I'm not going to defend AMAZON.
, but I don't think AMAZON. made the mayor of Kansas City humiliate himself.
FC: Amazon chooses two locations for HQ2
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I'm not going to defend AMAZON.
, but I don't think AMAZON. made the mayor of Kansas City humiliate himself.To relate this to College Football, Kansas City wondering why they didn't win is like Rutgers wondering why they can't win a National Championship in Football. There are only certain programs that have what it takes to win, just like there are really only a few cities have what it took to lure Amazon. Washington DC and NYC winning the Amazon HQ2 sweepstakes is the same reason Alabama wins a National Championship in Football ever year. Just because you place in the top 20 in the AP polls or Amazon's list doesn't actually mean you have a shot to be #1
It's crazy. Something like 10 of the 13 richest counties in the US are commuting distance from DC. Thank you all for your tax dollars feeding the Federal leviathan.
SNOWFLAKE. cities. They lost, but they also won.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/13/business/amazon-hq2-losing-cities/index.html
From the article:
""Some people still had an outdated perception of Pittsburgh as a Midwestern, industrial town," said Pittsburgh Regional Alliance President David Ruppersberger. "Being in the top 20 for Amazon's HQ2 has likely caused some of these individuals to give Pittsburgh a second look.""
cities. They lost, but they also won.https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/13/business/amazon-hq2-losing-cities/index.html
From the article:
""Some people still had an outdated perception of Pittsburgh as a Midwestern, industrial town," said Pittsburgh Regional Alliance President David Ruppersberger. "Being in the top 20 for Amazon's HQ2 has likely caused some of these individuals to give Pittsburgh a second look.""
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
Article on what Virginia/Arlington offered/received:
By Katie Arcieri – Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal
Nov 13, 2018, 12:16pm EST Updated 57 minutes ago
As Virginia was battling states like Maryland and New Jersey for Amazon's second headquarters project, Virginia state Sen. Frank Ruff knew one thing for sure.
"We were not going to get into the bidding war," said Ruff, chairman of the state's Major Employment and Investment Commission, which vets incentive packages for companies considering expansions in Virginia.
Even as incentive packages reportedly soared into the billions of dollars in the lead-up to the HQ2 announcement, Virginia leaders said their win — split in half with Long Island City in Queens — was based on a package that included not only financial incentives but also significant public investments in transportation and education. In all, Virginia and Arlington are offering roughly $800 million in public incentives, considerably less than the roughly $1.8 billion New York has proposed based on Amazon's new job and real estate requirements and the $8.5 billion and $7 billion incentive plans that Maryland and New Jersey, respectively, had been prepared to throw the online company's way. Instead, in their package, Virginia and its jurisdictions focused millions more in investments to boost local university curricula and the tech workforce pipeline.
In return, Amazon is expected to bring a $2.5 billion investment, 25,000 new jobs and 4 million square feet in development, with the potential to double that, to National Landing, a combination of Arlington's Crystal City and Pentagon City and Alexandria's Potomac Yard — targets the company must meet before it receives the incentive payments, Ruff said.
Stephen Moret, president and CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said special legislation must be passed by the General Assembly before Amazon can qualify for workforce cash grant incentives.
"The leadership is already on board, but it has to go through the full process," Moret said.
Here's how the incentive package breaks down:
From the commonwealth of Virginia, it includes:
For both of those measures, the commonwealth said it would offer $375 million in performance-based grants across two decades — provided each university gets a one-to-one match from donors. In addition, Virginia leaders said they would invest $50 million in the next 20 years in K-12 tech education and college internships at local tech companies, as well as performance-based payments in tech-related bachelor's degree programs with public universities or community colleges that participate in the program.
"It's great for the commonwealth overall — not just that site and not just Northern Virginia," Ruff said. "The revenues that will be produced in the years to come will serve the entire state — education, public safety, mental health, all the issues that are present."
The city of Alexandria, in turn, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Virginia Tech to structure a financial plan to build out its innovation campus. That could include more local public funding and an expedited regulatory process.
That education piece was key for Virginia's offerings, said Ruff, who said he heard Amazon's final decision Monday evening at 6:30 p.m. as he flew from Richmond to Crystal City for the announcement.
"That was a big part of our commitment," he said. "The incentive for jobs was really no greater than what we've done for other companies of any other size."
By Katie Arcieri – Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal
Nov 13, 2018, 12:16pm EST Updated 57 minutes ago
As Virginia was battling states like Maryland and New Jersey for Amazon's second headquarters project, Virginia state Sen. Frank Ruff knew one thing for sure.
