a rhetorical question.) Sure, Pittsburgh could have a flight to Seattle. But it doesn't right now. Is the increased demand from an Amazon HQ2 in Pittsburgh enough to convince Alaska or Delta to start running those flights?
• oblio 9y ago
  I'm not from the US, but as an outsider it would probably be a good idea for this second headquarter to not be on the West Coast. A little diversity wouldn't hurt :)
  • chiph 9y ago
    That, and somewhere that doesn't have volcanoes and earthquakes.
• amleszk 9y ago
  I actually hope this is a city where housing affordability is made more sustainable up front. Something to avoid the way New York and San Francisco have evolved into landlords and rent seekers drowning the wealth generation of incumbents
  • dopamean 9y ago
    Something tells me housing will suddenly become a little less affordable after Amazon comes to town.
  • ghaff 9y ago
    Manhattan has been expensive for a very long time in spite of growing housing significantly. The challenge is that they can go to places where housing is cheap and there's a lot of capacity. Detroit, Las Vegas... But they'd probably still have trouble attracting a lot of tech workers to those areas. [ADDED: Although Michigan is better than people in the Web tech bubble think in this regard.]
  • almostApatriot1 9y ago
    counterpoint: How many developers will move to Ohio to work for Amazon?
  • omosubi 9y ago
    If Amazon decides to build housing and includes below market rate housing for low income people this could work, but given the focus on subsidies and tax breaks in the RFP, I highly doubt this will happen. My guess is that this will only increase strain on whichever housing market receives the HQ.
• peteretep 9y ago
  Let's say I'm the mayor of Detroit, and I want this. What incentives are in my power to offer, if I team up with the Guv'nor? Can I just gift them the land?
  • jtmarmon 9y ago
    cost of land is probably the least of amazon's considerations in building a second HQ edit: to elaborate, what they care much more about, i'm sure, is ability to attract and retain talent in the area. which I'm not sure detroit could do much about. even if you could make it more desirable to live there there's so little talent in the area you'd have to spend a crazy amount of time and money relocating people
    • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      I think you are under-estimating the amount of tech talent that supports the automotive and satellite industries in the Midwest.
    • wpietri 9y ago
      > there's so little talent Citation needed. For example, the University of Michigan's engineering school is well ranked in many areas, grants 3,000 degrees a year, and is an hour away: https://www.engin.umich.edu/about/facts/ https://www.engin.umich.edu/about/facts/
      • barry-cotter 9y ago
        I'd be quite surprised if Amazon hires less than 3,000 software engineers a quarter. U Michigan may be a good or great engineering school but if it's an hour away it rounds to part of the national market.
        • wcunning 9y ago
          I went there, along with several of my friends. Most of them now work for Amazon, several in the extant Detroit office and commute there from just outside Ann Arbor. You'd be surprised at how easy an hour commute is in South-east Michigan, esp. compared to Cali or Jersey traffic.
• bshimmin 9y ago
  It always amuses me how stunningly bad Amazon really is at making standalone pages on their web site. This one is totally unresponsive, has images for headings, and a slightly blurry image for the table. Here's Amazon Locker, which is even more dismal: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Click-and-Collect-with-Amazon-Lockers/b?ie=UTF8&node=2594544031 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Click-and-Collect-with-Amazon-Locke... I guess they must have to produce all this stuff within the constraints of their CMS, but it really does make me wonder why they can't build better standalone pages outside of it if the occasion arises.
  • jtmarmon 9y ago
    That page is actually responsive, just based on user agent rather than viewport dimensions
    • underwater 9y ago
      That is usually referred to as adaptive design.
  • deanCommie 9y ago
    You'll notice the same applies to Amazon's mobile apps too. I think they just prioritize functionality over aesthetics. In a lot of cases you can claim aesthetics lead to higher customer satisfaction and conversion, but I'm certain they've A-B tested the crap out of every decision for maximum purchases.
  • cabalamat 9y ago
    > totally unresponsive You mean it's not weighed down with tons of JavaShit and annoying transition effects?
    • dandare 9y ago
      They still serve you the product carousel at the bottom of the post.
    • samsolomon 9y ago
• ldp01 9y ago
  Wow, $25.7 billion total employee compensation / 50,000 employees is $514,000 per employee. Err, that's not all in one year, right?
  • wastedhours 9y ago
    Think the table is listing figures since 2010 for the Direct column.
  • brantonb 9y ago
    That's in the "Direct" section which has this footnote: >From 2010 (when Amazon moved its headquarters to downtown Seattle) to 2017.
  • freeone3000 9y ago
    Some employees earn more than others, such as EVPs and upper management, but this number shouldn't seem surprising - lots of people at $300k and a few at $800k.
  • joezydeco 9y ago
    If there's a second HQ they can offer lower salaries compared to Seattle, then drive Seattle salaries down by threatening to move the HQ1 jobs to HQ2.
• quirkot 9y ago
  > Why is Amazon choosing its second headquarters location via a public process? Because Foxconn got such an amazing deal and we want to get some of those sweet, sweet tax credits, too
  • ceejayoz 9y ago
    Yup. "Amazon seeks a city to provide cushy tax credits in exchange for vague, unenforceable promises of job creation" would've been a more accurate headline.
    • sanderjd 9y ago
      I understand (and largely share) the annoyance about these sorts of tax breaks, but as a software developer, it seems obvious that having an Amazon headquarters in my city would result in lots of job opportunities for me - not just at Amazon, but at other software companies that locate nearby over time due to the increased concentration of workers. So I don't understand your skepticism at the "job creation" part.
      • mywittyname 9y ago
        It will also greatly increase prices for good/great developers.
      • blackguardx 9y ago
        The skepticism is that the US is a place where the government isn't supposed to pick the winners and losers. If we want to go down this road, we should do what what many Asian countries do and offer incentives for anyone to open a facility in a given geographic region. Skepticism over the job creation part is because there are usually no guarantees with how many jobs the company ends up creating. In the Foxconn case, they could make the factory fully robotic and end up employing very few people. There will still be increased economic activity, but there seems to be better ways to generate it than singling out one company.
        • 9y ago
• iagooar 9y ago
  Bezos: Alexa, buy me a city, we need new headquarters. Alexa: City acquired. It's so crazy to see a company make cities apply for hosting them, instead of them applying for space in a city. But I guess that given the size of Amazon, it's actually worth more than most cities in the world anyway...
  • amb23 9y ago
    It's all about tax breaks. This is a blatant attempt by Amazon to get years of taxes abated in order to provide the increased regional economic benefit of... doing exactly what they'd do anyways if they didn't get the break. US city and state then competes against other US cities and states in a battle to provide the larger tax break. It's an odious practice in my opinion, and I wish lawmakers would do something to curb it. But being able to tell your constituents "Hey, look at me, I got Amazon to come here!" makes for great campaigning.
    • fortythirteen 9y ago
      It's not that one sided, and I think you're missing a key component here. 50k decent paying jobs means more money in the local economy to be returned through sales and property taxes. Plus, having Amazon put a headquarters in your town gives it a status that attracts other companies, who don't have the muscle to demand such huge incentives. I'm not a fan of Amazon's business practices, by any means, but they are correctly using their assets here.
