CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[UPChicago]

Personally, I'm not convinced that flight connectivity between the East and West Coasts matters much to Amazon; to put it another way, it is probably not a highly weighted priority. If the top executives are to stay in Seattle than what difference does national centrality make? If the senior executives were to move to this new HQ2, then, I think, the calculus would change.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by UPChicago

Personally, I'm not convinced that flight connectivity between the East and West Coasts matters much to Amazon; to put it another way, it is probably not a highly weighted priority. If the top executives are to stay in Seattle than what difference does national centrality make? If the senior executives were to move to this new HQ2, then, I think, the calculus would change.

Who knows, it was listed as an important criteria. But the final 20 list is silly and clearly includes places that don't fit so many of the criteria.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Who knows, it was listed as an important criteria. But the final 20 list is silly and clearly includes places that don't fit so many of the criteria.

Yeah. Access to a well connected airport, transit connections on site, and a few other components of the RFP seem to have gone out the window with the top 20 list. I find it hard to believe there are many places in Nashville, Raleigh, and several other cities in the top 20 that fit the bill based on the RFP. Hopefully the powers that be are working to showcase our strengths while coyly highlighting the weaknesses of other candidate cities.

[left of center]

^ I'm hoping those aren't serious considerations, and are only really there because they are in states/cities with governments favorable to making really good tax concessions/cash offers to Amazon. This would then, in theory, spur Amazon's real top choices to up the ante, so to speak.

But who knows.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by left of center

^ I'm hoping those aren't serious considerations, and are only really there because they are in states/cities with governments favorable to making really good tax concessions/cash offers to Amazon. This would then, in theory, spur Amazon's real top choices to up the ante, so to speak.

But who knows.

I think you are spot on. Amazon peops already have an idea what city(s) they prefer and this is just a show to shake um down. I hope Chicago doesn't budge. Fuck em

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by UPChicago

Personally, I'm not convinced that flight connectivity between the East and West Coasts matters much to Amazon; to put it another way, it is probably not a highly weighted priority. If the top executives are to stay in Seattle than what difference does national centrality make? If the senior executives were to move to this new HQ2, then, I think, the calculus would change.

I have been employed by 2 Fortune 50 companies before and flight connectivity matters a lot. It's not just executives who fly ...it's others. There was and is a lot of corporate travel at both companies. It does not matter if most executives are in Seattle (which would be BS because whoever gets 50,000 employees will get a lot of executives...existing or new..in with that. Ridiculous statement to think that all the execs will just be in Amazon. That's not usually how it works at "newer" tech firms and departments who value colocation, which is a path many companies are now embracing).

I guarantee you this is important to them. Not the most important thing, but the fact they put it as a req and my own experiences in big companies that care about flight connectivity leads me to this conclusion.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by UPChicago

Personally, I'm not convinced that flight connectivity between the East and West Coasts matters much to Amazon; to put it another way, it is probably not a highly weighted priority. If the top executives are to stay in Seattle than what difference does national centrality make? If the senior executives were to move to this new HQ2, then, I think, the calculus would change.

Originally Posted by marothisu

I have been employed by 2 Fortune 50 companies before and flight connectivity matters a lot. It's not just executives who fly ...it's others. There was and is a lot of corporate travel at both companies. It does not matter if most executives are in Seattle (which would be BS because whoever gets 50,000 employees will get a lot of executives...existing or new..in with that. Ridiculous statement to think that all the execs will just be in Amazon. That's not usually how it works at "newer" tech firms and departments who value colocation, which is a path many companies are now embracing).

I guarantee you this is important to them. Not the most important thing, but the fact they put it as a req and my own experiences in big companies that care about flight connectivity leads me to this conclusion.

Amazon flies in candidates for interviews in Seattle (including me once) every single day. It wouldn't surprise me if there are dozens of people in Seattle every day interviewing for jobs. I wasn't even that competitive of a candidate for the specific job they were interviewing me for and they flew me in. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of postings in Seattle at any given time and if they are serious about 50,000 jobs in HQ2 that means thousands of postings every year, along with many, many flights for probably several decades. Centrality for flights and, just as importantly, competitive costs, which a dual-hub helps ensure, are certainly highly important to them.

