Amazon solicits bids from North American cities for a second HQ (Cleveland: crime, public schools)

[reioh]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/amaz...hq2-to-20.html

The remaining 20 places are:

Atlanta
Austin, Texas
Boston
Chicago
Columbus, Ohio
Dallas
Denver
Indianapolis
Los Angeles
Miami
Montgomery County, Md.
Nashville, Tenn.
Newark, N.J.
New York City
Northern Virginia
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Raleigh, N.C.
Toronto
Washington, D.C.

[reioh]

Apple is taking a page out of Amazon's playbook by teasing its new campus - Business Insider

[QCongress83216]

Originally Posted by reioh

Apple is taking a page out of Amazon's playbook by teasing its new campus - Business Insider

Yeah, I've heard.

[cle2sf]

Instead of wasting time throwing incentives at Amazon and Apple and other "traditional" tech companies, Cleveland would be wise to aggressively recruit biotech companies to open new research and production facilities in Cleveland. Biotech is the growing industry best suited for the institutions and legacy industries Cleveland has to offer. Sure, Case Western has a respected computer science program, but it doesn't pump out the sheer number of graduates that universities like Texas, Ohio State, UNC, Washington, Pitt/CMU, et al. can. The traditional tech industry relies on a huge volume of programmers and developers to grow. On the other hand, CWRU has a highly-regarded biomedical engineering program, and crucially, the combined size and prestige of the Cleveland Clinic and UH dwarfs almost anything that other mid-sized cities can offer. Currently, the titans of biotech are concentrated in the SF Bay Area, Boston, and NYC, all extremely expensive places with high land prices. The City of Cleveland should be heading to those hubs, asking companies about expansion plans, and pitching what Cleveland can offer. Sure, it won't lead to a Fortune 500 company moving its HQ to Cleveland, but it's a great way to bring in jobs without having to offer the family farm to someone already worth $100 billion.

[mhays25]

Every city in the country was obsessed about biotech about 15 years ago. But the pie was too small and most of it went to the same cities that already had it, like San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, etc.

A common thread is that these cities got multiples of the $300,000,000 in NIH money that Cleveland institutions (primarily Case Western and the Cleveland Clinic) got last year, though that's of course only one ingredient for success. https://www.report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm

[WRnative]

This article criticizes the incentives offered by Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and even Cleveland State Univ. in order to entice Amazon to Cleveland. The offer of 10 acres of land by CSU especially infuriates me as the land-locked university would find it difficult to expand the downtown campus footprint after such a deal, especially as Amazon's presence would balloon land prices in the downtown area.

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and...bbedPopularity

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by WRnative

This article criticizes the incentives offered by Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and even Cleveland State Univ. in order to entice Amazon to Cleveland. The offer of 10 acres of land by CSU especially infuriates me as the land-locked university would find it difficult to expand the downtown campus footprint after such a deal, especially as Amazon's presence would balloon land prices in the downtown area.

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and...bbedPopularity

WEWS reported tonight that the ten acres of CSU land would have been used to build an Amazon University to train technically skilled employees to staff Amazon. That wouldn't have been so egregious.

[mbowes80]

Interesting article ... thanks for sharing. On the one hand, I have no problem with a city offering incentives if it seems likely that the benefits will outweigh the cost of the incentives. On the other hand, in hindsight, it seems obvious that Amazon was never acting in good faith anyway, and had little other intention than to enrich itself while making medium-sized cities all over America grovel in hopes of getting a few of its breadcrumbs. F*** 'em.

What if Cleveland could home-grow it's own transcendent company? How do we increase the likelihood of that happening?

[reioh]

Originally Posted by mbowes80

Interesting article ... thanks for sharing. On the one hand, I have no problem with a city offering incentives if it seems likely that the benefits will outweigh the cost of the incentives. On the other hand, in hindsight, it seems obvious that Amazon was never acting in good faith anyway, and had little other intention than to enrich itself while making medium-sized cities all over America grovel in hopes of getting a few of its breadcrumbs. F*** 'em.

What if Cleveland could home-grow it's own transcendent company? How do we increase the likelihood of that happening?

Start with the basics and address the C, D, and F grades (except weather).
Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site

[HueysBack]

Let's all be grateful they didn't accept this disastrous offer.

- 50% tax credit on all wages for 15 years
- 30 years of free property taxes ($314M) through a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) arrangement
- Sales tax revenue generated from their presence gifted back to them ( what!?)
- 10 acres of land near CSU
- Tower City
- Gifted all the last open lots in Public Square (Superior & W3rd next to Tower City)
- Numerous waterfront sites gifted for Amazon to build living communities for their workers
- An independent energy microgrid for Amazon only

Cleveland would have had to change its name to Bezosland.

Imagine all of the pressure this would have put on the city: housing, infrastructure, city services, etc. That $3.5 Billion would have probably ballooned to $5 Billion in total costs to the region.