    • mathgeek 9y ago
      It's only exactly what they'd do anyway if the chosen location was getting their new HQ anyway. While I don't necessarily agree with it on a personal level, this is a pretty basic "supply vs demand" situation.
      • ghaff 9y ago
        Companies do sometimes indulge in incentives brinkmanship by threatening to move if they don't get the right offer. But, assuming this isn't Amazon just playing that game with Seattle, they do have pretty open options. Like it or not, companies do go after tax incentives and local job creation is pretty important to politicians. And it's not clear it shouldn't be given that's pretty central to the economic health of a city or area. It's also worth noting that Amazon isn't just a tech company; they're a huge retailer. Walmart has no particular problem having their headquarters in Bentonville Arkansas.
• wpietri 9y ago
  Excellent. I think we've gone too far in trying to put all the tech work in the spots where early tech companies happened to spring up. In the long term, I'd like to see VCs not be so provincial in their investments, so that people can start companies where they are. But in the short term, having established companies put offices elsewhere is a great next step.
• jpatokal 9y ago
  The RFP is rather more interesting than the marketing page: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/RFP_3._V516043504_.pdf https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything... The 2nd criterion is basically the total amount of sweet, sweet taxpayer dollars available to subsidize them: Please provide a summary of total incentives offered for the Project by the state/province and local community. In this summary, please provide a brief description of the incentive item, the timing of incentive payment/realization, and a calculation of the incentive amount.
  • outoftacos 9y ago
    So boldly demanding massive amounts of corporate welfare is not only considered acceptable, but just done out in the open like this by one of the most massive and powerful corporations of all time. Nobody even pretends like there is any other option any more. It's disgusting. When are the employees of these companies going to start calling bullshit on this? Apparently nobody else will.
  • dajohnson89 9y ago
    Yeah, shocking huh? This is the only reason this whole thing is being done. It's basically a solicitation, and Amazon will go to the highest bidder. It happens all the time, it's just that this initiative is more public.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • brudgers 9y ago
    Amazon was built upon the competitive edge of pricing devoid of state and local sales tax. Now it is soliciting tax breaks from state and local governments.
    • uiri 9y ago
      That's not quite true. Washington state (where Seattle is) has no state income tax. The sales tax rate, however, is a whopping 9.5%. As a mail order/online retailer, Amazon only had to charge sales tax on in-state purchases. Washington state's low population made it more favourable relative to California with a much less worse tax structure, and Texas and Florida which also have no state income tax and the population centers necessary to support a growing business. Of course, I'm sure Microsoft's established engineering talent pool helped too.
• gadders 9y ago
  "A stable and business-friendly environment and tax structure will be high-priority considerations for the Project. Incentives offered by the state/province and local communities to offset initial capital outlay and ongoing operational costs will be significant factors in the decision-making process." I'm no fan of high taxes, but holding this sort of reverse auction to see who will provide the biggest bungs rubs me the wrong way.
• libria 9y ago
  Why I wonder? While they're gobbling up DT Sea, they only have 1 building in Bellevue. Isn't there room to set up shop in Fremont or Kirkland and poach more engineers from Microsoft/Tableau/Expedia etc and reducing commute times? Not seeing the upside. This is a major management overhead, managing culture between both, all hands, IT infrastructure. Austin, TX is a good candidate. Very strong engineering university attracting nationwide talent, better cost of living, they already have an office there so they must have some relationship w/ local govt, a good climate contrast to Seattle being much drier (barring the occasional hurricane), a Google Fiber city. $5B buys a lot more there than most places in the US.
  • mratzloff 9y ago
    I think many Seattlites would be OK with Amazon not gobbling up even more of the local economy. As far as some of the outlying areas, I think it comes down to signaling around tax breaks from the governor[1] and available office space inventory. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/07/07/inslee-vetoes-manufacturer-tax-break-washington.html https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/07/07/inslee-v...
  • passivepinetree 9y ago
    Perhaps they're working to help recruiting. It might be easier to attract top talent in a different area (for example, if they situated in Pittsburgh as another commenter mentioned, they could more easily recruit CMU grads/professors). It also can't hurt their business to reduce their dependency on a single state/local government's policies.
  • jorblumesea 9y ago
    Amazon is a frugal company and competing with FB/Uber/Snap/Lyft/literally every SV/SF startup was never part of the plan. Seattle used to be the cheap amazing engineering secret. Then everyone caught onto this and moved to the region. Once engineering salaries started to creep up into California territory it was only natural they'd want to leave for cheaper pastures.
• lallysingh 9y ago
  Seriously, they should look in New Jersey. Lots of tech talent from NYC that doesn't want the commute or insane prices of the city.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • mholmes680 9y ago
    selfishly, i agree completely. But where could all this fit, and cost of doing business here is painfully expensive.
  • wusher 9y ago
    They probably won't. NJ's corperate tax rate is higher than california's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_States#State_and_local_income_taxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_St...
• cabalamat 9y ago
  > We are looking for a location with ... [a] business-friendly environment Translation: we want lots of subsidies to move to your city. Because only the little people should pay taxes.
• revmoo 9y ago
  My city (Louisville) would be a prime candidate due to proximity to UPS WorldPort, and Amazon already has a bunch of facilities here. That said, screw these guys. I'll make sure to have my voice heard if my city tries to offer them tax rebates to come here. Everyone needs to pay taxes, especially gigantic corporations. I hate that companies like this even have the nerve to expect these sorts of breaks.
  • mhb 9y ago
    Everyone needs to pay taxes Why is this different than New Hampshire competing with other states by having no income tax?
    • mywittyname 9y ago
      Honestly, because it's a race to the bottom. On top of that, there have been many instances of companies negotiating massive tax breaks only to relocate again after a few years. Those tax dollars are better spent making the city more attractive to people and improving the universities. This will provide for more organic growth through startups founded by people anchored to the city by their social network.
      • mhb 9y ago
        I could see why a city wouldn't want to pay real money and then have the company move, but what's the problem if they agreed not to tax Amazon and then Amazon relocates?
    • bnjms 9y ago
      The key here is that the incentives appear to be for a certain company and are not fairly applicable to all companies. Giving those with the best economy of scale yet another advantage. People are often against unfair advantage.
  • rco8786 9y ago
    Doesn't it say population > 1m?
  • 9y ago
• avenoir 9y ago
  If they're after tax breaks and cheap land they can follow companies like Sprint and Garmin and build open headquarters somewhere in East Kansas.
  • kansasresident 9y ago
    Sprint and Garmin have always been in Kansas. They didn't move here from somewhere else.
  • mratzloff 9y ago
    Small qualified developer pool to draw from and hard to attract outside talent. I grew up in eastern Kansas and left in part because of dismal career prospects. They'll end up choosing an up-and-coming city (i.e., positive population growth).
    • hellogoodbyeeee 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure the Kansas City Metro (where Sprint, Garmin, and Cerner are located) has positive population growth.
