Cool News (Birmingham, Hoover, Southside: apartment complex, purchases, Whole Foods)

[steveklein]

yeah... while I think we should go after this because the risk/reward is just too great to pass up, realistically, we have no chance.

There is basically no tech community hear to speak of. And people don't really want to flock to Birmingham. I really laughed at wanting to put it on the west side of Birmingham. Yeah... engineers making 6 figures definitely want to live and work in Ensley! It's almost like not a thing was learned from the Visionland disaster.

[TimCity2000]

yeah it's one of those things where you kind of HAVE to go after it because you'd be foolish not to, but realistically the chance of landing it is extremely small. luckily the cost at this point is just in putting together a proposal. hopefully the City doesn't pull that stunt where they hire an "outside consultant" for like $250,000 to submit something...

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Justin Scott

I think Atlanta is a bit larger than they'd like. It appears as if they'd prefer to be the spark of a city's next metro "boom". I could definitely see Nashville or Charlotte though. Amazon probably wants to be "alpha" in whichever city they choose.

Where are you getting that from? Not saying it's true or untrue, I just haven't seen anything like that.

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by TimCity2000

yeah it's one of those things where you kind of HAVE to go after it because you'd be foolish not to, but realistically the chance of landing it is extremely small. luckily the cost at this point is just in putting together a proposal. hopefully the City doesn't pull that stunt where they hire an "outside consultant" for like $250,000 to submit something...

People act as if there is no time, effort, and money put into these things. There is really no point in submitting an offer if there is not substantial effort put in. If not, whatever small chance you had is non-existent. You can tell from proposals who has their **** together.

I don't think they should submit at all... it's all just a prisoner's dilemma... multiple cities chasing fool's gold to subsidize one of the richest entities in the world. But if you're going to do it and you actually want it you need to go full throttle on this and spend the time and effort into it. Hell, they probably would have to have an overpriced consultant to even have a vague shot at this.

[steveklein]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

People act as if there is no time, effort, and money put into these things. There is really no point in submitting an offer if there is not substantial effort put in. If not, whatever small chance you had is non-existent. You can tell from proposals who has their **** together.

I don't think they should submit at all... it's all just a prisoner's dilemma... multiple cities chasing fool's gold to subsidize one of the richest entities in the world. But if you're going to do it and you actually want it you need to go full throttle on this and spend the time and effort into it. Hell, they probably would have to have an overpriced consultant to even have a vague shot at this.

Can't say I disagree with this assessment.

Maybe Birmingham paying that really nebulous fee to be a world trade center will pay dividends right here

Kinda offtopic, but what's the latest on that?

[GotLuv4Bham]

Governor will be in town tomorrow to announce 700 job project coming to some area of Jefferson County.



Governor Ivey to announce 700 new jobs in Jefferson County economic development deal | WBMA

[TimCity2000]

very good. need a bunch more of these, and ideally not all auto-related.

[GotLuv4Bham]

Here's the big news!

Study: Autocar

http://abc3340.com/news/local/autoca...-over-700-jobs

[jdawson1237]

I agree that Bham has zero% chance of landing Amazon.

If I had to put money on it, I would say Dallas/Plano/Las Colinas or Denver. Maybe Austin because of Dell and Whole Foods (a now Amazon company) and the availability of young people.

I say Dallas/Plano/Las Colinas because of the large number of Corporate relos to the area from other places in the past 10 years. Check out the 5 billion dollar mile in Frisco (basically Plano). There's a massive road system (compared to ATL and Austin), two large airports, and talent to not worry about having to move new people to the area.

[MinivanDriver]

I agree that the chances of Birmingham landing this are non-existent. At the same time, there is always value in pitching a piece of business such as this for several reasons:

1) Practice. This gives the government/economic development people a workout, smoothing out sticking points and developing a unified response for later, similar kinds of pitches. Just being in the hunt sharpens skills.

2) Name Recognition. We certainly wouldn't win it. But we might make a cut or two. Never, ever hurts to be on the radar screen.

3) Potential other business. Amazon and their key suppliers are always on the lookout for distribution centers and other support facilities, especially with their acquisition of Whole Foods. The largely unused Bruno's warehouse is huge and literally tailor-made for grocery. While we don't land the big fish, that is not to say that we don't land a smaller one. I mean, if Atlanta landed this, there are significant opportunities in Birmingham, given the amount of square footage that would need to be absorbed.

4) Finally, hey, you never know. What if Amazon shifts strategy away from one major hub and decides to instead go to a more regional strategy?