Amazon Seeking 2nd Headquarters: Canadian Cities Pitch Interest

[Doady]

Airport located in Mississauga. Amazon warehouse already located in Mississauga. Lots of vacant land and parking lots in the City Centre that can be developed. BRT complete later this year and LRT to start construction soon also. Better transit ridership than Atlanta, Austin, and most other US contenders (e.g. MiWay in Mississauga averages 182,422 riders per weekday while Capital Metro in Austin averages only 109,300). I think Mississauga will get this.

[someone123]

The points about how some city must be immediately cut if it fails to satisfy one quantitative requirement out of many reminds me of bad HR practices and bad employment listings. That's probably not how Amazon is going to make their decision, or at least it's not how they'll look at it if they want to choose optimally.

This has been mentioned already but the relative ease of getting skilled workers into Canada and the relative stability of this country's regulations is a big plus for a company like Amazon. It means they can bring in a lot of global talent, and it makes a lot of sense for Canada to try to continue to fill this niche.

[1overcosc]

Plus lower corporate taxes, lower payroll taxes, and universal health care. The Toronto bid estimated that this would save Amazon $2 billion a year if they chose a Canadian city over an America one. This makes up for the fact that we're not offering nearly as many subsidies as American states are.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Doady

Airport located in Mississauga. Amazon warehouse already located in Mississauga. Lots of vacant land and parking lots in the City Centre that can be developed. BRT complete later this year and LRT to start construction soon also. Better transit ridership than Atlanta, Austin, and most other US contenders (e.g. MiWay in Mississauga averages 182,422 riders per weekday while Capital Metro in Austin averages only 109,300). I think Mississauga will get this.

The advantageous of Mississauga are all but lost by locating in the City Centre. All that land for commercial development remaining available while Heartland and Meadowvale got built up is not without reason. I also see Amazon preferring to build a new mixed use campus from the ground up like the Imperial Oil(?) lands on the lake (not the best example given the poorer connections than even the City Centre) than to moved into an established area like the City Centre.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The advantageous of Mississauga are all but lost by locating in the City Centre. All that land for commercial development remaining available while Heartland and Meadowvale got built up is not without reason. I also see Amazon preferring to build a new mixed use campus from the ground up like the Imperial Oil(?) lands on the lake (not the best example given the poorer connections than even the City Centre) than to moved into an established area like the City Centre.

That's probably why they are building BRT and planning LRT for the City Centre, to increase connections and reduce the demand for parking and the cost of building new offices there.

[Hackslack]

Does it matter how big an airport is, or if it is considered international that reaches every corner of the world? I assume Amazon has their own fleet of airplanes, like FedEx, that fly all over the World. Do these fleets need to fly out of an airport the reaches every corner of the world? I see the FedEx airplanes everywhere at the Calgary airport. That being said, would it make more sense for Amazon to be located in a city that doesn't have to deal with the immense traffic of that that Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, NY, Toronto sees every single day? Would an Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton sized airport make more sense as it would be easier traffic flow, and less congestion of incoming and outgoing planes. I remember I was flying out of NY one time and was on the tarmac for something like 45 mins just because it wasn't our turn yet, we were just waiting in line. What I'm saying is maybe those massive cities and their respective airports have potentially a negative effect to their bids.... just a thought I had, and not necessarily my opinion.

[Taeolas]

This is an Amazon HQ, not a distribution centre. So the International flight connections are important for people moving. While I'm sure Amazon has its own fleets now, for moving VIPs and especially moving peons from City to City, they are likely still mostly depending on commercial business flights.

Whatever city wins, I'm sure the appropriate airlines would be setting up a Seattle to whereever route ASAP, and/or planning to expand existing routes if they are already in place. Otherwise, the more connections the city has to the rest of the world, the better for Amazon's people connectivity.

[240glt]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The advantageous of Mississauga are all but lost by locating in the City Centre. All that land for commercial development remaining available while Heartland and Meadowvale got built up is not without reason. I also see Amazon preferring to build a new mixed use campus from the ground up like the Imperial Oil(?) lands on the lake (not the best example given the poorer connections than even the City Centre) than to moved into an established area like the City Centre.