    • Apocryphon 9y ago
      They've got Google Fiber now, though.
    • avenoir 9y ago
      Perhaps many years ago? Eastern Kansas has a pretty massive tech sector now. So do some parts of Kansas City metro.
      • mratzloff 9y ago
        To be clear I'm not saying there's no tech economy in eastern Kansas (though I think all involved would dispute a description of "massive"). Just saying that dropping Amazon there won't magically make 50,000 qualified applicants appear. “There are simply not enough workers in the area with the technical skills to meet the demand of our region’s companies,” the report commissioned by the KC Tech Council said. “This number will not decrease unless our region does more to support tech workforce development.” http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/technology/article148948664.html http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/technology/article14...
• jasode 9y ago
  I think we can assume that Jeff Bezos saw how Elon Musk played the game in 2014 to find a location for Tesla's GigaFactory.[1][2][3] The upcoming stories for Amazon's high-profile decision will probably play out in a similar way. However, the particular candidate cities probably won't be the same since Elon was building a site for factory workers whereas Jeff is building a campus for more software developers. Therefore, a location like Austin with U.Texas compsci students to recruit is more important for Amazon HQ2 than a Gigafactory. The desire to attract tech employers like Amazon appears to be more competitive than winning the bid to host the Olympic Games. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-ingeniously-manipulated-7-states-into-competing-for-teslas-gigafactory-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-ingeniously-man... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2014/02/27/the-high-stakes-race-by-southwest-states-for-teslas-5-billion-gigafactory/#1adf2ed44eeb https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2014/02/27/the... [3] google results of similar stories: https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+bidding+nevada+texas https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+bidding+nevada+texas
  • rtpg 9y ago
    >The desire to attract tech employers like Amazon appears to be more competitive than winning the bid to host the Olympic Games. And for good reason! There aren't many companies that people would be willing to move across the US to join. People tend not to move around too much after University of their first job. Having another magnet to bring in people for relatively little (compared to a university's for example) is a great deal for a city.
    • notyourwork 9y ago
      Based on how many have moved to Seattle Amazon is one of them though.
      • uiri 9y ago
        How much of that is hiring straight out of University? I would wager that Amazon has the largest tech internship program in North America.
• protomyth 9y ago
  They got tax breaks with their customer service centers, but that might have been a bad bet for the city http://www.inforum.com/business/3978404-questions-linger-after-amazon-moves-employees-out-grand-forks-facility http://www.inforum.com/business/3978404-questions-linger-aft...
• sjg007 9y ago
  I think the Twin cities has a strong chance to get this.
  • gyc 9y ago
    I don't think the city or the state would be too interested in giving the type of incentives that Amazon is looking for, unfortunately.
• kogepathic 9y ago
  Why not put HQ2 in Vancouver? Okay, yes, house prices are unrealistic, but hear me out: 1. Not in the US (helpful for any non-American employees who can't get a visa or don't want to live in the current political climate in the US) 2. Relatively easy for Americans to work in Canada 3. Close proximity to Seattle 4. Canadian salaries are typically lower than America, so this could be a huge boon to Canadians working in tech that they're finally paid similar to US counterparts and/or Amazon can save a bundle on salary costs by paying the Canadian market rate...
  • martin_drapeau 9y ago
    Salaries are lower in Canada indeed. Plus, their are substantial credits both at the federal and provincial levels to recuperate developer salary costs (30%+). Ubisoft and other studios have their R&D in Montreal just for this reason. There is a big talent pool in and around Montreal. Would be an ideal location.
    • kogepathic 9y ago
      > There is a big talent pool in and around Montreal. Would be an ideal location. True, Montreal is also a great potential city for HQ2. They already have quite a tech presence there (OVH data centre, game studios, some media production)
    • JustAnotherPat 9y ago
      Taxes are too high in Quebec. Also, not sure people in Montreal want to be dominated by Amazon and have it turn into some new Amazon-centric tech hub. It is doing relatively well without a megacorp there.
      • eniotna 9y ago
        I believe it's the opposite, taxes for companies are lower in Quebec than in the US (did not factor in R&D credit, etc). Individual taxes are higher in Quebec.
  • malmsteen 9y ago
• nathanmuller 9y ago
  I'd argue Research Triangle Park (RTP) is better choice than Austin. Instead of using one feeder school Amazon could pull from three excellent schools: Duke University, North Carolina State University, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For those that are unfamiliar RTP is a major tech center. Edit: Changed "RTP" to "Research Triangle Park" in initial comment.
  • hydrogen18 9y ago
    Forgive my ignorance, what is RTP?
    • rco8786 9y ago
      Trying to figure that out too. I assume they're talking about the "Research Triangle" area, but I can't figure out what the P is.
      • not_a_terrorist 9y ago
        P = Park
    • wolfkill 9y ago
      Research Triangle Park- between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park
    • Multicomp 9y ago
      Best guess: Dallas Forth-Worth?
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • wolfkill 9y ago
    I'd agree, Raleigh area would be a great choice. It is growing with lower cost of living than other tech centers.
• dcole2929 9y ago
  I think an East Coast city definitely makes the most sense. Realistically though, they probably can't get enough land in the ideal spot of NYC/Jersey meaning the next best options are DC, Philly and Atlanta. Baltimore could be a dark horse candidate. There's already a lot of construction going on there courtesy of Under Armour building out a new HQ. Charlotte could be an option as well.
  • brightball 9y ago
    Was thinking the same thing. I'll be a little surprised if it's NOT Atlanta just between the city, airport, public transit and Georgia Tech.
  • dkrich 9y ago
    My money would be on D.C. Lots of access to government agencies that could add a lot of AWS business, a major concentration of highly-skilled tech workers and colleges, close to the Washington Post, and a lot of up and coming neighborhoods in the southwest/southeast quadrants of the city. Also wouldn't hurt that it's on the opposite side of the country to add some geographic diversity.
    • apendleton 9y ago
      As someone who lives in DC: I'm with you on the DC metro making some sense, but DC itself is probably out. There's not enough green space to build a campus the size of their Seattle HQ anywhere in the city, given how the severe building height limits here would balloon the total required acreage. They might have some options someplace in the suburbs (maybe Arlington, or out along the Silver Line), or they could look at Baltimore: still pretty close to DC, but much cheaper, and with a lot more industrial land ripe for repurposing.
      • dkrich 9y ago
        The height limitations are a good point and also they probably wouldn't get the tax incentives they're looking for in DC, but Nova a possibility. I'd be surprised by Baltimore because it would probably be difficult to attract top talent there in large numbers.
• empath75 9y ago
  Given how important the Dulles corridor is to aws and how big their presence is there already, and how important amazon's interaction with the federal government is getting, it seems like Northern Virginia should be in contention.
• alexval 9y ago
  I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Pittsburgh yet. uber did some early self driving pilots there. CMU is there. Google has a large office there. Amazon has also started hiring software engineers for an office in Pittsburgh too. Cost of living is very cheap. Many upsides to Pittsburgh. I don't know what the city could afford in terms of subsidies though.
