Amazon HDQ2---if DFW, then where? (Dallas, Nash: to relocate, medical, best)

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Mr. Clutch

1) residents generally wanted HQ2 in Dallas, as opposed to places like Denver or DC, where traffic and housing cost fears caused widespread local concern.
2) city leaders REALLY wanted HQ2 in Dallas, and pulled out all of the stops to ensure that this happened

Now that the shoe has dropped, folks want to retroactively act like it was never that big of a deal. That may be true for some (or many) individuals, but I've lived in Dallas and I understand the prevailing corporate attitude there pretty well. A lot of effort and planning (undoubtedly far more than many other competitors) was put forth to woo this company and there's no doubt that not getting a corporate HQ the region felt it was in a perfect position to get does hurt. It's pretty obvious that plenty of business interests and individuals in DFW really felt that it was the best choice and not to get any piece of that pie (not even the operational center that will go to Nashville) will cause some to soul search like what happened after the Boeing loss 15 years ago.

Some people are now scoffing and saying "I never wanted them here" when if you look back at their social media posts over the last several months, they were huge HQ2 cheerleaders.


I'm definitely not one of them; I think you'll find I've been consistently opposed to HQ2 coming to Dallas and over the last several months have expressed the opinion that NoVA would get it. Turns out I was 50% right on that one.


In any case, I think Dallas dodged a bullet. I didn't want HQ2 here and I'm glad other cities have to subsidize those jobs instead of us.

[yjc281]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Some people are now scoffing and saying "I never wanted them here" when if you look back at their social media posts over the last several months, they were huge HQ2 cheerleaders.


I'm definitely not one of them; I think you'll find I've been consistently opposed to HQ2 coming to Dallas and over the last several months have expressed the opinion that NoVA would get it. Turns out I was 50% right on that one.


In any case, I think Dallas dodged a bullet. I didn't want HQ2 here and I'm glad other cities have to subsidize those jobs instead of us.

I buy a lot from Amazon and have several friends that work for the Amazon Cloud division. But I'm also very glad that they are not coming here. If I recall correctly one of the reports say that they are supposed to bring 50,000 jobs with "average" salary of 100k. (in reality that was cut to half ---25k jobs) For the amount of subsidy required and additional burden onto the local infrastructure, that does not seem like a good deal to me at least. We also do not need additional 25k to 50k families moving here at the moment...
I agree that Dallas dodged a bullet...

[Mr. Clutch]

Originally Posted by happycrow

Mr. Clutch:

Fair enough; my original point is something like ten months old now and a lot of people even back then read into my argument, rather than taking it at face value.

Dallas cared -- in real-estate boom alone it would have put a section in the city on "Easy mode" for attracting a broad swath of the affluent to pump value into the area. But Dallas didn't need to win. It would be nice, but not mandatory, and Dallas' loss here amounts to *shrug* "well, poo. Okay, back to work, what else we got cooking today?" So Dallas could never justify putting together a package so good that it would outweigh the benefits of Bezos' new digs being on the Acela Corridor where he needs to be because of the massive lobbying he must engage in to avoid becoming an anti-trust target.

And in the end, as I predicted, it didn't: Dallas' package combined with its merits as a city, was strong (certainly stronger than the embarrassing string of cities who clearly did not, as noted, read the bloody rfq), but insufficient. I don't know that anybody foresaw Bezos plopping down operations on BOTH ends of the corridors near his houses, but he parked pretty much where he was always guaranteed to park.

Fair enough. I'm pretty sure that had NY or DC lost there wouldn't be tens of articles in the local news agonizing over why that happened, but hey, we're splitting hairs at this point.

Originally Posted by RJ312

I agree that there are issues with the city-suburb relationship. Dallas' Super Bowl hosting debacle was a good piece of evidence of that. The next six Super Bowls are already planned. The soonest Dallas could possibly host a Super Bowl is February 2025. That would be 14 years after the debacle.

A lot of cities are not well equipped to host Super Bowls and Final Fours. In most cities, the stadium where the Super Bowl/Final Four is far from the main nightlife district (see Miami, Dallas, Phoenix). New Orleans has the best setup for hosting Super Bowls and Final Fours since the Superdome is within walking distance of the French Quarter.

Yep. It really doesn't make a lot of sense in most cities to site a big hulking stadium in the middle of downtown or a major close-in entertainment area that will be used 10-20 times a year for its intended purpose. New Orleans and Atlanta are really the only warm weather places that have that setup that I can think of. Houston's stadium is pretty close too, so it works. Most of the rest of the NFL cities it doesn't really work that well in, so that's not unique to DFW.

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Some people are now scoffing and saying "I never wanted them here" when if you look back at their social media posts over the last several months, they were huge HQ2 cheerleaders.


I'm definitely not one of them; I think you'll find I've been consistently opposed to HQ2 coming to Dallas and over the last several months have expressed the opinion that NoVA would get it. Turns out I was 50% right on that one.


In any case, I think Dallas dodged a bullet. I didn't want HQ2 here and I'm glad other cities have to subsidize those jobs instead of us.

Lol, yeah you have railed against the idea of them going to Dallas for a while. Personally, I think Dallas was a better choice logically than almost anywhere else because it can handle the growth with less pain than most places. I've been in DC the last two days and dropped a couple of references to Amazon, and the prevailing opinion seems to be either "meh" or "OMG the commuters are going to crush us all". One guy was basically like "well Crystal City got BRACed a few years ago, so they're basically just replacing the people that were already there". But people here don't particularly seem excited, and at worst, are bracing for the impacts of having even more people here. Of all the talk of areas that definitely don't "need" Amazon, I think NoVa might be the one that "needs" it the absolute least. In many ways, it's similar to DFW in that there's been supercharged growth and a lot of headquarters relocations in recent years. It's already the wealthiest region in the country. There are major infrastructural concerns going forward that Dallas doesn't really have. Good choice for Bezos, but the jury is still out on how it's going to affect the people that live here.

[HP48G]

Originally Posted by DTXman34

I think what Simek is trying to argue is that there is no clear distinction between private and public urban space. You have a company essentially owning a huge piece of the urban fabric. We have plenty of examples of it here anyways.

That’s why there are ordinances and zoning guidelines. I would have prefered a very dense urban high tech enclave in Dallas than another corporate campus in the suburbs with midrise generic buildings and acres of parking.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Mr. Clutch

Fair enough. I'm pretty sure that had NY or DC lost there wouldn't be tens of articles in the local news agonizing over why that happened, but hey, we're splitting hairs at this point.

Yep. It really doesn't make a lot of sense in most cities to site a big hulking stadium in the middle of downtown or a major close-in entertainment area that will be used 10-20 times a year for its intended purpose. New Orleans and Atlanta are really the only warm weather places that have that setup that I can think of. Houston's stadium is pretty close too, so it works. Most of the rest of the NFL cities it doesn't really work that well in, so that's not unique to DFW.

Lol, yeah you have railed against the idea of them going to Dallas for a while. Personally, I think Dallas was a better choice logically than almost anywhere else because it can handle the growth with less pain than most places. I've been in DC the last two days and dropped a couple of references to Amazon, and the prevailing opinion seems to be either "meh" or "OMG the commuters are going to crush us all". One guy was basically like "well Crystal City got BRACed a few years ago, so they're basically just replacing the people that were already there". But people here don't particularly seem excited, and at worst, are bracing for the impacts of having even more people here. Of all the talk of areas that definitely don't "need" Amazon, I think NoVa might be the one that "needs" it the absolute least. In many ways, it's similar to DFW in that there's been supercharged growth and a lot of headquarters relocations in recent years. It's already the wealthiest region in the country. There are major infrastructural concerns going forward that Dallas doesn't really have. Good choice for Bezos, but the jury is still out on how it's going to affect the people that live here.

I feel bad for them.

[Mr. Clutch]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

I feel bad for them.

Which is why I'm glad I'm not here full-time anymore, with or without Amazon. Great place to live if you can deal with all of the people and traffic and unnecessary expenses, because NoVa is really, really nice and the most prosperous place I've ever lived.

But I did my time lol.

[JJG]

Apparently, the DFW "joint bid" site was narrowed down to the South Side/Ceaders location.

[justsomeguy]

Originally Posted by Mr. Clutch

Which is why I'm glad I'm not here full-time anymore, with or without Amazon. Great place to live if you can deal with all of the people and traffic and unnecessary expenses, because NoVa is really, really nice and the most prosperous place I've ever lived.

But I did my time lol.

What did you like specifically about NOVA? Seems expensive, no?

[RJ312]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

I've been consistently opposed to HQ2 coming to Dallas and over the last several months have expressed the opinion that NoVA would get it. Turns out I was 50% right on that one.

In any case, I think Dallas dodged a bullet. I didn't want HQ2 here and I'm glad other cities have to subsidize those jobs instead of us.

We both had the same ideas about HQ2 and Dallas. Consistently, neither one of us wanted it. I'm glad it is somewhere else and somewhere else can deal with the traffic increases and cost of living increases. I didn't want to deal with either of those things.

[Johnhw2]

Fox business had a retail sector guest argue subsidizing to get the jobs in the too high cost areas chosen had to be higher to make them competitive with places like Dallas. I do not oppose cities subsidizing these big employment projects as the incremenato cost of sevicibg the jobs us less than the average cost so the city still comes out ahead on the project jobs not to mention the tag along jobs that follow without sudsidy

The expert made the case that NYC is aiding Amazon in it's ability to compete with old school retail companies like Macy's and that will turn out to be bad net net for NYC.

Side note Nashville picked up 5000 jobs from Amazon just announced so they appear the third place winner over Dallas it seems.

Let