Amazon HDQ2---if DFW, then where? (Dallas, Austin: colleges, income, income tax)

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by happycrow

The average software developer's salary, sure. But the further you move away from the coders, the more the salaries and hence incoming money descends to mere mortal numbers.

Logistics? 25-62k. Marketing? 14-26/hr hourly, 68-143k salaried executive.
We already have fulfillment centers all over the place, paying about 17/hr. I have teammates here at work supporting those locations.



With a typical single-anchor strip mall financing in the 140-250MM range? Yes, clearly, $5B isn't to be sneezed at. And to some extent it's an issue of language. It would be big. But even that big-ness is well within the range where DFW could go "shrug" if DC or Denver were to get the nod and have the character of their city fundamentally changed overnight. Let alone the rust-belt-resurrection it would pose in a place like Detroit, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh.

And because of that I think those other places will fight much harder when (presumably) short list goes to finalists.

1. Your knowledge of corporate retail HQ salaries is off. To be competitive with others here, Amazon would need to pay:
Admin: $35-45k
Senior Admin: $50-100k+
Junior level, non management: $45-70k
Manager (basically anyone with 1+ direct report): $75-125k
Director: $125-250k
VP:$200-350k

The "average" HQ employee is going to be a manager making $75-125k, hence the average salary of $100k. PLUS pretty good benefits.

2. Of course this relo would be transformative to a Pittsburg. Detroit is already out of the running. But it would still be a really big damn deal for DFW. Or DC. Or Boston.

[turf3]

Don't forget all the $5 slices of toast!

[Alewife]

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/2...on-hq2-denver/

So don't bet on Denver.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

2. Of course this relo would be transformative to a Pittsburg. Detroit is already out of the running. But it would still be a really big damn deal for DFW. Or DC. Or Boston.

Comcast is building another tower taller than the current one (that's currently the tallest in Philly) just to house their engineers and R&D. Tech talent must be plentiful in Philly to justify the cost to build a skyscraper for that purpose.

[happycrow]

Originally Posted by numbersguy100

It's not clear you understand what the term "average" means, based solely on the language of this post.

True. Largely because it's impossible to address rigorously without not only knowing what positions, but in what numbers. Mean-vs-median etc, lots of back-of-envelope all translates to big-time guesswork.

[happycrow]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

1. Your knowledge of corporate retail HQ salaries is off. To be competitive with others here, Amazon would need to pay:
Admin: $35-45k
Senior Admin: $50-100k+
Junior level, non management: $45-70k
Manager (basically anyone with 1+ direct report): $75-125k
Director: $125-250k
VP:$200-350k

The "average" HQ employee is going to be a manager making $75-125k, hence the average salary of $100k. PLUS pretty good benefits.

2. Of course this relo would be transformative to a Pittsburg. Detroit is already out of the running. But it would still be a really big damn deal for DFW. Or DC. Or Boston.

I'd quibble with your Senior Admin salary ranges, but otherwise, yes, very good point.
(and of course it would be a "really big damn deal." Just notably *less* of one for us than for other competitors, giving them more reason to double and treble down all-in for it. I've apparently been expressing my argument badly.)

[aggie972]

Has amazon said what there timeline is for making an announcement or further shortening the list? I am house hunting right now, and don't want to still be looking if Amazon announces they are planting roots here.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by aggie972

Has amazon said what there timeline is for making an announcement or further shortening the list? I am house hunting right now, and don't want to still be looking if Amazon announces they are planting roots here.

They just said 2018. My guess is second half of the year. That is a lot of "short list" sites to vet.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by Katana49

You clearly haven't thought about it much then. 50,000 new jobs. Then consider how many of those people have families and kids. You're talking about an influx of probably more than 100k people, and that's JUST Amazon employees and their families. Think about all the contractors that would be hired to build their campus. Think about all the new retail and restaurants that would open up to serve these people.

Even for a city as large as the Dallas area and suburbs, it would have a massive impact.

I think I’m with happycrow here due to two reasons; the very spread out nature of the metroplex and the fact that there are several distinct job centers spread around and not concentrated in one area. So for example, Toyota was a massive game changer for the Plano/Frisco area and immediate surroundings...absolutely nothing to Tarrant County and even most of Dallas County either. I’ll even go so far as to say the effect is probably negligible at best here in Southeast Collin County where I live. And we aren’t that far away from Plano. By the same token, Amazon going to Fort Worth or Rockwall isn’t going to have much impact in Frisco regardless of how big the hq is. Just the nature of the DFW beast.

[NoClueWho]

Originally Posted by Alewife

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/2...on-hq2-denver/

So don't bet on Denver.

I think it's interesting that such a well regarded and fast growing city and metro as Denver has basically said that they don't WANT this huge company relocating there, even though it is considering them and other places would LOVE to be on their shortlist; that they are realistic about the fact that once the excitement of landing it and the bragging rights of beating other cities and metros out for it wears off, that they will be stuck with a LOT of serious long term problems and cons.

It would be great if people and city leaders in DFW and leaders at the state level in Texas finally realized that at some point. Also, that's why I think that huge cities and metros that are already economically healthy, vibrant, and/or are rapidly growing don't really NEED Amazon expanding there as much cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, or one of the major Ohio cities do. But Amazon being the huge mega company that it is and with the requirements that it has already laid down, it will probably go to one of those big major metros like Boston, Toronto, Atlanta, etc anyway.