  • DanCarvajal 9y ago
    PA Corporate tax is one of the highest in the country. Though it's not a terrible option.
    • 1_2__4 9y ago
      Effective rate, or published rate?
      • pc86 9y ago
        9.99% net income. It's flat so there is no "effective" rate.
    • thinkling 9y ago
      How does that affect a company like Amazon that cam claim its primary HQ in another state, and its actual realized revenue as mostly in other states? What part of Amazon's profits would get taxed in PA?
      • DanCarvajal 9y ago
        Most states have tax nexus rules where that doesn't matter as much anymore. They'd certainly pay PA corporate tax on PA income, then PA payroll on every employee.
    • notyourday 9y ago
      Philadelphia has gross receipts tax. It is a no go.
• wyldfire 9y ago
  > A stable and business-friendly environment and tax structure will be high-priority considerations for the Project. Incentives offered ... will be significant factors in the decision-making process. It's a race to the bottom. Don't fall for it. Pro sports teams, recently Foxconn, they're all running the same game. You will all end up overbidding in order to win the deal and your constituents will foot the bill.
  • wiredone 9y ago
    This is far from true. Jobs bring sales taxes, property taxes etc etc. Football stadiums pale in comparison. People in Seattle complain that there are "too many high income people around spending too much on stuff, raising the prices". If youre a city wanting growth, adding one of the largest national employers seems like a good bet.
• Multicomp 9y ago
  If Atlanta gets it I'll eat my shoe polish
• ktorvald 9y ago
  Portland, Philadelphia, Atlanta based on what Amazon wants / needs.
  • omosubi 9y ago
    I'd also say the research triangle, Salt lake city, Austin, Chicago, the twin cities, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati
    • mywittyname 9y ago
      Cincinnati isn't a good choice. It has a modest tech scene and no great CS/CE universities. Columbus is a far better choice.
      • ceejayoz 9y ago
        > modest tech scene Anywhere Amazon puts a HQ is going to have a pretty decent tech scene pretty rapidly. > no great CS/CE universities Columbus is 90 minutes away, and Amazon recruits internationally. Close proximity to a good CS program is hardly a strict necessity.
        • mywittyname 9y ago
          Sure, but having a great university down the street means they get first crack at interns. The biggest problem with recruiting tech people to live in Cincinnati is that most people are unimpressed when they visit. Cincinnatians like nasty food and get excited over utterly boring events. So when visitors come, people recommend they try Skyline and go to the fireworks or something and it generally leaves a bad taste in the visitor's mouths. Columbus seems like a better choice.
          • ceejayoz 9y ago
            > Sure, but having a great university down the street means they get first crack at interns. I can't imagine an Amazon HQ in Cincinnati would have trouble recruiting interns from Columbus, Cleveland, etc. They already attract interns to Seattle from all over the country. For every Skyline rec (which is, indeed, a shitty thing to do to a visitor), there's a Graeters one. :-p
• brightball 9y ago
  Should be interesting to see if they decide to go with an east coast presence. Something like Atlanta would make a lot of sense with Georgia Tech there.
• dgf7hsonoh 9y ago
  >We expect to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow our second headquarters location to be a full equal to Amazon’s current campus in Seattle Is this laying the groundwork for Amazon to pull a Boeing?
• devmunchies 9y ago
  Silicon Slopes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Slopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Slopes - Population > 1,000,000 - Serviced by 2 great universities (UoU, BYU) - Utah is a top 5 state for # of Unicorn Companies From the wiki I shared: "The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development allows a variety of grants and tax incentives to companies willing to either relocate or expand their enterprise" Note: I live in Seattle, not Utah.
  • bearforcenine 9y ago
    Utah could be a great fit based on Amazon's preferences for a site if they build something along the I-15 corridor. It's within 30 miles of a population center, within 45 minutes to the airport, directly off a major highway, front runner rail stations run along I-15, and you might be able to find 100 acres of space - especially if they were to put it out where the prison is now (it's moving soon).
  • scottpiper 9y ago
    I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I do AWS security consulting. I would love this. I've lived all over the US (Boulder, SF, Austin, DC, and more) and because I do remote work I can work anywhere, and I chose to move here as the best place for my interests.
  • SaintGhurka 9y ago
    I wonder if SLC would be disqualified because it would harm rather than help Amazon's diversity efforts.
    • devmunchies 9y ago
      Not building an HQ somewhere because of race sounds like racism to me. This is the problem with considering race at all for hiring decisions. Race != diversity. If their diversity efforts are for the sake of new thinking, it would benefit their diversity efforts. If their diversity efforts stop at skin color, then yeah, you are right.
      • 9y ago
• mudflaps 9y ago
  I think when all is said and done this will be less about tax credits and more about choosing a city that's easy to work with on core issues like transit, development, and infrastructure. There are only a few cities who can really qualify in terms of having existing talent pools and being an attractive relo destination. This isn't putting an auto plant in bumfk. But working with Seattle's leaders ain't easy for anyone--sure, would be nice to get some tax credits, but ultimately those are just one way a new HQ partner could signal that they're seriously motivated to work well together. We'll see.
• mrep 9y ago
  wow, that only leaves 10 cities with a population over a million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
  • sillypuddy 9y ago
    Looks like Amazon is looking at metropolitan area instead of city limit.
    • mrep 9y ago
      your right. 53 is much more reasonable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistic...
• MicroBerto 9y ago
  Texas has the inside track, too. Wonder what city though... Austin's already too crowded as it is but has a great talent pool. Could be better off somewhere like San Marcos or Georgetown.
  • Cshelton 9y ago
    Dallas/North Dallas (Plano/McKinney/etc.) Haven't seen it listen much but it is probably one of the top contenders. There is a reason Toyota, along with many others, moved their (U.S.) headquarters here.
    • sjm-lbm 9y ago
      North Dallas is getting crazy crowded, though. Enough that housing supply for their potential workers really should be a concern for any additional company looking to relocate there. That said, engineer availability should be fairly good when compared to most places outside of more traditional tech hubs (the area is served by TCU/SMU/UTD directly, UT/Texas A&M/additional Texas schools indirectly, is already near EDS and Perot Systems/whatever those two call themselves these days) and the local authorities have shown both a desire and ability to attract major company retractions. You would have to think the North Dallas area is on the shortlist.
      • no_one_ever 9y ago
        While North Dallas is exploding (huge growth in population for the past decade, maybe the most in the country?), it is far from being overpopulated. There is absolutely no shortage of land/property.
  • dylan604 9y ago
    My first thoughts on this would be the Frisco area just north of Dallas. I believe it has been touted as one of the fastest growing areas in the country. The local gov't there is giving away the city just to attract business. Toyota just moved there, the Dallas Cowboys just relocated there, there are others that I'm not recalling and more is in the works. They are close to DFW airport (one of the largest) as well as smaller Lovefield (very appealing after the Wright amendment has been lifted). This airports already offer the required direct flights. As for colleges, there are so many to feed into it, that it's not really a concern. Cost of living in North Texas is very cheap, and other than the occasional tornado, environmentally it is very stable.