Even just for non-recruiting business, they will have staff who fly out and back every week for sales, for product evaluation, for AWS-related consulting, etc, etc, as well as executives jetting between locations (not just between Seattle and HQ2, but between HQ2 and their other locations both in the U.S. and around the world. An HQ2 in Chicago could realistically mean several more flights a day just due to the volume of business Amazon conducts. Choosing a place like Indy or Austin would mean many more multi-leg flights for people Amazon flies around the country, which is a waste of time and an increase in unreliability, both of which are bad for morale and the bottom line.

So, yeah, having a well-connected airport (or airports) located near HQ2 is very important. New York, Chicago, and Atlanta are the far and away leaders in that category. O'Hare by itself flies more than a million passengers per year to four destinations - New York, LA, San Francisco, and London. Philly doesn't send a million passengers anywhere - only five destinations top a half million. Total passengers at O'Hare are 2 1/2 times as many as for Philly's airport, and that doesn't even factor in Midway - with Midway, Chicago has over 3 times as many air passengers as Philly.

Philly does have one advantage over Chicago when it comes to transportation - it has Acela to Manhattan in 1.5 hours or less and to D.C. in 2 hours or less. That is a big advantage, as almost everyone prefers Acela over planes, especially since you can go city-center to city-center and security is somewhat less terrible. How important that is to Amazon, I don't know, but as they might say in Boston, "it's not nothin'."

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I think you are spot on. Amazon peops already have an idea what city(s) they prefer and this is just a show to shake um down. I hope Chicago doesn't budge. Fuck em

I agree we shouldn't budge much, if at all. If scoring the largest incentives package is the end goal, New Jersey has this in the bag. $7B in incentives is a lot, but our initial incentives package, transportation infrastructure, affordable housing, space to grow, and talent pipeline should be enough to overcome the massive stacks of cash being offered by New Jersey and Maryland.

[the urban politician]

According to the really smart people at Amazon, we don't have the "talent" because we don't have Hahvad. You have to have Hahvad to succeed....

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

According to the really smart people at Amazon, we don't have the "talent" because we don't have Hahvad. You have to have Hahvad to succeed....

No, that's probably some clueless operations execs. Someone who has actually worked more closely would know that doesn't matter. And, well other than the fact that Harvard isn't even in the top 25 of most alumni in Silicon Valley working in tech, but University of Illinois is top 10 with University of Michigan at 11. The people who say this type of stuff are pretty much clueless and also probably full of themselves if they think the average Harvard grad wants to actually take a non R&D job at Amazon when they could do more interesting stuff and/or make more money elsewhere.

Originally Posted by emathias

Amazon flies in candidates for interviews in Seattle (including me once) every single day. It wouldn't surprise me if there are dozens of people in Seattle every day interviewing for jobs. I wasn't even that competitive of a candidate for the specific job they were interviewing me for and they flew me in. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of postings in Seattle at any given time and if they are serious about 50,000 jobs in HQ2 that means thousands of postings every year, along with many, many flights for probably several decades. Centrality for flights and, just as importantly, competitive costs, which a dual-hub helps ensure, are certainly highly important to them.

Even just for non-recruiting business, they will have staff who fly out and back every week for sales, for product evaluation, for AWS-related consulting, etc, etc, as well as executives jetting between locations (not just between Seattle and HQ2, but between HQ2 and their other locations both in the U.S. and around the world. An HQ2 in Chicago could realistically mean several more flights a day just due to the volume of business Amazon conducts. Choosing a place like Indy or Austin would mean many more multi-leg flights for people Amazon flies around the country, which is a waste of time and an increase in unreliability, both of which are bad for morale and the bottom line.

