Amazon HQ2

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by undergroundman

The last I checked, many of those upstarts are now either out of business or currently near bankruptcy.

The fact that U/L are now back and buying marketshare with investor money couldn't have anything to do with that. Nah, couldn't be.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by undergroundman

One other thing to add is that when they were operating without Uber in town, their prices were much more expensive than what Uber charges, presumably to compensate for the cost of doing business in a much regulated environment.

Uber operates at below-cost. That's why their prices are lower. Not a background check that costs nearly nothing.

They're blowing through literally billions of dollars.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/t...t-quarter.html

[undergroundman]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

yeah since our Fabulous Ledge decided to back Uber and force them back on the city.... less aware folks use them .... which helped the demise of some of the startups. And of course they did not all make it. It was an app race.

I still use Fasten.

And that's fantastic that you have the choice to chose the more expensive service. I felt my ability to choose as a consumer was taken away from me.

But we digress. This is the Amazon thread.

[chundercracker]

Originally Posted by undergroundman

And that's fantastic that you have the choice to chose the more expensive service. I felt my ability to choose as a consumer was taken away from me.

But we digress. This is the Amazon thread.

The Uber/Lyft situation is actually a great example of a corporation being able to bend policy to their liking... which is why I suggested that Amazon may prefer a more developing city like Austin where they could possible have more leverage in regard to policy as opposed to an established one like NYC or Chicago.

[The ATX]

With the alleged short list being less than two weeks away, it looks like Chicago has a good chance to be on it. Amazon Reps are touring sites there:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/am...-side-chicago/

[We vs us]

Originally Posted by The ATX

With the alleged short list being less than two weeks away, it looks like Chicago has a good chance to be on it. Amazon Reps are touring sites there:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/am...-side-chicago/

I've always wondered why Chicago didn't generate more buzz. I'd think it would be a top contender, honestly. Airlift, public trans, relative affordability, world class educational institutions. They have some serious pension problems on the city and state level, but other than that Rahm Emmanuel's known as being particularly business friendly, and aggressive for stuff like this. I'd bet they'd be willing to throw everything they've got at HQ2.

[The ATX]

The ABJ has an update. It looks like Amazon may have some interest in a location in Cedar Park.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...e-than-50.html

From the article:

Records obtained by the Austin Business Journal for this story confirmed another site. The city of Cedar Park about 30 minutes northwest of Austin proposed the Presidio Development, a mixed-use project by Riverside Resources on Parmer Lane south of RM 1431.

But the site matrix shows Presidio did not match two of Amazon's criteria: at least 500,000 square feet of existing space and onsite mass transit. So that site was considered in the second tier.

Amazon still wanted additional details on how the site could meet those criteria, according to an email. A Cedar Park official said they would expedite all approvals related to the project, dedicate a full-time staffer to be the point-person during construction and work with the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority to establish a train stop in Cedar Park.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by The ATX

The ABJ has an update. It looks like Amazon may have some interest in a location in Cedar Park.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...e-than-50.html

From the article:

Hard to say, they could be asking for clarification of every proposal that flat out doesn't meet the requirements.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Hard to say, they could be asking for clarification of every proposal that flat out doesn't meet the requirements.

Probably so. They probably have people going through each bid and organizing each location into a organizable database with different factors checked off for each location along with other notes and comments. They need a way to more easily organize all the data in order to try and make apples to apples comparisons.

It'll be interesting to see what the 2nd wave of finalists entails. They states in the RFP that they could begin negotiations with multiple cities at once but that might still come a little if their reduced group of cities under consideration details more direct communication and information gathering but not necessarily serious negotiations.

Any hope for a deal with Austin needs a discussion to start asap because I think the level of evaluation that this Austin council likes to see before making decisions is (better or worse depending on your viewpoint) on average longer than other cities.


There was an article in the Atlanta Business Journal recently about the scarcity of office space in the city. A big part of that is the expansion of the tech center that typically target refurbished eclectic areas of town. I don't really think that factors into the Amazon discussion much but I think it's an interesting note especially as it relates to the correlation between tech companies and that type of development.

A lot of office parks in this same vein are going up on the east side and Penn Field actually quietly has create that same type of space on their land.

Not really related to Amazon but still interesting,

Is anyone else surprised to see the list of top employers in the Austin metro? As far as I'm aware, those are regular HEB employees as HEB HQ is in San Antonio. I posted screenshots of the top 20 employers in Austin.



Some interesting tidbits

Based in Austin Area: Dell, Seaton, St Davids, NXP, Keller Williams, National Instruments, and Austin Regional Clinic

Received Direct Tax Incentives: National Instruments, Apple, Samsung
Leases Office in Tax Incentived Domain: Amazon
Used Voter Approved Bonds for Facility Construction: Seton

[freerover]

Originally Posted by The ATX

The ABJ has an update. It looks like Amazon may have some interest in a location in Cedar Park.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...e-than-50.html

From the article:

Oh wow. 1st tier sites have to be able to provide a 500,000 (square foot) office building in 2019. That would eliminate Riverside and the South Shore District (statesman area) from 1st tier consideration. At least Austin has some room at the Domain for Amazon to use for a certain amount of time that would allow them to still pick one of the city core sites and wait for development.

Even if Austin doesn't get it, the amount of research that went into all the different areas of town that could support development will be super helpful for the future.

[Jdawgboy]

Those H-E-B numbers have to be more than regular grocery store employees. I'm actually very suprised at that number. I'm not sure what is considered a fully staffed store but I would guess it's not more than 100-150 for smaller grocery stores. For their biggest stores, what about 300 or so? If someone has specific numbers please feel free to add your input. Even counting all of the grocery stores in the Austin Metro, I highly doubt that it adds up to 13,483 workers. They must have significant offices here as well. Maybe a distribution center?