• johan_larson 9y ago
  Is there a place that is so appealing it doesn't need to offer a discount? NYC? Boston?
  • sillypuddy 9y ago
    Probably depends on priorities, the big cities will give you greater access to talent, but would require flexibility on how a campus could be built out and how quickly it would happen. It's likely possible to build out a campus the way you want in a large urban center. Universities do it, but they do it opportunistically over a long time.
• losteverything 9y ago
  This could be aimed at a specific powerful senator/congressman that can change policy. What federal rule hampers Amazon, and if unleashed would cause great profit? Privatize USPS Internet tax? Transportation (own roadways) What policies?
• rb808 9y ago
  I wonder if this will eventually be the main HQ. Amazon is a mass market company which competes on the lowest costs. Seattle is too expensive now. Most big retail stores are not based in expensive cities Walmart is based in Arkansas, Target in Minnesota etc.
  • francisofascii 9y ago
    But isn't Seattle expensive because of Amazon being there?
• dpeterson 9y ago
  I think it's possible Amazon is not so much shopping for a second HQ as it is looking to move work from the high rent, pro union Seattle area. Only, they saw how much negative press Boeing received after making their true intentions known for moving work to southern states. Amazon is being sneakier. If all works out, long term I imagine much of their high end development work may move from Seattle.
  • clavalle 9y ago
    Are unions affecting Amazon?
    • thinkling 9y ago
      Unions would affect warehouses and jobs like shipping/delivery, not HQ office jobs.
  • rb808 9y ago
    From memory the reason Amazon was based in Seattle was that it was close to book publisher warehouses, that is no longer a good reason to remain there.
    • fpo 9y ago
      Also the initial business plan of Amazon was in large part trying to benefit from not having to pay sales tax on out of state shipments.
  • Eridrus 9y ago
    I don't think they would gain much negative press if they said they were moving jobs out of Seattle. The people who care about union jobs generally see software engineers as gentrifiers and would prefer that they left and stopped driving rent up.
• relaunched 9y ago
  Minnesota. Budget surplus, tons of F500 companies / large companies to recruit from and a strong university system, with lots of other states to draw from, being the largest city in the area, save Chicago.
  • ryanmarsh 9y ago
    This is one of the most likely locations I've read of so far. Minneapolis, Austin, Boulder in that order.
    • mkempe 9y ago
      Denver possibly, but absolutely not Boulder. Boulder is a complete failure when it comes to transportation -- no light rail connection to Denver's system, although they collected sales tax for years claiming that was going to finance it; also, adding 50,000 new workers in a city of 100,000 would simply crush the existing infrastructure. Plus the local city council has been on a quixotic quest to confiscate electric utilities (distribution without production). The local developers have been giddy for the last few years that Google is bringing one thousand workers there, that's how strained housing already is.
  • 1001101 9y ago
    Lots of retail in that area. BestBuy HQ, Target HQ, and a host of others. A lot of their suppliers have satellite offices in the area as well. Seems like a solid choice.
  • relaunched 9y ago
    It's also very affordable, with public transportation.
  • relaunched 9y ago
    Amazon has a small, but growing technical office in Minneapolis, as well as a DC in the suburbs.
• clavalle 9y ago
  Thinking about what cities should lay out the red carpet, if I were a city official in, say, St. Louis or Detroit, I'd be putting together an incentive plan worth billions. Amazon could turn around an entire mid-size city.
  • notyourwork 9y ago
    Columbus, Ohio seems like a good choice. I do agree with St. Louis and Detroit too.
  • 1_2__4 9y ago
    And then have it (the city) by the balls forever, to the detriment of the human inhabitants who are supposed to be the ones in charge of deciding what government does.
  • dionidium 9y ago
    Have a look at what St. Louis offered to keep the NGA in the city: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-louis-prepares-for-nga-s-billion-dollar-move/article_39ae893a-2504-5004-a308-1fed845ae813.html http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-louis-prepares-f...
  • peterkshultz 9y ago
    Amazon announced plans to open up a Detroit tech office a few years ago [1]. [1]: http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/09/28/amazon-detroit-duggan-snyder-technology-retail-tech/72797396/ http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/09/2...
• baron816 9y ago
  You have to consider that this may be a political move by Bezos. The term "anti-trust" has been brought up a lot lately in regards to 'Big Tech.' If Amazon becomes a big employer in a lot of low population states, it would effectively be buying itself those states's Senators and creating an 'Amazon Industrial Complex.' On the other hand, Bezos might want to just move the margins and try to make a purple state blue. For a big state, that might make have a bigger impact and make more sense, especially since you're not going to find 50,000 software engineers in Montana. I think Cincinnati could be a good choice. I don't know much about Cincinnati, except that it's in Ohio and borders Indiana and Kentucky, and that it's not a tech hub. But, I don't think it would be that hard to convince a lot of people to move there. If the move is really successful, it could create somewhat of a tech hub there, which would have spillover effects in those other states (giving them 3 for the price of 1?).
  • dodobirdlord 9y ago
    I would not be too surprised if the final decision was Columbus. There's no shortage of land, there's reasonable access to tech talent, a reasonably solid major research university, prices are comparatively low, and the city also has a positive reputation in a way that neither Cleveland or Cincinnati have. Further, the current governor and legislature of Ohio have really been going to bat in recent years to try to turn Columbus into a tech hub to generally revitalize Ohio.
  • adventured 9y ago
    It's plausible. One of the things that protected Walmart for the last 25 years, was its high distribution among red states and mid to low population areas (blue cities have notoriously disliked Walmart and worked to keep them out). They overwhelmingly sought to appeal to the lower to middle classes in terms of their customer demographics and still have wide support there politically. Have to agree that Amazon will go for either the mid-west or east coast as the hub. It's the logical political choice, to re-balance itself away from the west coast as a center. To compete with Walmart & big retail politically, it'll need far greater physical representation within states.
  • fooey 9y ago
    As a generalization, the people who want to work for Amazon tend to be more on the progressive wing, and an HQ in a heavily conservative region would make it harder to hire talent. I would guess places like Denver/Boulder (where Google has a site coming), Boston, Portland, or Las Vegas are much more likely than Austin, Charlotte, or Salt Lake City
• chrismealy 9y ago
  CEOs always locate headquarters were they want to live.
  • pjmorris 9y ago
    Gates moved Microsoft back to Washington, his childhood home. Does Bezos open an office in Miami?
    • breitling 9y ago
      This year's hurricane season will give people second thoughts about Miami.
  • bryanlarsen 9y ago
    IIRC, about 80% of the time that a company moves its headquarters, the headquarters move closer to where the CEO lives.
    • ianai 9y ago
      I hope something like that is the case. He was born in Albuquerque. That city does have some tech talent and support but would hugely benefit from an HQ. plus the sunsets are amazing and the COL low.