So, yeah, having a well-connected airport (or airports) located near HQ2 is very important. New York, Chicago, and Atlanta are the far and away leaders in that category. O'Hare by itself flies more than a million passengers per year to four destinations - New York, LA, San Francisco, and London. Philly doesn't send a million passengers anywhere - only five destinations top a half million. Total passengers at O'Hare are 2 1/2 times as many as for Philly's airport, and that doesn't even factor in Midway - with Midway, Chicago has over 3 times as many air passengers as Philly.

Philly does have one advantage over Chicago when it comes to transportation - it has Acela to Manhattan in 1.5 hours or less and to D.C. in 2 hours or less. That is a big advantage, as almost everyone prefers Acela over planes, especially since you can go city-center to city-center and security is somewhat less terrible. How important that is to Amazon, I don't know, but as they might say in Boston, "it's not nothin'."

When I worked at IBM, we would have hiring days where a bunch of candidates were flown in from across the US to Chicago for their interviews. It didn't matter where they were being hired - I interviewed people who were going for jobs in Boston, San Francisco, DC, Chicago, NYC, etc - it didn't matter. It was standard. Now where I work, we prefer people come in person and we'll fly them out, though we are more apt to take someone already from the NY area just because it costs less, even though we have enough money. The people who we have to video interview, we usually fly them out if we all agree they should be hired.

The corporate travel thing though - it's absolutely true. This notion that only executives travel is a misguided one and thinking that you could staff up 50,000 highly skilled workers and think that there would be no executives where that is, and that non executives wouldn't travel is fairly ridiculous and shows the lack of experience in a company as mobile/big as an Amazon. I work for a company HQ'd in NYC right now, one that everyone knows (I won't say which), but we have a big office somewhere in the midwest for my division (not in Chicago) - it's a few thousand people, and yes, there's still executives placed there even though they could easily just be in NYC. We have people flying to this place, non executives, from NYC every month at least and there's executives who are there sometimes every other week for months in a row.

I don't think Amazon listed the airport thing just because. Picking the right airport can save them millions of dollars over a number of years and they know this. Every corporation who does a lot of travel knows this.

[Domer2019]

Amazon dials up Chicago, other HQ2 contenders, to explain selection process

Amazon envisions “a combination of buildings and facilities probably within walking proximity to one another,” Schoettler said at the event, according to a Jan. 19 story in the Puget Sound Business Journal. Schoettler also expressed an aversion to bids that propose spreading 8 million square feet of offices onto several sites, unless those sites can be expanded or somehow connected.

He also indicated Amazon would heavily weigh factors such as availability and cost of housing and proximity to public transportation. “We look forward to cities that are also progressive and are thinking forward and long-term in terms of affordable housing and mass transportation and being able to move people around,” Schoettler said, according to the business journal.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...124-story.html

[marothisu]

The "not spread into multiple sites" makes sense - not really new info. The part about public transit plays well into the hands of the big urban players - Chicago, NYC, DC, Boston, Toronto, and Philadelphia - I don't think that bodes well at all for Indianapolis, Columbus, Nashville or Austin. Dallas, Atlanta, and Los Angeles are in the medium category where their systems aren't super small but aren't big either. Of course, LA's is supposed to grow a bit for the Olympics. However, I would be surprised if they picked another West Coast city. Newark is a little less conventional in the city itself even though the area is well connected. You could probably say the same for Montgomery County, MD. Northern Virginia is too vague and may fit into that category unless they pitched a site in Arlington or even Alexandria, or near enough to extend some train lines that go to those places already.

As far as the "no multiple sites" part - I wonder if there's any cities left where that's what they only had? I doubt it, but just curious. I still think the Old Post Office/Union Station Redevelopment is the best bet all things considered. Based on what they say, I doubt they would pick Lincoln Yards or Michael Reese only because they want something already built so they can first build out 500K sq ft and expand to up to 1,000,000. I think that OPO offers the best for that in the city itself - West Loop you could make a case for too. There's actually a lot more land open for the taking there if Amazon wants to outright own and build everything.

