Amazon HQ? (Philadelphia, York, Monument: school, university, wage)

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by kyb01

Delaware is making a bid.

Actually, Delaware's bid might swing it to Philadelphia.

[BPP1999]

The problem is that every region in this country is talking about this now. Some regions might be too small by default, such as Cleveland (at least that's what they're saying over on the Cleveland board). Philadelphia has all the key ingredients except it's not as business-friendly and not as open to outsiders.

Pros are clearly infrastructure/transit/airport/colleges/workforce/strategic location/reasonable cost of living. I would have thought Atlanta and Charlotte would be the two obvious choices.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by BPP1999

The problem is that every region in this country is talking about this now. Some regions might be too small by default, such as Cleveland (at least that's what they're saying over on the Cleveland board). Philadelphia has all the key ingredients except it's not as business-friendly and not as open to outsiders.

Pros are clearly infrastructure/transit/airport/colleges/workforce/strategic location/reasonable cost of living.

The housing cost is the huge advantage over the other prime east coast urban areas.

Me? I'd put it in the lightly used space to the north of the convention center that's already 50% parking lots. Give them the air rights over I-676. You have Jefferson Station right there.

[Shazzy1228]

Can someone explain why Chicago would make sense? Isn't that city losing its residents???

[mslhu]

Originally Posted by Shazzy1228

Can someone explain why Chicago would make sense? Isn't that city losing its residents???

Name recognition? I mean, it is Chicago, they always have to be considered.

[BK_PHL_DEL]

Originally Posted by mslhu

Name recognition? I mean, it is Chicago, they always have to be considered.

A very interesting take from the Chicago forum...the bold part caught my attention.

Originally Posted by chet everett

While I have zero inside info on this, I do have lots of connections to the broad technology in the region and it would not surprise me to see Amazon very happily do a deal in Chicago. It would be a natural "flag in the ground" for AWS and the Amazon effort to get more respect in the crucial financial services segment. There is a nice level of talent in the region that already is well respected for some of the things that Amazon has commercialized -- the obvious roots of "cloud computing" tracing back to work from UIUC / National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois and the DOE labs at Argonne and Fermi make this a no-brainer on some level.

That said, there is a very odd /hostile relationship between some of the sizeable firms in the region and their preference for the Microsoft cloud offering, Azure, that is viewed as more of a "utility" that has none of the baggage that comes with AWS, which as an offering of Amazon has literally been the "grim reaper" of many traditional retailers that once were THE THING in Chicago. The obvious animosity between not just Sears, but also Walgreens and few dozen other lesser known firms from Ulta to various fashion / accessories oriented firms and even firms backed with private equity / Berkshire Hathaway funding like Pampered Chef makes for lots of well connected people vehemently opposed to helping Amazon in any way... If the state and or city were to give Bezos tax breaks it would be a huge "finger in the eye" to many of these firms and they would be all the more eager to move forward with their {currently back burner} plans to move to Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Texas or Florida. I have literally been part of such contingencies and lots of the upper level executives really hate the thought of Illinois giving any tax breaks to firms that are known to be ruthlessly unconcerned about decimating competitors... This is very different than even breaks given to firms like United that at least does give some benefit to local executives who like the massive ORD hub, but if Amazon were to make it harder to hire talent and drive other competition in ways that businesses would see as unfair they would be huge acceleration in out-migration...

The thing too is that Amazon leadership, especially Bezos, is well known to crave outsized importance -- it is really odd that they SPECIFICALLY said they want a city of over a million. That eliminates LOTS of places that would otherwise be an awesome fit -- Detroit, Atlanta (city itself is very small), Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Raleigh, Kansas City and even Austin TX would NOT cut it if the numbers have to be above $1M... Places that would? Phoenix (probably more sprawly than even LA and not great for international travel), San Antonio??, Houston??, Dallas ??, maybe St. Louis (lots more population in surrounding county vs city makes it hard to call urban), San Diego???, I guess Philadelphia, for sure Toronto (which also gives a way to be "international" while still being North America...), NY (but I gotta think that costs and the reluctance of NY leadership to cut deals is a huge negative) and of course Chicago. In that group it is hard to say that any other city could offer so much to Amazon...