"We were not going to get into the bidding war," said Ruff, chairman of the state's Major Employment and Investment Commission, which vets incentive packages for companies considering expansions in Virginia.
Even as incentive packages reportedly soared into the billions of dollars in the lead-up to the HQ2 announcement, Virginia leaders said their win — split in half with Long Island City in Queens — was based on a package that included not only financial incentives but also significant public investments in transportation and education. In all, Virginia and Arlington are offering roughly $800 million in public incentives, considerably less than the roughly $1.8 billion New York has proposed based on Amazon's new job and real estate requirements and the $8.5 billion and $7 billion incentive plans that Maryland and New Jersey, respectively, had been prepared to throw the online company's way. Instead, in their package, Virginia and its jurisdictions focused millions more in investments to boost local university curricula and the tech workforce pipeline.
In return, Amazon is expected to bring a $2.5 billion investment, 25,000 new jobs and 4 million square feet in development, with the potential to double that, to National Landing, a combination of Arlington's Crystal City and Pentagon City and Alexandria's Potomac Yard — targets the company must meet before it receives the incentive payments, Ruff said.
Stephen Moret, president and CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said special legislation must be passed by the General Assembly before Amazon can qualify for workforce cash grant incentives.
"The leadership is already on board, but it has to go through the full process," Moret said.
Here's how the incentive package breaks down:
From the commonwealth of Virginia, it includes:
- Workforce cash grants totaling up to $550 million for the 25,000 new jobs, or $22,000 per new job that's created with a wage of at least $150,000. That's considered the first phase of hiring. Amazon is eligible for another $200 million in grants if it creates an additional 12,850 new jobs beyond the initial 25,000.
- $195 million of nongeneral fund money in infrastructure investments, including new entrances to the Crystal City Metro station and the to-be-built Potomac Yard Metro station, improvements to Route 1, a pedestrian bridge connecting Crystal City and Reagan National Airport and a transitway expansion that serves all of National Landing.
- An annual performance cash grant totaling $23 million across 15 years tied to Amazon's ability to meet office occupancy targets for 6 million square feet in that time. Those funds come from a portion of the county's Transient Occupancy Tax, which a tourist and traveler tax for rooms or other lodging they rent in local hotels, motels or homes.
- $28 million in tax-increment financing across a projected 10 years, based on 12 percent of future property tax revenue expected from Amazon. The county said it would use that funding toward improving streetscapes, community parks, on-site infrastructure and open space in National Landing.
For both of those measures, the commonwealth said it would offer $375 million in performance-based grants across two decades — provided each university gets a one-to-one match from donors. In addition, Virginia leaders said they would invest $50 million in the next 20 years in K-12 tech education and college internships at local tech companies, as well as performance-based payments in tech-related bachelor's degree programs with public universities or community colleges that participate in the program.
"It's great for the commonwealth overall — not just that site and not just Northern Virginia," Ruff said. "The revenues that will be produced in the years to come will serve the entire state — education, public safety, mental health, all the issues that are present."
The city of Alexandria, in turn, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Virginia Tech to structure a financial plan to build out its innovation campus. That could include more local public funding and an expedited regulatory process.
That education piece was key for Virginia's offerings, said Ruff, who said he heard Amazon's final decision Monday evening at 6:30 p.m. as he flew from Richmond to Crystal City for the announcement.
"That was a big part of our commitment," he said. "The incentive for jobs was really no greater than what we've done for other companies of any other size."
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
Outside of proximity to DC, Virginia/Arlington didn't offer anything any more spectacular than other cities. For all the talk of what Amazon was looking for, Arlington is on the hook for a lot of things that don't already exist - namely, infrastructure and local curricula upgrades.
Since she provided no actual evidence of such, I'm presuming Queen Alexandria sat down with some of her fellow barmates and that served as her think tank... during which time she was conjuring up an an explanation for why she said she couldn't pay DC rent for 2 months when she has plenty of $ in the bank (there goes the GFM avenue)... and after a couple brews, they probably figured out how to pay for free healthcare for everybody. Ez pz. lol
Big winner here va tech. May finally overcome uva inferiority complex. Big should make a run at them.
You mean Crystal City is going to implement a business tax to fund homeless benefits in order to attract more homeless people to Crystal City?
Lol. The hilarious part of this is that the county’s obsession with low income housing is about to be flushed down the toilet
Poor folks should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, while multi billion dollar companies should get help from the taxpayers- makes sense.
Sad ain’t it? I can see small business subsidies and I get the argument about net benefit. But lest we forget this organization is nothing but a middleman leech. It produces nothing. It just takes value from what others have produced.