[the urban politician]

Aaron Renn’s lazy anti-midwestern rhetoric gets called out (finally! I was like the only person pointing out this obvious fact, even while the rest of his groupie pseudo intellectual readers just went with the flow, never questioning anything):

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...o-sell-chicago

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

According to the really smart people at Amazon, we don't have the "talent" because we don't have Hahvad. You have to have Hahvad to succeed....

Who said that?
- EMathias, Harvard '13

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Aaron Renn’s lazy anti-midwestern rhetoric gets called out (finally! I was like the only person pointing out this obvious fact, even while the rest of his groupie pseudo intellectual readers just went with the flow, never questioning anything):

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...o-sell-chicago

I consistently call him out, too. I never thought much if his opinion ever since I read his paper that he used to turn himself into an urban commentator, that paper on how to boost CTA ridership above one billion rides per year. It was a rubbish paper and I still don't understand how it won the competition. Ed Zotti, on the other hand, has often made excellent, data-backed, observations. Both marothisu and I have helped him on some data presentation for things he's worked on - he has a strong sense of Chicago's strengths and weaknesses.

[JiminyCricket II]

As far as the connections discussion...

It doesn't really matter how many daily flights there are from SEA to HQ2 because AS and DL - who both operate major hubs at SEA - will up daily capacity to match demand, that is the easy part. The hard part is having multiple connections, this isn't a problem obviously for Chicago, NYC/NJ, WA/MD area, etc. But it is a problem for Austin, Indy, and Pittsburgh for example.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say the HQ2s airport(s) will have to serve AT LEAST 80+ destinations (and bonus for number of international destinations).

[urbanpln]

[QUOTE=the urban politician;8061896]Aaron Renn’s lazy anti-midwestern rhetoric gets called out (finally! I was like the only person pointing out this obvious fact, even while the rest of his groupie pseudo intellectual readers just went with the flow, never questioning anything):

I'm happy someone finally called him out.

[Vlajos]

The film industry was down from 2016 a bit, but still the second best year on record.

"Despite a drop in production of TV shows, the city and state film offices are crowing about still-boffo figures they hit last year, with overall spending in the state at an estimated $423 million. The figure is slightly down from $499 million in 2016, but it's the second-highest spend ever."

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...of-427-million

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

The film industry was down from 2016 a bit, but still the second best year on record.

"Despite a drop in production of TV shows, the city and state film offices are crowing about still-boffo figures they hit last year, with overall spending in the state at an estimated $423 million. The figure is slightly down from $499 million in 2016, but it's the second-highest spend ever."

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...of-427-million

There's a reason production was down in 2017: the Teamsters exec who was trying to shakedown the folks at Cinespace has film/tv executives legitmiately pulling back and questioning whether or not more productions should be filmed here in the future..
https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago...ortion-scheme/

My best friend works on a top 10 tv show that has filmed here for the past four seasons (I've had the privilege of visiting the set a couple of times, and am very familiar with how the business operates), and he and the entire crew of his show, as well as the 4-5 other shows still filming here are REALLY worried that LA production companies are starting to bypass Chicago for Toronto, because there are no new shows committed to filming here in 2018 and beyond - just (maybe) a couple of pilots and possibly (big question mark) one film, compared to multiple films just a couple of years ago.

Entertainment execs are not saints by any means, but even the filthiest of film/tv bosses don't want to be involved with greedy sleazeball union pigs, like with what happened at Cinespace. If nothing new in the development pipeline is announced within the next month or so, then 2018 is gonna be a relatively lean year....and 2019 is probably gonna be worse, sadly.

[Vlajos]

^ that's a shame. So all the Dick Wolf things may leave?

The family that owns Cinespace is connected to a studio in Toronto.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cine...n-chicago.html

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

^ that's a shame. So all the Dick Wolf things may leave?

The family that owns Cinespace is connected to a studio in Toronto.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/cine...n-chicago.html

I don't think anything will happen to the Dick Wolf shows. It's just that new shows will choose not to film here. Corruption aside, it doesn't help that Rauner isn't keen on extending the tax incentive, which I believe runs through 2021(?)...