It likely will boil down to how desperate Rahm and Rauner are to risk the pay off of a give away to Amazon being a trigger to dealing with the flood of existing firms saying "you SOBs just hiked the taxes on us, cut us some breaks or we are GONE"...

[Redddog]

....and Philly still has an image problem. It's changing but it's still there.

We've made strides with the Pope/DNC/Draft stuff. The schools, tax structure and perceived above average violence will be the obstacles to overcome.

It would be a generational game-changer to land this. I just feel like it would be akin to winning the lottery - a tremendous long-shot.

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by southbound_295

Well. . .it's just going to depend. . .

Charlotte just beat out Philadelphia on a deal with Allstate. I think that this might come down to Philadelphia vs Charlotte. Atlanta has a huge traffic problem.

This is being discussed on the Charlotte board. They are looking for certain criteria, including a large international airport.

I'd like to see Philadelphia get this one.

Insurance is a conservative industry, so I can see why they would consider generic sunbelt, suburban, vapid Charlotte a safe place to grow vs gritty, urban, diverse Philly. It would seem Amazon would be looking for just the opposite of Charlotte and looking for . . . well, us.

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by Pine to Vine

Insurance is a conservative industry, so I can see why they would consider generic sunbelt, suburban, vapid Charlotte a safe place to grow vs gritty, urban, diverse Philly. It would seem Amazon would be looking for just the opposite of Charlotte and looking for . . . well, us.

Well, Charlotte used to be banking & mills and there were lots of mills throughout the metro. The metro has been diversifying with IT & energy. The city will have a million residents by 2030. It's got the up & coming vibe. On the other hand, Philadelphia has the college presence that Amazon wants. You can go back & forth on the 2. They're also similar for cost of living, & as soon as the numbskulls in Raleigh cough up the money to fix one stretch of rails between Raleigh & Richmond, & replace the old station in Charlotte, there will be high-speed rail to Charlotte to go with the airport, which a lot of companies have been infatuated with.

You can go back & forth between the two & neither is the clear winner, but I think that Philadelphia has the edge on this one. There's a thread on this on the Atlanta board & they think that they're the clear winner. Their traffic is well know & I would think that traffic could be the nail in their coffin on this one. Amazon wants a metro with a minimum of 1million. If there's a dark horse in this, it could be Raleigh. The Triangle has Duke & UNC Chapel Hill & that metro has the RTP.

I don't see Chicago being a player in this. Their winters are miserable.

[Duderino]

It's clear that Amazon wants to make a real splash, so I actually don't think the standard, mega-city corporate-bearers, a la NYC and Chicago, make sense for that kind of image. For the West Coast, Seattle is/was perfect for them.

On the other hand, if you think logically about the scale they're looking to achieve, both in terms of physical real estate, infrastructure and perhaps most importantly, access to LOTS of top young and educated talent, that truly narrows the choices quite a bit. It's that "just right" city that they need.

We're all likely a little biased here, but Philly really is that unicorn that Amazon is looking for. A stable 7 million+ metro area, a formidable location for access to thousands of top East Coast university graduates within 150 miles every year, a bonifide urban/walkable city with extensive and comprehensive public transit, relatively cheap real estate with still plenty of "blank slate" to work with, even on major corridors (potentially right next to a high-speed rail station) and prosperous, livable suburbs for attracting family-minded folks (again, with actual commuter rail options).

In fact, it's mind-boggling that another major corporation hasn't jumped at the opportunity at establishing a massive presence in Philly post-recession (yet, of course).

Bottom line, the cost-benefit potential of a large company coming to a "just below gateway" major city like Philly, especially with astronomical and absurd business costs in places like NYC, DC, Boston and SF, has never made more sense. If Amazon doesn't go for Philly, it will one day be a no-brainer to another corporate headquarters search committee.