Amazon HQ2

[MikeTheActuary]

While I can see geographic diversification/risk mitigation as being a consideration, I've got to believe that the primary motivation for looking for a second home is balancing a desire to concentrate their employees on a common campus versus Seattle becoming too expensive for them to attract enough additional talent.

"Hey, we've tapped out the local supply of labor, and we've made the local real estate too expensive for us to get more people to move here and for us to expand our office space.  Let's see where we can get some cheap real estate and attract more people."

[jakeroot]

Amazon isn't 100% to blame for Seattle's home-price woes. The city has been growing at a steady pace for many years (Amazon undoubtedly sped things up a little), but the number of homes for sale has not kept up. This is almost entirely the result of poor zoning. If Seattle let areas outside of downtown and SLU grow tall, we'd see a lot less competition for homes, and, therefore, lower home prices. There's only so much land, and the city is limiting its potential.

[sparker]

Amazon isn't 100% to blame for Seattle's home-price woes. The city has been growing at a steady pace for many years (Amazon undoubtedly sped things up a little), but the number of homes for sale has not kept up. This is almost entirely the result of poor zoning. If Seattle let areas outside of downtown and SLU grow tall, we'd see a lot less competition for homes, and, therefore, lower home prices. There's only so much land, and the city is limiting its potential.

This phenomenon is remarkably similar to what's happening down here in San Jose; building height downtown is limited by the fact that the area is under the approach path to Mineta International Airport, so the city has zoned the area immediately west of downtown and sandwiched between San Carlos Avenue and I-280 (a strip about 3/4 mile wide) for high-rise, along with several developments interspersed with a number of the major tech companies' campuses on the north side of town (within the triangle formed by US 101, I-880, and CA 237) -- but has "zoned out" the remainder of the sprawling city to avoid conflicts with the residents in those areas.  So San Jose, like Seattle, is severely limiting the possibilities of density increases within its boundaries -- with the result that the only winners in this scenario are present property owners who have seen the value of their parcels increase almost logarithmically!  And several of the adjacent cities (Santa Clara, Campbell, and Milpitas) haven't seen fit to take up the slack; what they have been doing is rezoning many of their neighborhoods to allow clusters of closely-spaced single-unit "row houses" on previously larger lots (San Jose does this as well but to a lesser extent).  But even those relatively compact housing units are selling for about $700K+ these days.  A potential buyer needs to venture as far afield as Gilroy or even Brentwood/Discovery Bay to find much of anything under a half-million!

The odds of Amazon moving within 50 miles of the Bay -- although Fremont was one of the first cities to put in a bid -- are long indeed; there's virtually no affordable housing available around here!   

[bing101]

What about Austin or Dallas as alternative sites for Amazon. It's been the place where it's been seen as more affordable than California though.

[kkt]

What about Austin or Dallas as alternative sites for Amazon. It's been the place where it's been seen as more affordable than California though.

Austin might work for them.

[Road Hog]

DFW is not a good choice simply because it's overbooked. With Toyota and other companies moving in, they can't build new houses and new subdivisions fast enough. Throw in another huge company and DFW can't handle the influx.

[jakeroot]

DFW is not a good choice simply because it's overbooked. With Toyota and other companies moving in, they can't build new houses and new subdivisions fast enough. Throw in another huge company and DFW can't handle the influx.

That's part of what makes a city, a city. Growth is as inevitable as the next sunrise.

DFW would be able to deal with growth better if it didn't focus so much of its residential growth away from where these companies are locating themselves. I'm not sure if local zoning laws prohibit skyscrapers outside of certain areas, but they should take a page out of Vancouverism and just start building skyscrapers everywhere. Make things more urban. Put less strain on the highways.

[sparker]

Since the new Amazon facility is projecting 10K employees right at start-up, it's likely that there will be a broad cross-section of housing preferences among those employees; like in other cities hosting tech and/or web-based firms, there will be some employees -- generally younger and mainly single -- who are prime candidates for high-rise downtown apartments and condos -- but there will be others for whom separate "single-family" housing is desirable, particularly family members with children (especially those with more than one child), where greater living space coupled with usable yards is sought.  A metro area that offers a reasonable selection of both types of housing facility -- preferably with a decent affordability factor -- would likely be one that would make the "finals" of Amazon's winnowing process.

[Bruce]

Amazon has collected 238 bids, including a few from places like Alaska, Nova Scotia, and parts of Mexico.



Half of the U.S. states should be immediately eliminated by the metro area and transit requirements.

[jakeroot]

Amazon has collected 238 bids

Hmmm...238 you say? I think Amazon fudged the numbers a bit, and is hinting at a Bay Area HQ.

[LM117]

Plot twist: Amazon has already picked their spot and is just milking all the PR it can get.

[LM117]

At least around the people I work with (tech industry), there's this strong feeling that it's Raleigh's to lose.  I'm not as confident but the Triangle a growing area with a lot to offer, and politicians here would be willing to throw tax incentives at their feet.

If Phil Berger and Tim Moore weren't willing to loosen the purse strings to lure Volvo and to save the film industry in Wilmington, there's no way in hell they'll be willing to throw tax incentives at Amazon and if they do offer anything, it'll likely be laughable compared to what other states are offering. NC has no chance.

[jeffandnicole]

Plot twist: Amazon has already picked their spot and is just milking all the PR it can get.

Yep.

[Bruce]

Plot twist: Amazon has already picked their spot and is just milking all the PR it can get.

More likely they're fishing for good tax incentives from a shortlist of preferred options.

[kalvado]

Plot twist: Amazon has already picked their spot and is just milking all the PR it can get.

Super-twist: that place didn't apply...

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

Plot twist: Amazon has already picked their spot and is just milking all the PR it can get.

Alanland, anyone?

[triplemultiplex]

C'mon, Winnipeg!!



They won't be coming to Wisconsin since the state already gave away the farm to FoxCon. (misspelled on purpose)

[7/8]

There was a segment tonight on "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" (a comedy show on CBC) about various places in Canada that Amazon should build their second headquarters. It ended with Dildo, Newfoundland, since "everyone wants a larger Dildo"!

[cl94]

From The Onion...

I love Albany and I'm not afraid to share it, but all of us here LOLed because, unlike Buffalo, we're fine laughing along with the jokes about our city.

[inkyatari]

I just read that of all places, Kankakee, IL put in a bid.

[Bruce]

I just read that of all places, Kankakee, IL put in a bid.

Their bid was probably tossed immediately. This news article has quotes from the officials, and they seem to be confusing the headquarters (where executives, IT/developers, and white collar work is done) with a distribution center. An airport outside Chicago's flight path is fine for the latter, but there's no use if you can't fly cheaply and directly to HQ1 in Seattle for face-to-face meetings.

A lot of these bids are going to get tossed. It's as if these small towns didn't read the requirements.

[bing101]

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/amazon-files-plan-to-open-brick-and-mortar-book-store-in-atlanta/637384200

Update

[Bruce]

Amazon Books is unrelated to the Amazon HQ bidding.

[bing101]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/this-city-hall-brought-to-you-by-amazon/

Update on the Amazon issue.

[Avalanchez71]

I would say that Franklin TN followed by Murfreesboro TN followed by Clarksville TN would be in order for the Metropolitan Nashville TN area.

Nissan has it's NA HQ in Franklin TN along other companies.