In Edmonton they've floated the idea of a campus style development at the Northlands site, a 166 acre site north-east of the downtown.

I just put a property up for sale basically adjacent to the site. My realtor joked that I'd be sorry if Edmonton somehow did land that HQ.. that little house's value could skyrocket!

If Edmonton were in the running I'd see them on a campus style down in the South, close to the airport

[1overcosc]

HQ2 is big enough that it alone could provide the market for a direct route to Seattle even if one does not already exist.

[Jammon]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

This is an Amazon HQ, not a distribution centre. So the International flight connections are important for people moving. While I'm sure Amazon has its own fleets now, for moving VIPs and especially moving peons from City to City, they are likely still mostly depending on commercial business flights.

Whatever city wins, I'm sure the appropriate airlines would be setting up a Seattle to whereever route ASAP, and/or planning to expand existing routes if they are already in place. Otherwise, the more connections the city has to the rest of the world, the better for Amazon's people connectivity.

I agree. That's why I only see three Canadian cities being in the mix here. If you don't have connectivity, it will be detrimental to such a huge organization. The other reality is we don't know how committed Amazon is to keeping the HQ in the US. They would have done this RFP for transparency, but the reality is if they are committed to the US economy, it will never happen in a Canadian city.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by Jammon

I agree. That's why I only see three Canadian cities being in the mix here. If you don't have connectivity, it will be detrimental to such a huge organization. The other reality is we don't know how committed Amazon is to keeping the HQ in the US. They would have done this RFP for transparency, but the reality is if they are committed to the US economy, it will never happen in a Canadian city.

If they were committed to keeping the second HQ in the States, why even open up the competition to the rest of North America? A continent-wide RFP wouldn't gain them anything; it would just be a waste of their own time and resources. They could have simply invited cities in the United States to bid and it wouldn't even be a news item here.

In the hypothetical event of a Canadian city winning, it allows a huge company like Amazon to diversify itself geographically and limit the effects of the actions of any one government.

[J.OT13]

Mayve it's all just a marketing stunt. Maybe they're not actually looking for a HQ2. Adding 50,000 new employees and 8 million square feet within 10 years seems a little far-fetched, even for Amazon.

[crosbyshow]

Montreal has a real shot

https://becominghuman.ai/238-cities-...rs-b31c2944076

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Mayve it's all just a marketing stunt. Maybe they're not actually looking for a HQ2. Adding 50,000 new employees and 8 million square feet within 10 years seems a little far-fetched, even for Amazon.

They're looking for incentives aka bribes that come through an open, public competition between cities. It's pretty brilliant in an evil sort of way.

[craneSpotter]

Amazon to open second corporate office in Vancouver - Not HQ2 though

CTV Nov 3, 2017 - http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/amazo...-hq2-1.3662475

VANCOUVER - Amazon says it will open a second corporate office in Vancouver, but not the highly sought-after second headquarters that has commanded the attention of governments across North America.

The office will be located downtown and employ an additional 1,000 workers. Amazon opened its first Vancouver office in 2015, which now employs more than 1,000 people, mostly software development engineers.

[ssiguy]

Great news for Vancouver. This pretty much writes off the city's chance of H@Q or it would have been combined and announced as part of the project. That said, Vancouver had almost no chance anyway so this is great news.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Great news for Vancouver. This pretty much writes off the city's chance of H@Q or it would have been combined and announced as part of the project. That said, Vancouver had almost no chance anyway so this is great news.

Why would it? They aren't going to stall all growth and handicap all remote offices until 2019 just to keep HQ2 under wraps and contained.

I would rather say this has zero relevance to HQ2. HQ2 is a 2019 decision.

[Denscity]

Maybe Vancouver isn't too close afterall.

[harls]

This pretty much writes off the city's chance of H@Q

Are you on the city choosing committee? Have you cornered the market on crystal balls?

[craneSpotter]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Great news for Vancouver. This pretty much writes off the city's chance of H@Q or it would have been combined and announced as part of the project. That said, Vancouver had almost no chance anyway so this is great news.

I just hope that to fill the positions and attract talent they will need to pay higher wages - closer to their Seattle rates. This could be big enough to drive wages up across the board.