• 013a 9y ago
  I'll suggest a dark horse candidate: Indianapolis. Indy is close to two top 5 engineering colleges (UIUC and Purdue) and one top 10 business school (IU). Purdue has a unique product history with Amazon [1] and Amazon has four warehouses within an hour drive (though to be fair, that's true of a lot of cities). The city has seen major investment from outside tech companies like Salesforce [2], IAC [3], and others in recent years. Real estate and cost of living inside the city is ridiculously cheap, and there are hundreds of undeveloped acres [4] startlingly close to city center. The city has proven itself capable of hosting 400,000 people in a single day at the Indy500 every year. The state and city has a history of giving large tax incentives to outside tech companies [5]. [1] https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q3/purdue,-amazon-to-offer-students-savings-on-textbooks,-provide-first-ever-on-campus-pickup-services.html https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q3/purdue,-ama... [2] http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2017/05/20/why-salesforce-investing-indy/332181001/ http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2017/05/20/why-salesfo... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-01/iac-to-acquire-angie-s-list-in-deal-valued-at-about-500-million https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-01/iac-to-ac... [4] http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2017/05/02/550m-gm-stamping-plant-site-project-create-new-district-indianapolis/101193674/ http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2017/05/02/550m-gm-stamp... [5] https://www.ibj.com/articles/58486-salesforce-to-invest-40m-in-indy-expansion-reap-172m-in-incentives?v=preview https://www.ibj.com/articles/58486-salesforce-to-invest-40m-...
  • Slippery_John 9y ago
    Unlikely. One of the requirements is daily direct flights to/from Seattle. Indy does technically have that but it's exactly 1 flight with poor timing for business considerations. They list a few other destinations as must-have nonstop flights, but I'm not sure how good those are. They're also putting a lot of stress on public transit, which is pretty abysmal in Indiana. They also don't want to sacrifice on some of their values surrounding renewable energy, recycling, composting, etc. I lived in Indiana for over 10 years and can't say I've ever seen a compost bin at a restaurant, and can count on one hand the number of places with recycling bins (for public use anyway, most places would recycle their boxes at least). That said, moving some place in the midwest would be very interesting. Amazon has a lot of employees that are from those areas, so if they want to start moving teams it would probably not be too hard.
• rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Buffalo NY. Pros: -Dirt cheap, so lots of land for Amazon -Also means employees can afford their own houses, practically unthinkable for a new hire in Seattle. Bigger perk than foosball tables!!! -Scores of Upstate/Midwest colleges and universities to recruit talent from -Proximity to major markets of the East Coast, the Midwest, and Ontario. Cons: -Snow -New York State taxes; abatement not as likely as in other states -Erie County population not quite 1 million -Snow -The Bills always blow it, it's like they're cursed. -Did I mention snow? Buffalo might not be the best location for Amazon, but it very well could be a good place to grow a company without spending half of your money on expensive property, and the other half on salaries high enough to afford exorbitant rents.
• pk2200 9y ago
  Austin seems like a strong candidate, since it's a major high tech hub and Whole Foods is already headquartered there.
• clarke78 9y ago
  Canada... 'nough said. If we don't do what we can to bring Amazon North then I have absolutely zero faith in our ability to ever take tech seriously beyond the wall. I don't care where the HQ ends up so long as it's on this side of the boarder. #YYZ (Toronto) #YVR (Vancouver) or, the most likely spot, #YGK (Kingston/Waterloo) are all great options. Talent could once again stay here instead of the decade(plus)-long brain-drain to the South.
  • ihsw2 9y ago
    #YOW (Ottawa) should be considered a strong contender.
    • clarke78 9y ago
      Totally! Space & cost might be the biggest issues or reasons against putting the HQ in #YYZ or #YVR; #YOW might be a great location.
• ianai 9y ago
  I wish it'd go somewhere in the Deep South. It seems where tech jobs are most lacking.
• ynniv 9y ago
  If you take their transit and airport requirements seriously, Atlanta and perhaps Miami are top contenders. I'm biased, but the list of requirements looks like a description of a currently undeveloped area of downtown Atlanta that has been targeted for redevelopment: https://atlanta.curbed.com/2017/6/30/15900526/downtown-atlanta-gulch-hawks-falcons-photos https://atlanta.curbed.com/2017/6/30/15900526/downtown-atlan... http://atlantaintownpaper.com/2017/08/lawmakers-want-revive-plan-downtown-multimodal-terminal/ http://atlantaintownpaper.com/2017/08/lawmakers-want-revive-...
  • sswezey 9y ago
    Looking at the RFP, minus the mass transit, it seems like it was written for Atlanta. And Atlanta has so many urban infill areas available for development.
• jamesie 9y ago
  What city would you move to so you can work at HQ2?
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Pittsburgh
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Austin
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Las Vegas
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Salt Lake City
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Buffalo
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Vancouver
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Research Triangle Park, NC
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Denver
  • xxpor 9y ago
    Cleveland
  • jamesie 9y ago
    Atlanta
  • vyrotek 9y ago
• kharms 9y ago
  I think they'll end up in Providence. Very close to Boston & NYC, cheap land, reasonably close airport.
  • meddlepal 9y ago
    Doubtful. Just like Worcester is also doubtful. Amazon's not hurting for money to lease or buy land and TF Green is too small (not enough direct flights) compared to Logan.
• ctvo 9y ago
  The research triangle[1] feels like a strong candidate. Excellent schools, close enough for flights to the North East, accommodating southern state government. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle
• saikit 9y ago
  Newark, NJ. Audible is already located there. Easy access to NYC and their many distribution centers in New Jersey.
• vasilipupkin 9y ago
  Chicago: Plenty of tech talent, cheap, nice city, convenient transportation, easy to fly all over. For employees with kids, top notch schools in the area, both private and public.
  • franksunjin 9y ago
    Oh hell no
• vyrotek 9y ago
  The Phoenix area would be a great option.
  • stdgy 9y ago
    To add to that, they already have an engineering office in Tempe. I suspect both Phoenix and Tempe will be strong contenders. Positives: - Affordable housing - Affordable corporate real estate - Construction boom in both cities - Local governments interested in wooing corporations Downsides: - No deep CS university pipeline - No strong tech presence, complicating hiring - Will need to offer incentives to get people to move - Public transport is lacking
• m23khan 9y ago
  Mississauga, Ontario, Canada is probably the best place for Amazon to place its HQ. It has a huge international airport which has tons of undeveloped land, good road networks (HWYs, well-built roads), rail road connections, a harbour (Port Credit) that can be expanded and the land prices aren't surreal. Combine all this with a well educated local populace and a low crime rate.
• BatFastard 9y ago
  Come to Atlanta! Great schools, great weather, downtown is under utilized, decent mass transit. One of the fastest grow tech locations in the country. We offer, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tidal waves, no forest fires, no flooding, and once every 10 year snow storms. We are on the opposite coast which protects you from N Korean actions. Plus you can fly anywhere from our airport!
  • vadym909 9y ago
    Agree. Atlanta is a great choice.
