$7 billion to bring Amazon to Newark. Its not a deal I would want to see. What do you think?
The NH bid is, indeed, funny.
The Boston bid is like “Hey, NH is close. They’ve got skiing and leaf-peeping and nice lakes and beaches and stuff like that. Cool right?”
The NH bid is like “if your employees are dumb enough to live in that shithole to our south they can get up here pretty easily.”
RobB said:
The City of Boston made its bid public today. No tax incentives offered up front. Look forward to future discussions based on the level of hiring and investment.
Apparently Amazon will go through the proposals and come up with a short list. Boston has been considered a front-runner, if they don’t make the short list I guess we’ll know how Amazon really feels about those tax breaks.
http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/10/20/boston-amazon-bid
yup. Objectively, as much as I'd like it to be Newark, it probably should be Boston based on the proximity to academic institutions alone.
The stadium is already sold. The developer will build another generic mixed-use blah blah blah.
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2016/11/deal_is_inked_newark_bears_stadium_will_be_razed_r.html
mikescott said:
cramer said:
mikescott said:
As for my stadium analogy, much of the money for yankee stadium did come in the form of tax breaks.
At least Riverfront Stadium is going to be demolished. Newark and Essex County issued $36 million in bonds to construct the stadium. It was costing Newark and the county $2 million/year in debt costs. The $23.5 million received from the developer will go to pay off the $18.3 in bonded debt and the surplus will be split between Newark and the county.
I am not sure I am in favor of demolishing the stadium ---- If Newark ever does come back, a minor league team might reconsider the location. I was always hoping SHU would consider using that stadium for their baseball teak.
and somehow even if the debt is paid off, I do not think it will have an impact on my property tax bill.
I've disagreed with ml1 about a lot of things lately, but my guess is also that it'll be Boston because of the infrastructure, dynamism, and educated workforce.
Some people might take this as an example of the triumph of Blue State economics, but Boston and Massachusetts actually have very moderate taxes (5.1% income tax, 6.25% sales tax, ~1.2% property tax) and Massachusetts's constellation of universities is unequaled anywhere.
Boston's major drawback is that the cost of living is high.
ml1 said:
RobB said:
The City of Boston made its bid public today. No tax incentives offered up front. Look forward to future discussions based on the level of hiring and investment.
Apparently Amazon will go through the proposals and come up with a short list. Boston has been considered a front-runner, if they don’t make the short list I guess we’ll know how Amazon really feels about those tax breaks.
http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/10/20/boston-amazon-bid
yup. Objectively, as much as I'd like it to be Newark, it probably should be Boston based on the proximity to academic institutions alone.
given the proximity to Broad Street station, Audible, Rutgers, NJIT, NJPAC, etc, what is wrong with mixed use development on that site?
yahooyahoo said:
The stadium is already sold. The developer will build another generic mixed-use blah blah blah.
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2016/11/deal_is_inked_newark_bears_stadium_will_be_razed_r.html
Maybe we need better pr. NJ has plenty of great academic institutions too.
ml1 said:
RobB said:
The City of Boston made its bid public today. No tax incentives offered up front. Look forward to future discussions based on the level of hiring and investment.
Apparently Amazon will go through the proposals and come up with a short list. Boston has been considered a front-runner, if they don’t make the short list I guess we’ll know how Amazon really feels about those tax breaks.
http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/10/20/boston-amazon-bid
yup. Objectively, as much as I'd like it to be Newark, it probably should be Boston based on the proximity to academic institutions alone.
NJIT is a terrific institution. But I think we would admit it's no MIT.
ska said:
Maybe we need better pr. NJ has plenty of great academic institutions too.
ml1 said:
RobB said:
The City of Boston made its bid public today. No tax incentives offered up front. Look forward to future discussions based on the level of hiring and investment.