[freerover]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

Those H-E-B numbers have to be more than regular grocery store employees. I'm actually very suprised at that number. I'm not sure what is considered a fully staffed store but I would guess it's not more than 100-150 for smaller grocery stores. For their biggest stores, what about 300 or so? If someone has specific numbers please feel free to add your input. Even counting all of the grocery stores in the Austin Metro, I highly doubt that it adds up to 13,483 workers. They must have significant offices here as well. Maybe a distribution center?

Keep in mind the total employees includes full- and part-time W-2 employees. Here is some more info about what data was gathered:

The Austin Business Journal list of largest employers is non-industry specific and ranked by number of employees with W-2 status. An exception was allowed to include Realtors working as independent contractors for real estate companies.

Eligible companies can be privately or publicly held, or operate as a nonprofit organization. Headquarters can be anywhere and is not limited to the Austin area.

Government entities and school systems are not included on the main list, although employee estimates are shown for these groups along side of the printed list. *See also ABJ list for Colleges & Universities for additional employee information.

The only other relevant info in the chart:
HEB has 53 Austin area stores, 388 total stores and 101,000 company wide employees.

[The ATX]

I can only think of one site in Austin that will have 500,000 square feet of office space available by 2019 - the 3M campus. 3M will be moving into their new building on Parmer in April 2019 making their current campus with over 1,000,000 square feet of office space available. It's on 156 acres, so there's plenty of room for expansion.

It's a decent looking campus.

http://rebusinessonline.com/3m-to-se...class-capital/

[We vs us]

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...gins-with.html

This was a sponsored blog post for ABJ by Sarah Eckhardt, a Travis County judge. Sponsor was Cap Metro. I hadn't heard anything about the highlighted tidbit:

All of us need greater mobility. Despite an established and growing consciousness that we need more transportation choices, the region’s lack of affordability is increasingly driving people outside the service area of the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Cap Metro), where there are few options, other than your car, for getting to work, study, shop and play.

Amazon recently punctuated our dilemma when it called us out for our lack of high-capacity transit options. Though many of the most suitable sites for its HQ2 corporate campus are in Travis County outside Austin’s city limits, we do not have the transit connectivity to move Amazon’s estimated 50,000 employees to and from those locations.

Extending transit connectivity to the whole of Travis County and the metro region is the right thing to do for our congestion woes, for our air and water quality, and for the economic vitality of the region. As fast as the city of Austin is growing, Travis County outside of Austin is adding population even faster. Another 30 percent of the people traveling to the urban core of Austin for work are driving in from another county altogether. The time to develop mobility solutions for those communities was yesterday.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by We vs us

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...gins-with.html

This was a sponsored blog post for ABJ by Sarah Eckhardt, a Travis County judge. Sponsor was Cap Metro. I hadn't heard anything about the highlighted tidbit:

Yea...I mean I thought Austin was a non-starter when they made the announcement and talked about mass transit and transportation in general but no one seems to take that much into account. Amazon can't make a decision assuming anything is going to be built either. You live and die on what you have. We can't even pay for all of the fixes we know we need along major corridors.


So a GREAT new study came out that looked at a lot of the tech office leasing in various cities. I don't think the main purpose is super useful (but it's scary to see the lack of growth in Austin in the non-tech sector) but they did snapshots of a lot of major cities. I put the major players for Amazon in order of total tech workers.
















Here are their rankings but it's worth clicking on each entry to get more information on how the ranking is done.





I think a big takeaway here is that we are seeing growth in the tech center in Austin but we have to understand that tech growth in nationally strong and a number of cities have similar momentum. Hopefully this process with Amazon highlights that we need more office space in the city core.

https://www.cbre.us/research-and-reports/Tech-30-2017

[leonashbrook]

Just came across this web site. Not sure how often Sterlings' is right, but will be interesting to see if they are righthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DphjqTFSoE

[freerover]

Originally Posted by leonashbrook

Just came across this web site. Not sure how often Sterlings' is right, but will be interesting to see if they are righthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DphjqTFSoE

Embed:


• Video Link

[abigdeal]

Originally Posted by freerover

Keep in mind the total employees includes full- and part-time W-2 employees. Here is some more info about what data was gathered:



The only other relevant info in the chart:
HEB has 53 Austin area stores, 388 total stores and 101,000 company wide employees.

HEB’s Austin regional office is on Cameron and only employs 100 or so. Data is self-reported to ABJ. I’m sure HEB has a shit ton of part timers that count.

[H2O]

Originally Posted by freerover

Yea...I mean I thought Austin was a non-starter when they made the announcement and talked about mass transit and transportation in general but no one seems to take that much into account. Amazon can't make a decision assuming anything is going to be built either. You live and die on what you have. We can't even pay for all of the fixes we know we need along major corridors.


So a GREAT new study came out that looked at a lot of the tech office leasing in various cities. I don't think the main purpose is super useful (but it's scary to see the lack of growth in Austin in the non-tech sector) but they did snapshots of a lot of major cities. I put the major players for Amazon in order of total tech workers.
















Here are their rankings but it's worth clicking on each entry to get more information on how the ranking is done.





I think a big takeaway here is that we are seeing growth in the tech center in Austin but we have to understand that tech growth in nationally strong and a number of cities have similar momentum. Hopefully this process with Amazon highlights that we need more office space in the city core.

https://www.cbre.us/research-and-reports/Tech-30-2017

My interpretation of the graphs is that while Austin has fewer total tech jobs than many of the listed cities (understandable given that it is one of the smallest metros listed - in some cases significantly so), the ratio of tech jobs to non-tech jobs is only surpassed by Seattle and San Francisco.

[Novacek]

Adler doesn't rule out local incentives

http://www.512tech.com/technology/ma...qiYU84OmH1rOO/