I only hope this accompanied by a corresponding increase in the size of the antitrust division of the eastern district of va us attorneys office.
Bezos father is a Cuban immigrant and job's father is from syria. Who is holding you down?
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
Jobs was adopted and Bezos's birth father was American. His step-father, the aforementioned Cuban immigrant, worked as an engineer for Exxon. Jobs didn't have it nearly as well as Bezos did.
I was on the fence re: Pittsburgh. On the one hand, the area could certainly use an influx of youth. On the other, Pittsburgh doesn't have the infrastructure to handle this sort of thing . Not a great highway system and certainly not efficient mass transit.
LIC is barely in Queens. It is the westernmost part and borders the east river right opposite Manhattan. There are many new high rise residential buildings either just completed or close to completion. These are great buildings with all kinds of amenities. Queens is an expansive borough, with many blue collar and ethnic neighborhoods. The reality is that unless people in LIC want to go to a Mets game, or drive east on the way to the Hampton’s or other beaches, they will not interact with current inhabitants. LIC is relatively self contained. Not sure what all the complaining is about. Queens traffic already sucks terribly. Most of these new people won’t have cars. The few that do won’t make a noticeable difference.
Seriously? Tech has a historically solid football program. Land grant. Up and coming research. Without the hubris of uva.
True, but also access to tech talent was high on amazons list. And that’s something the DC area has more than most cities.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-...tion-decision-was-about-talent-talent-talent/
https://wtop.com/business-finance/2018/07/dc-area-among-top-3-cities-for-tech-talent/
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-...tion-decision-was-about-talent-talent-talent/
https://wtop.com/business-finance/2018/07/dc-area-among-top-3-cities-for-tech-talent/
Oh yeah, well Bill Gates started in a garage! (was that the garage of his father, the "Gates" in K&L Gates, one of the largest law firms in the world).
This is a shame. Amazon had an opportunity to legitimately change the future of two cities, and instead it spit into the ocean. Yay.
The government did not start the law firm, Apple or Amazon. All started by people who pulled themselves up by the bootstraps.
Yeah, that's not breaking news. I pointed out that Microsoft was started by Bill Gates, whose father is in the name of one of the largest law firms in the world. If you think that didn't help, you're kidding yourself.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
No, but with the exception of Jobs, the other two (Gates, Bezos) were Ivy League educated.
Yes, solid program huh? Possibly the largest underachievers in all of college football. Can never win a big game or game that matters. Land grant is meaningless in choosing a new member. Hubris? We already have Michigan, so anything else is tolerable. I don’t know about their research, but they don’t jump out to me as an academic powerhouse. I’m sure we can identify several other schools to invite first.
Close to the money and power troughs - shocker.
Used to watch many a PSU game at the Crystal City Sports Pub. I’m sure that and the strip club across the street are long gone
Used to watch many a PSU game at the Crystal City Sports Pub. I’m sure that and the strip club across the street are long gone
Agree 1 million percent regarding Pittsburgh transportation infrastructure. The highway system is archaic and unable to move a lot people around the city. Pennsylvania should learn a lesson that decades of going the cheap transportation route makes its cities less desirable for new businesses. Look at 76 in northern philly, 476 in the southwest philly suburbs, 22 in allentown, 83 in Harrisburg, and 376 in Pittsburgh as examples of PA transportation mediocrity.
Virginia Tech is planning on building a satellite campus near the Crystal City site.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susana...zons-virginia-headquarters-deal/#640711e12c86
Well, a big part of the money going to amazon from local sources will be the county transient tax. Oooops, that's hotel guests.
I'm assuming that Joe Crowley has not totally dismantled his political machine.
Sort of. I'm not sure it's really the highest of high end tech talent -- there really isn't a high end "local" tech school and most of the local base is heavily defense IT -- and that's why the VaTech thing was an incredibly creative and smart move. I am not a D, but I have to say, the state and local governments here played this incredibly smart.
Probably about identical. But Tech students are very very solid, and I'd say the institution is culturally comparable to PSU. It actually produces students who want to be productive, rather than law professors or political operatives.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
I'd take VT but only if we could get UVA too. VT are perennial underachievers, but they've done something Penn State hasn't done for three decades - and that's play for a National Championship. Additionally, VT made the BCS Bowl Championship Series six times to PSU's two. My biggest concern though would be the potential impact to recruiting, as we would add two major universities to the B1G from our most fertile recruiting area, and that may keep some kids home.
Oh i agree it would be great to get both. Doesn't make much sense from a BTN footprint perspective either. But academically, home run, and athletics-wise, not too shabby either.