Apparently Amazon will go through the proposals and come up with a short list. Boston has been considered a front-runner, if they don’t make the short list I guess we’ll know how Amazon really feels about those tax breaks.
http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/10/20/boston-amazon-bid
yup. Objectively, as much as I'd like it to be Newark, it probably should be Boston based on the proximity to academic institutions alone.
ml1 said:
RobB said:
The City of Boston made its bid public today. No tax incentives offered up front. Look forward to future discussions based on the level of hiring and investment.
Apparently Amazon will go through the proposals and come up with a short list. Boston has been considered a front-runner, if they don’t make the short list I guess we’ll know how Amazon really feels about those tax breaks.
http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/10/20/boston-amazon-bid
yup. Objectively, as much as I'd like it to be Newark, it probably should be Boston based on the proximity to academic institutions alone.
The site they’re offering is far from ideal. Abandoned race track behind a bunch of oil tanks. It does offer the opportunity to start from scratch, and include 10k rental units on site, but that’s about it.
The other two Amazon offices in MA are in Kendall Square and the Seaport (“cool” neighborhoods). There’s really no way to shoehorn 8M sf of office space into the neighborhoods they clearly want to be in.
Proximity to Harvard and MIT is a definite advantage for Boston, but Newark and NYC area offers proximity to Rutgers, NJIT, Columbia, NYU, Princeton (which Bezos and at least one other Amazon leader attended) and the emerging Cornell Tech campus. Not a shabby list.
Newark doesn't even seem to be mentioned here - https://www.facebook.com/washingtonpost/videos/10156856220117293/
Princeton? That’s not exactly close to Newark. If you get that I’m calling Brown and Dartmouth for Boston.
And we’ve got all the liberal arts schools. Which I’m sure Bezos cares about...
Close enough to have collaborations with faculty, student internships and to recruit alumni talent. Sure, it's probably fair that Boston gives them access to Brown and Dartmouth, but am not sure those places are as strong in engineering and comp sci as Princeton, Columbia and Cornell Tech are. And Cornell Tech, being new, is operating more like a start-up and trying to be innovative in working with industry. Problem is, a proposal from NJ likely won't get into that level of detail.
Princeton to Newark is about 40 miles. I've known several people over the years in Maplewood that have commuted to the Princeton area.
I'll give you Brown (~50 miles to Boston) but Dartmouth is a yuge stretch (~160 miles).
RobB said:
Princeton? That’s not exactly close to Newark. If you get that I’m calling Brown and Dartmouth for Boston.
And we’ve got all the liberal arts schools. Which I’m sure Bezos cares about...
If Princeton is a factor, seems it might favor Philly more than Newark. Downside: split allegiences at the Palestra and Franklin Field.
yahooyahoo said: Dartmouth is a yuge stretch (~160 miles)
Where else are they gonna work? Some cider mill in Montpelier? (In case it’s not obvious, I’m kidding. I still think they’ll land in Atlanta or Austin or something like that).
If Princeton is a factor, seems it would favor Philly more than Newark. Downside: split allegiences at the Palestra and Franklin Field.
Does Philly or Newark have better food trucks?
http://www.foodrevolt.com/3-reasons-amazons-ceo-jeff-bezos-loves-food-trucks/
This is an interesting thought experiment but Newark is never going to happen.
ml1 said:
given the proximity to Broad Street station, Audible, Rutgers, NJIT, NJPAC, etc, what is wrong with mixed use development on that site?
yahooyahoo said:
The stadium is already sold. The developer will build another generic mixed-use blah blah blah.
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2016/11/deal_is_inked_newark_bears_stadium_will_be_razed_r.html
There are like 2,500 new housing units in Harrison and now add all of these it seems like they are expecting a lot of people to move to Newark /Harrison. Should be perfect for Amazon employees.
This could be the opportunity for revitalization and (eventually) lower county taxes that we all claim to want. I hope Newark is a serious contender. Most (all?) of the other states in contention do not insist on funding their public schools via property taxes. That's one of the reasons our taxes look so lopsided compared to other areas being considered.