    • logfromblammo 9y ago
      Except that I want to live in Atlanta even less than I want to live in Seattle. It has a kind of psychic oppression field over it that makes me want to immediately turn around and leave. Atlanta looks good on paper. It always does. But actually being in the city tells me a different story. That said, I think only Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, or Boston could absorb the extra demand for skilled employees without sucking the wind out of the other local businesses' sails. The Texan cities could, too, but I don't think Amazon will go there, for some reason. If Amazon plopped down in Chattanooga or Harrisburg, or even Indianapolis or Detroit, it would exhaust the local talent pool immediately, and cause a local inflation bubble.
      • XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
        What rubbed you wrong with ATL?
      • dbot 9y ago
        As an Atlanta resident, I find it a terrible place to visit but a great place to live. Great cities have (1) cool places to visit; and (2) lots of hidden gems - parks, restaurants, etc. - that take years to discover. Atlanta lacks the first, but has plenty of the second. That combined with good weather, great housing options and a Delta hub make it pretty nice to live in.
• akhilcacharya 9y ago
  I hope RTP bids for them! It would be great to have 3 of the Big4 in the area.
• omarforgotpwd 9y ago
  Translation: Whoever gives us the biggest tax incentives gets some of dat amazon internet money
• ceedan 9y ago
  Amazon making corporate welfare so sexy. Make those cities beg for it Jeff. Make 'em fight each other for it Jeff. Jeff, they want you and that hot HQ2 so bad. sigh
  • conanbatt 9y ago
    You are not the city you live in.
    • ceedan 9y ago
      Some of my tax dollars go to the city I live in.
• dbot 9y ago
  My guess is that Amazon will want to effectively "own" whatever city it selects. Not only will they get incentives from government, but they'll want to have primary influence over the business and educational communities. So that when Amazon wants something, the city will go along. This will give them a laboratory for all sorts of experiments, which is both fascinating and scary. While a city like my hometown Atlanta makes sense on paper - transportation, great schools, awesome cost of living - there are too many other big players here. I think they want a next-generation "company town."
  • DerfNet 9y ago
    They can come to St. Louis. Everybody else left. They can have the AT&T tower downtown, it's empty.
    • leggomylibro 9y ago
      Already claimed by the Free Republic of Annheuser-Busch-land. How about East St. Louis? I think the Spivey Building could use a new tenant...
• the_arun 9y ago
  SFO Bay Area - You will get everything world class. More importantly, great talent from your competitors!
• LyalinDotCom 9y ago
  It should be in NYC, there I saved them a ton of time asking for proposals.
• jamesie 9y ago
  The RFP says that sustainability is important. I would think Amazon would consider climate change as a factor. Miami and other South East coastal cities would be affected in the future by the increasing risk of flooding and hurricane winds.
• bane 9y ago
  Why not in the D.C. area, perhaps near Amazon's own data centers in Ashburn? It's one of the richest, most educated places in the U.S., has huge quantities of technical talent and plenty of high quality nearby schools with strong technical programs and lots of people looking for opportunities outside of the Fed space but don't want to move to the West coast. It also is within the D.C./Baltimore/Philadelphia/NYC mega-city/region. Ashburn hits pretty much all of their RFP requirements right away with the development of the new metro line as well.
  • kerbalspacepro 9y ago
    If I had to guess, the D.C area might already be too big? They'd be competing with all the military contractors/consulting groups that exist out here for talent, housing, and transit access. Their best bet is a city that hasn't been "techified" to having exorbitant rents.
• squozzer 9y ago
  I will "officially" hope AMZN chooses ATL (as leverage for a bigger raise) but ATL has problems. 1) traffic -- not sure it's possible to get to ATL airport in 45 min during rush hour, without using MARTA rail. 2) transit -- how much "developable" land has a mass transit stop on-site? AMZN would either have to buy a developed site or have a MARTA rail spur built. 3) ATL airport -- a certain airline has way too much power there. But anyway, I found the perfect spot for AMZN if they can swing it - it meets their core requirements (it's even built over a MARTA rail stop) -- http://www.midtownatl.com/view/atandt-building http://www.midtownatl.com/view/atandt-building
  • madcaptenor 9y ago
    "ATL airport -- a certain airline has way too much power there." And that airline is increasingly big in Seattle as well.
• widowlark 9y ago
  Who else thinks they might just put the second headquarters in Redmond? It meets all of their criteria.
• 3pt14159 9y ago
  I'm going to make the case for Toronto, for New York, and for SF / SV. The reason I don't make the case for Vancouver is that it's essentially just a Toronto with a smaller talent pool to draw on from Amazon's perspective. It's like buying the non-M version of a BWM when you're a multi-millionaire. I guess you could do it, but why? Also, I don't understand the Texas or DC tech scene but there might be options here too. Lots of NSA programmers running around and they're working on some complicated datasets. I think the Toronto case is the strongest, but I think any of the three are good choices. 1. Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world. It is in a country with a flexible, predictable, but different, immigration system, and with a fairly robust financial sector and infrastructure. If Amazon can't get a candidate into America, they can try getting that candidate into Canada instead. This is key. America makes up only 5% of the world's population and politics aside, is no longer an ideal place for a large percentage of the world's population due to racism and hostility towards immigrants / immigration. To attract international talent (including from New England, a short flight away which can be critical for taking care of aging parents) Toronto is by far the best choice in North America. It's more expensive than Ottawa, but more fun and has a number of high quality Universities near by (Waterloo, Toronto, Queens, and others) and compared to NYC or SV much, much cheaper. Vancouver wouldn't be a terrible choice, but there's less of a talent pool to draw from and the housing market is worse there. Toronto's current mayor is very friendly to tech companies, and there is growing focus on bike lanes and mass transit which means commuters from all corners of the GTA could make it into work. Most of the cultural elite (influential journalists, actors, etc) in Canada live in Toronto, which has subtle benefits like getting Amazon into TV shows or interviews through personal connections. Playing outside in the winter kinda sucks in Toronto though, Vancouver area has it made here. 2. New York has a huge pool of highly skilled developers with experience at firms where microseconds are critical. Nobody outgrows New York. It's also a place that has international prestige. An immigrant moving to Seattle or Portland is "moving to America" according to their family whilst an immigrant to New York is "moving to New York" Americans might not understand the huge distinction between the two, but to people in Pakistan or even Canada being able to make a living in New York is proving that you're one of the best in the world. It won't completely make up for the Trump presidency, but it would be a meaningful difference. Also, right next to banks and many important regulators and press people. Tons of American cultural elite as well. One downside of going NYC is that Amazon would have less bargaining power. The city is so huge that the injection of cash and talent matters less than in Toronto or Vancouver, so special concessions are harder to come by. 3. SF / SV is the easy, pricey case. The best machine learning developers live here. Machine learning is critical to Amazon's survival. They have success hiring here, but it would be better if they had HQ2 here. Salaries are much, much higher here, however.
• thinkling 9y ago
  RFPs are due by Oct 19. My first reaction was "there's no way city and state governments can work together to produce incentive packages that quickly". On second thought, it makes me wonder if they're shopping for local governments which can be that responsive with an eye on getting stuff done efficiently in the future (permitting, zoning).
• thinkling 9y ago
  Amazon is planning to hire another 20,000 people in Seattle within 3 years, on top of the 40,000 they currently have there. Then another 50,000 HQ office workers at HQ2, so overall HQ staff is expected double within 5-10 years. (Even if some of the Seattle headcount shifts to HQ2, it'll still be close to a doubling.) It's mind boggling to me that they foresee their HQ staff doubling; I lack the imagination to guess what all those people are going to be doing. Aside from physical retail, what markets might they be eyeing?
  • mkempe 9y ago
    Transportation, including logistics and deliveries of course, but also innovative infrastructure to move people. Also, vertical farming.
• suyash 9y ago
  Let San Francisco win!
• Animats 9y ago
  OK, what are the options? Here's the list of the top 50 North American metro areas over the desired 1,000,000 population.[1] This gets down to the Nashville, TN area, at 1.8 million, so it's not the full list. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba are probably out, both for political reasons and being islands. Mexico is probably out given the current administration's positions. San Juan is on an island and too remote, although the tax deal in Puerto Rico might keep it in consideration. Amazon seems to want a city where they would be a Big Deal, maybe the dominant employer. In New York or LA, they'd just be another big business. Weather is an issue. They'll want some place that doesn't flood or get snowbound, since their HQ city will include some distribution centers. That knocks out Minneapolis - St. Paul, Houston, Miami, and Tampa. They probably don't want a super high cost area, which knocks out SF-Oakland-San Jose. Maybe Washington, DC, too. Extreme high crime areas are out - that takes out Tijuana and Detroit. Mass transit is a specified requirement. This takes out cities with weak transit systems. Not too close to Seattle, since they want to be more geographically distributed. That probably takes out the West Coast cities. So what's left? Chicago Dallas–Fort Worth Toronto Philadelphia Atlanta Boston Phoenix Montreal Denver St. Louis Baltimore Charlotte Orlando San Antonio Pittsburgh Cincinnati Las Vegas Kansas City Cleveland Columbus Austin Indianapolis Nashville I'm going to guess Austin or Nashville. Small enough that Amazon can be a big fish in a small pond, big enough to support the work force, liveable enough that people will come, good land availability. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropolitan_areas_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropo...
  • Johnny555 9y ago
    Mexico is probably out given the current administration's positions I don't think the current administration would complain if thousands of mostly liberal tech workers moved to Mexico.
  • castratikron 9y ago
    I would disagree that Minneapolis is disqualified for the reasons you gave. They already have a fulfillment center about half an hour from Minneapolis and a small development office downtown. The real question is whether there is enough local talent here to fill their needs.
• devmpk 9y ago
  To me, this screams Philadelphia. 45 minutes to NYC, 2 hours to DC, two of the biggest talent pools in the country, in a city of 2 million that has been making significant steps forward in the last 10 years. It is cheap, offers all the urban amenities one could desire, it's close to the beach, I would absolutely move back if I got a good job offer. If Bezos is into politics, Philadelphia is in a purple state. He will have a massive influence there. I used to live in Philadelphia, I really loved my time there. It is a hugely underrated city IMO, and probably the most urban feeling in the country behind NYC and Chicago. Philly is as multicultural as you can get, try taking a walk in Center City and you'll see what I mean. Comcast has made a home in the city, and I know that they have made an excellent deal with the city government considering the massive investments they are making in Center City. I know there are other options, I really don't see anything more fitting that Philadelphia though besides maybe Denver or Twin Cities. -Current DC resident dreaming of moving back to Philadelphia
• Dimi9909 9y ago
  herndon virginia
• Dimi9909 9y ago
  herndon,virginia
• xy55 9y ago
  I'm too late for anyone to see this, but they could probably take the Qualcomm Stadium site in San Diego's Mission Valley. It's right on a trolley line and a very easy drive to the downtown airport, not to mention an easy flight from Seattle. UCSD is a great supplier of young talent and Qualcomm and Viasat offer engineers they can poach.
• robterrin 9y ago
  Everybody (except Amazon) will probably end up worse off. See Thaler's famous paper on the "Winner's Curse." http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~jandreon/Econ264/papers/Thaler%20JEP%201988.pdf http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~jandreon/Econ264/papers/Thaler%20JE... I'm not sure what to make of this overall. The Federal Government should probably regulate this kind of behavior or at least sweeten the payoff of state cooperation. Our anti-trust regulators are really asleep at the wheel.
• dionidium 9y ago
  Fun round-up of local city subreddit threads: - https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/6yn4lz/amazon_seeking_locations_for_2nd_headquarters/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/6yn4lz/amazon_seek... - https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/6ymtng/imagine_if_this_was_philly_amazon_is_looking_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/6ymtng/imagin... - https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/6ymz3i/amazon_in_search_of_a_2nd_hq_will_atl_make_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/6ymz3i/amazon_in_s... - https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/6yn1ni/amazon_is_looking_for_a_2nd_headquarter_city_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/6yn1ni/amazon... - https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/6ymtgy/what_are_the_chances_of_bringing_the_amazon_hq_ii/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/6ymtgy/what_are_th... - https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/6ymu85/amazon_seeking_2nd_hq_could_it_be_baltimore/ https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/6ymu85/amazon_se... - https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/comments/6ynkoh/amazon_soliciting_proposals_for_new_north/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/comments/6ynkoh/amazon_s... - https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/6ynba4/amazon_announces_plans_for_huge_new_north_america/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/6ynba4/amazon_annou... - https://www.reddit.com/r/cincinnati/comments/6yoew7/could_cincinnati_be_the_place_for_amazons_hq2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cincinnati/comments/6yoew7/could_ci... - https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/6ynqbr/amazon_seeks_new_city_for_headquarters_why_not/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/6ynqbr/amazon_s... - https://www.reddit.com/r/indianapolis/comments/6yo34a/amazon_hq2_propsal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/indianapolis/comments/6yo34a/amazon... - https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/comments/6yn5p3/amazon_is_looking_for_a_second_hq_city/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/comments/6yn5p3/amazon_is...
• tinduck 9y ago
  The federal government should pay Amazon to open an HQ in either Memphis, or New Orleans. Or let's say any metro area over 30% African American and over 1 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_with_large_African-American_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_area... The major issue is that typically states ignore the needs of critical infrastructure in those cities like Tier One Carnegie Classification Universities.
• wdr1 9y ago
  > In choosing the location for HQ2, Amazon has a preference for: > * Metropolitan areas with more than one million people There are 10 cities in America with one million people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    > > * Metropolitan areas with more than one million people > There are 10 cities in America with one million people: Metropolitan areas are not the same as cities. By one definition (MSAs), there are 53 such areas with a population over 1 million. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statist...
• nogbit 9y ago
  Also, any city willing to participate must have the following... Top of the line medical centers, big ones! Fantastic sports teams, many of them. Amazing universities, state college required. Seasons, a little of everything for everyone. A small traffic problem, so it can get worse. Cheap real-estate, so it can get more expensive. A port, you know, the ones with access to shipping lanes. Land for more suburbs, so you can run out of land. I'm sure the list is longer for the reasons why Silicon Valley and Seattle are what they are, but that's a start.
• mikmeh 9y ago
  It's gonna be Denver