Four architecture firms have been chosen for the redevelopment of Riverfront Stadium. Ben Korman, the founder of Lotus Group, the redeveloper, is the operating partner of C&K Properties, the owner of 2 Gateway Center.
With the recently enacted inclusionary zoning ordinance, 20% of the 2000 units will have to be set aside as affordable housing.
If Amazon went to Philly it would be good for NJ's Treasury.
Depending on where the headquarters is, some of those Amazon employees would choose to live in NJ. Since NJ and PA have a tax treaty, they would pay income taxes to Trenton, as well as sales taxes and investment taxes.
DaveSchmidt said:
If Princeton is a factor, seems it might favor Philly more than Newark. Downside: split allegiences at the Palestra and Franklin Field.
nakaille said: Most (all?) of the other states in contention do not insist on funding their public schools via property taxes. That's one of the reasons our taxes look so lopsided compared to other areas being considered.
Maybe most, but not all.
My town budget is like $160M. $130M of that is property tax, $10M from other local sources (mostly the local sales tax). Of course, the area over by the highway is very much a commercial zone. You guys don’t have that revenue, but you also don’t have Coca-Cola trucks barreling down your roads.
This appeared on the front page of the Star-Ledger today. I'm wondering if other people see it as biased due to the selection of interviewees. There are a bunch of people interviewed who are against the deal, a few who are neutral, and no one in support. WTH?
There are economists who think that a corporation this size and in technology is worth the tax subsidy.
Lots of regular people are excited by this too. I'm sure there are students at NJIT and Rutgers-Newark who would be thrilled to get jobs at an Amazon HQ in Newark.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/10/holdnew_jerseys_7b_deal_offered_to_amazon_is_it_wo.html
Amazon received a total of 238 proposals from cities, states, districts and territories. Bids came from all but seven states , as well as most of southern Canada, three regions of Mexico and Puerto Rico.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/HQ2-RFP-Map-hires
That’s a little irritating. They’re looking for a metro area with at least 1M people and Alaska thought “hey, worth a shot!”
There aren’t 1M people in the whole damn state.
You gotta be in it to win it!
RobB said:
That’s a little irritating. They’re looking for a metro area with at least 1M people and Alaska thought “hey, worth a shot!”
There aren’t 1M people in the whole damn state.
RobB said:
That’s a little irritating. They’re looking for a metro area with at least 1M people and Alaska thought “hey, worth a shot!”
There aren’t 1M people in the whole damn state.
it's makes culling the 238 proposals a lot easier. There are probably no more than 5 that check all the boxes that Amazon listed. For instance, mass transit access. There are only a handful of cities that have robust mass transit systems.
I guess we'll find out how important all of their criteria are when they make their choice. The cynical observer would suggest it's all about the lowest taxes and fewest regulations. You'd like to think however that they're going to really give weight the other criteria like infrastructure and access to academia and an educated workforce.
The Newark bid looks like a really good one, and has some advantages the other cities don't such as a truly robust mass transit system, which is in one of the few cities that can probably provide enough sites to build 8MM sq ft of space. The past 50 years of misery in Newark have left it with so many vacant or deteriorated sites relatively close to the city center that 8MM sq ft is not out of the realm of possibility to build. Not many other cities have that AND access to NYC, universities, an international airport, and mass transit. But my guess is Amazon ultimately ignores many of its own criteria and goes where they can pay the lowest wages and taxes.
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Speaking of Boston, New Hampshire just came out with its bid and, in addition to pointing to its own strengths, it disses Boston.
It's sorta funny.
New Hampshire doesn't seem to be offering any tax incentives either because "it doesn't collect the taxes in the first place."
NJ & Newark might be offering Amazon $7 billion but even after that, Amazon would still pay higher taxes here than in many states, including NH.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/10/18/new-hampshire-amazon-pitch-boston-terrible/waHUHcYTdQDxwJAh0jUqWJ/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter