RFPs due in October

Would the Governor make a bid? From this article it looks like he is shy on investing billion to companies.

 

http://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/does-cincinnati-have-what-it-takes-to-land-amazon-headquarters-?page=2

 

I'm seeing some interesting speculation elsewhere that Amazon could choose Toronto or Montreal as a slap in the fact to Trump and his immigration policy.  Thinking back to that early meeting in Trump Tower, Bezos looked even more irritated than the rest of those tech titans sitting at the table with Trump's kids. 

 

The other really interesting speculation I've seen is that Amazon wants to have a truly parallel HQ so that it can still operate in the event of a natural disaster.  Obviously, Seattle is not in the most earthquake-prone area, but it is going to be visited by one at some point. 

^I thought that too if they are worried about yellowstone or Idaho super volcanoes happening in the next 20-30 years. Or to be a North Korea target in the next few months(weeks?)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/09/upshot/where-should-amazon-new-headquarters-be.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

This outside article mentions Cincinnati/NKY as a possible Amazon pick:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/09/12/five-not-socrazy-wild-cards-for-amazon-s-new.html

 

Looks like this writer has been reading my posts!

Ohio's big cities rank in top 10 for jobs

Posted September 13, 2017 at 03:16 PM | Updated September 13, 2017 at 03:17 PM

Ohio gets major kudos for jobs. Here's how Glassdoor created its 2017 list

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio’s three largest cities – Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati – sit in consecutive spots on a list compiled by job research site Glassdoor.com.

 

The Glassdoor City Scores are determined by three equally-weighed factors – hiring opportunity, job satisfaction and cost of living – and rating them on a five-point scale, according to the site.

 

Seven of the top 10 cities are in the Midwest, and the rest are southern. The ranking may help to debunk the idea that cities like New York or San Francisco have the most opportunities for job seekers, Glassdoor said in a tweet.

 

Keep reading to see where Cleveland lands in the rankings.

 

MORE:

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/09/jobs_site_glassdoor_ranks_ohio.html

My former high school locker partner works at Whole Foods HQ in Austin.  I emailed him last night and he doesn't know how many people work there.  From street view it looks like a relatively small office building -- maybe 200,000 feet.  If Amazon does in fact choose Cincinnati I would expect that they will move the Whole Foods HQ here as well. 

 

I have seen commentators elsewhere remark that Amazon will recognize significant advantages from moving its HQ to the eastern time zone.  No doubt that issues with vendors and billing on the east coast has required Amazon to employ people in Seattle who come in at 5am or even earlier.  With the majority of their business inevitably east of the Mississippi + the new Prime Air Hub here in Cincinnati, it only makes sense to get the operations that need to be in the eastern time zone over here.

 

I saw a Seattle-based writer speculate that Bezos plans to eventually make HQ2 HQ1 and that Seattle shouldn't ignore that possibility and take Amazon for granted. 

Nothing takes the mellow out of a Californian like having to be at work at 5:30 AM every day to deal with the East Coasters.

^Yeah, my brother who lives in LA works remotely for an Indian-owned company based in Atlanta.  He has to get up at 5am.  India's so damn far away it's of no advantage, though. 

The phones at American companies with offices in England usually don't start ringing until after lunch.

 

So how about that Glassdoor jobs report ranking Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus in their top 10 of best cities for jobs....

I am quite surprised by the number of people I have seen make comments like "Cincinnati can't handle the number of new residents that Amazon HQ2 would add." Please. The City of Cincinnati at its peak had a population of over 500,000 residents, and that has declined to around 300,000 today. There is plenty of room to add 50,000 more residents to the City of Cincinnati alone. And that's not even looking at the rest of the Greater Cincinnati metro area.

I wonder if Greater Toronto-Hamilton residents in 1970, when the metro area had just 2.5 million people (fewer than Cleveland-Akron BTW), wondered where they would put the nearly 100,000 residents being added to the metro area each year today? Cities adapt to growth. They densify.

So how about that Glassdoor jobs report ranking Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus in their top 10 of best cities for jobs....

 

Their metric factors in the cost of living, which tends to have a negative correlation with available jobs.  I'm always dubious of reports that say "CLEVELAND ECONOMY ROCKS" because that contention doesn't pass a cursory glance test.  Memphis and St. Louis on the list too... let's just say I wouldn't recommend this study's authors to manage the Federal Reserve.

^ I am definitely in the camp of Cincinnati being too small to handle the sudden rush of 50,000 new employees at once. It's a smallish city in a medium sized metro, and the housing market is already quite tight. Beyond housing, though, the labor pool just isn't there for such a massive, sudden increase in jobs. Procter and Gamble, one of the largest employers in Cincinnati, employs about 10-12,000 in the Cincinnati market (spread out between multiple sites around the region). Can you imagine adding 5 new P&Gs all at once? There aren't nearly enough qualified people in the region, so many, many people would need to relocate to fill those jobs. The largest corporate addition to Cincy lately has been GE that brought 1,200 new jobs. Amazon would be 42 times the size of the new GE presence. Downtown has, what, 70,000 employees? When you think about the spin-off jobs that would be created from the Amazon relocation, we would be talking about roughly doubling the size of downtown, virtually over night. That would be a huge stretch for Cincinnati to accommodate.

 

Before I moved away, I became friends with several people who moved to Cincinnati from other cities, and many of them did struggle to find housing in acceptable neighborhoods. A professional worker who chooses to live in the city has only a hand full of neighborhoods that are actual options. Do you think an Amazon employee who is making 100k a year would live in Sedamsville or Roselawn? Yes, the city used to house many more people than it does now, but much of that is due to loss of housing stock and smaller families. Ultimately, I think Cincinnati COULD support the 50k (plus families...more like 75k, probably) new workers from Amazon, but it would be a real stretch. This city just isn't used to handling growth, much less sudden massive growth of high wage, white collar workers. Honestly, this move would test the capacity of just about any city, but the larger the city, the better it is able to accommodate moves like this Amazon HQ2. For example, look at how Chicago rather seemlessly absorbed the huge incflux of Boeing workers when the corporate HQ moved there a few years back.

No city has an entire Amazon HQ staff just sitting around waiting.  Where jobs appear, people move.  I'm sure any city in the midwest would gladly build to accommodate the influx.  But there would also be a lot of people displaced as housing values shot up.  Gentrification would be "a thing" here like never before, and the shift might be big enough and sudden enough to get ugly.  Poor folks got driven out of San Francisco gradually but this would be almost overnight.

^There's still an enormous glut of housing in Northeast Ohio, and tons of well located vacant land to build more. There would surely be displacement in our handful of currently desirable city neighborhoods and the adjacent areas they expand into, but it would be nothing like SF, Boston, DC, NYC, where there is pretty much uniform unaffordability within a decent commuting radius.

 

In any case, would this really be a sudden influx of 50,000 people or a gradual ramp up over several years, maybe even a decade+?

It would actually be over a few years.  So not immediate as the naysayers are suggesting, but pretty quick.  I think quick enough that the main gentrification would be the upper middle class moving in to the more currently desirable neighborhoods and pushing out the more middle class people already there.  Maybe the reshuffling would push those people down into less desirable neighborhoods, but that's a much slower process as homes would have to be built or renovated to be suitable to the middle class.  I would definitely expect spikes in Downtown, Ohio City, Tremont, etc.  Not to mention Rocky River, Solon, and the like.  I doubt Kinsman or Forest Hills sees any real influx off this.

Unless Amazon chooses New York, there is no way they will be able to hire all the employees they need from the local labor pool. So that issue is not unique to Cincinnati. They will have to rely on recruiting people from other cities to move to work for them.

 

If Cincinnati was selected, we would need to see a 3CDC style operation focused on fixing up other neighborhoods to provide new housing options. Perhaps this could be the Port Authority's job, or perhaps new entities could be created for this purpose. There are dozens of neighborhoods in the city that have vacant housing that can be rehabbed and vacant lots that can be built upon. Imagine what happened to Over-the-Rhine happening to the city's other neighborhoods. We could easily add tens of thousands of new residential units across the city by adding some new mixed-use buildings in our neighborhood business districts.

 

Imagine if all of the "in limbo" projects in the CBD suddenly started to move forward... 4th & Race at its originally proposed scale, the Rick Greiwe towers at 8th & Main, the Second National Bank building, etc. That would provide hundreds of new residential units in Downtown Cincinnati. The we would surely see new proposals for new towers on other vacant lots downtown.

 

If would be fast growth compared to what we're used to, but I think it's quite easily doable.

Interesting take on the Amazon bid. Maybe no city really is qualified?

 

No Room at the Inn for Amazon

 

Since Amazon announced that they’ll be launching a second headquarters with, over 10–15 years, 50,000 employees and gazillions of dollars of investment, every urbanist and regional economist out there has put forward their preferred set of cities, the places they think will make good candidates.

 

I want to take a different tact. I want to explain why every city is bad for Amazon and nobody can fulfill their RFP. And then, once I’ve explained why a “good city” for Amazon does not exist, I’ll explain what I think Amazon should be (and perhaps actually is) looking for.

We're only talking like a 5% population increase for any of the 3C's.  The big issue is that because the influx would have a much higher income than the median family, there would be a push in housing values of all kinds. The hypergentrification going on in Nashville is occurring because so many of the people moving there had enormous equity in west coast homes, so they don't hesitate to pay $500k for a 1500 sq foot house or 2-bedroom condo in a part of the city that was "bad" just 2-3 years ago.  The push there is so crazy that they're putting up high-end condos adjacent to public housing.  Like not even across the street.  On the same side of the street, and physically adjacent. 

 

The thing that would happen in any of the 3C's is that out-of-town investors would appear and buy quite a bit of land and even derelict homes to hold.  Some of those people would just buy to hold and that's where things get nutty.  It creates an artificial shortage. 

I don't know much about Cleveland, but it seems Cleveland would be more well suited for Amazon than Cincinnati simply because of the mass transit infrastructure in place and larger overall metro.

 

That said, I still think a city like Cincinnati could make it happen considering all the room in Newport, Covington, downtown Cincinnati and adjacent neighborhoods.  It wouldn't be that unthinkable and if the two states could work together like others have mentioned to pull together some rail lines connecting all three then also connecting some outer neighborhoods into downtown Cincinnati using quick light rail, it definitely is possible.

 

Travis also I would like to mention that there is a ton of space in downtown Cincinnati in the old neighborhood that was torn down for I-71, Urbancincy.com did an article on it awhile back but I can't remember the name of that neighborhood, but just a ton of space there that could theoretically serve all the needs for Amazon to build their HQ2.

 

Cincinnati also has a wide range of good sized metros in a 150 - 200 mile radius with lots of students like Indy, Louisville, Lexington, Columbus, IU in Bloomington, etc. that they could pull and recruit younger talent from.

 

My thing though on all this, if you are looking at Ohio cities, I think the best bet is Cleveland.  Bigger region overall and better rail and mass transit network and overall a bluer area than Cincinnati which would probably align better with Bezos, etc.

If Kasich gets involved he's really going to push Columbus. His administration changed all the development funding around in a manner that 80% of it went to Columbus. This despite the fact that we need the least help.

Cincinnati needs new higher-wage office jobs to fill up the space at the Banks. We need a higher median wage to justify new residential construction on these surface lots downtown. Without demand these things we talk about on here are just blowing smoke around.

If Kasich gets involved he's really going to push Columbus. His administration changed all the development funding around in a manner that 80% of it went to Columbus. This despite the fact that we need the least help.

 

Link?

For comparison, when the GM plant in Norwood closed in 1987, about 4200 workers were laid off at once.

 

 

Travis also I would like to mention that there is a ton of space in downtown Cincinnati in the old neighborhood that was torn down for I-71, Urbancincy.com did an article on it awhile back but I can't remember the name of that neighborhood, but just a ton of space there that could theoretically serve all the needs for Amazon to build their HQ2.

 

You're referring to this article where Randy gives examples of two parts of downtown where hundreds or thousands of residential units could be created. And that's not even counting some of the big vacant lots in the center of downtown (like the Joseph lot) or The Banks. But yeah, there would be plenty of room for Amazon to build their HQ in the former CL&N warehouse district, which would make SkyHouse a pretty convenient living option for Amazon employees.

Don't forget about existing underutilized space, including 2 and 3 bedroom single family houses in the inner ring suburbs and outer suburbs that have only 1 or 2 people in them.

 

 

Travis also I would like to mention that there is a ton of space in downtown Cincinnati in the old neighborhood that was torn down for I-71, Urbancincy.com did an article on it awhile back but I can't remember the name of that neighborhood, but just a ton of space there that could theoretically serve all the needs for Amazon to build their HQ2.

 

You're referring to this article where Randy gives examples of two parts of downtown where hundreds or thousands of residential units could be created. And that's not even counting some of the big vacant lots in the center of downtown (like the Joseph lot) or The Banks. But yeah, there would be plenty of room for Amazon to build their HQ in the former CL&N warehouse district, which would make SkyHouse a pretty convenient living option for Amazon employees.

 

No Midwest or Rust Belt city is suffering from a lack of available land in or near its downtown.  Part of the reason why Boston is such a strong contender is because it has the cleared south waterfront waiting for just this sort of opportunity.  That's how they landed the GE relocation. 

 

 

If Kasich gets involved he's really going to push Columbus. His administration changed all the development funding around in a manner that 80% of it went to Columbus. This despite the fact that we need the least help.

 

Link?

 

There was a Dispatch article about it 2-3 years ago that I can't find now.

If Kasich gets involved he's really going to push Columbus. His administration changed all the development funding around in a manner that 80% of it went to Columbus. This despite the fact that we need the least help.

 

Wow, I did not know this. Crazy, if true.

If Kasich gets involved he's really going to push Columbus. His administration changed all the development funding around in a manner that 80% of it went to Columbus. This despite the fact that we need the least help.

 

Wow, I did not know this. Crazy, if true.

 

See, there's another reason for the State of Western Reserve to secede or to rejoin Connecticut! ;)

Notice that none of Ohio's major cities are on this list. That's not an indictment of cities, but of state government.

 

Here are the U.S. cities where poverty has been reduced. And the link to the Brookings article:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/09/14/three-charts-showing-you-poverty-in-u-s-cities-and-metro-areas/

 

Cincinnati hopes to lure Amazon's new world headquarters

 

CINCINNATI —

With a month left before applications are due, the Cincinnati region is burnishing its proposal to try to lure Amazon's new world headquarters.

The giant company is Seattle-based, but it is looking to open a second global headquarters elsewhere in America.

 

The competition is fierce. So fierce, the folks assembling the package in this area are tight-lipped about specific details of what would be offered as incentives.

 

http://www.wlwt.com/article/cincinnati-hopes-to-lure-amazons-new-world-headquarters/12279373

 

 

The biggest take away from that article is that we get confirmation that Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are working together on a bid.

Here are the newly released metro GDP numbers for 2016, in millions.

 

Cincinnati: $132,010

Columbus: $130,758

Cleveland: $129,440

Dayton: $40,572

Akron: $37,300

Toledo: $33,158

Youngstown: $19,966

Canton: $16,343

 

Change 2010-2016 in millions.

Columbus: +$35,570

Cincinnati: +$24,943

Cleveland: +$23,895

Akron: +$8,082

Dayton: +$7,184

Toledo: +$6,267

Canton: +$2,483

Youngstown: +$2,463

 

Change 2015-2016 in millions.

Columbus: +$5,564

Cincinnati: +$5,398

Cleveland: +$2,719

Akron: +$1,935

Dayton: +$998

Toledo: +$552

Youngstown: +$106

Canton: -$580

 

Only change in the ranking was that Columbus passed up Cleveland to become the state's 2nd largest metro GDP.

Source?

Here are the newly released metro GDP numbers for 2016, in millions.

 

Cincinnati: $132,010

Columbus: $130,758

Cleveland: $129,440

Dayton: $40,572

Akron: $37,300

Toledo: $33,158

Youngstown: $19,966

Canton: $16,343

 

Only change in the ranking was that Columbus passed up Cleveland to become the state's 2nd largest metro GDP.

Not quite. If true, it also means that Cincinnati moved up from its 2nd place 2016 ranking to become the state's largest metro GDP.

Source?

 

https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/gdp_metro_newsrelease.htm

Here are the newly released Primary Statistical Area metro GDP numbers for 2016, in millions.

 

1. Cleveland-Akron-Canton: $183,083

2. Cincinnati: $132,010

3. Columbus: $130,758

4. Dayton-Springfield: $44,889

5. Toledo: $33,158

6. Youngstown-Warren: $19,966

7. Huntington-Ashland-Ironton: $14,407

8. Wheeling-St. Clairsville: $7,265

9. Lima: $5,519

10. Mansfield: $4,343

11. Steubenville-Weirton: $4,023

In GDP/Capita:

 

1. Columbus:                              $64,049

2. Cleveland-Elyria:                      $62,969

3. Cincinnati:                              $60,971

4. Toledo:                                    $54,787

5. Lima:                                      $53,199

6. Akron:                                    $53,117

7. Dayton:                                  $50,672

8. Canton-Massillon:                    $40,727

9. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman: $36,652

10. Mansfield:                              $35,861

11. Springfield:                            $32,029

 

Edit: Forgot Youngstown.

Two articles pointing to the need for Ohio cities to attract immigrants if they want to create economic growth....

 

Ohio companies find ready workforce in recent refugees

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170920/central-ohio-companies-find-ready-workforce-in-recent-refugees

 

"With a 59% increase in its immigrant population between 2009-2013, Dayton reversed 3 decades of population decline. In fact, if Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo had each attracted immigrants at the same overall rate as Dayton, they would have reversed their population decline over the same period. Look at Buffalo, too. Immigrants have helped create or preserve over 3,000 local manufacturing jobs—jobs that would have vanished had it not been for the labor force the immigrant community helped bolster"

 

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/opinion/article174142456.htm

Our competition....

 

Finding workers a challenge in Colorado’s bid for Amazon campus

State already falling short of providing enough tech workers

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/22/amazon-second-headquarters-colorado-labor-market-shortage/

^ Oh, somehow I missed that Amazon says they're going to add the jobs over the course of 10-20 years. That's way too long to project on a company that faces walls in the future such as rational growth limitations and possible government intervention.

Lessons from Seattle: What Amazon HQ2 contenders should consider

 

https://t.co/MLtTg3b9nP

^I'd say Columbus is out due to the lack of rail transit. Amazon has made rail transit a priority in their decision. That's what happens when people don't get involved with city politics.

FYI, the survey was conducted before the recent spate of hurricanes...

 

October 01, 2017 4:00 am      UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Labor shortage easily is builders' chief concern

By STAN BULLARD

 

The national concern about a shortage of labor is growing among Northeast Ohio executives and owners in the building business, according to the just-completed 2017 survey of real estate and construction industries by the Skoda Minotti accounting, business and financial advisory firm.

 

Asked to rank the biggest threat to their business over the next year in the annual survey, 52% of respondents cited a labor crunch, which vastly surpassed other concerns. Just 15% cited lack of work, 14% worried over tightening credit and 7% see material costs as the biggest risks to their firms. Availability, not cost, of labor is clearly the issue. Just 3% said labor costs were their biggest threat.

 

Roger Gingerich, partner-in-charge of Skoda Minotti's Mayfield Village-based real estate and construction practice, said it's the first time finding workers ranked so high. In 2016, it was the top threat for 46% of the respondents and in 2012 just 11%.

 

MORE:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20171001/news/137281/labor-shortage-easily-builders-chief-concern

This is what you get when you remove important regulations in the financial sector that prevent boom and bust cycles. Bush II-era policy led to so much overbuilding in the early/mid 2000s that little else needed built for 10 years. Since there was no work, few young people decided to go into the building trades as tons of experienced workers retired. Now there's demand for the jobs but not enough workers that even know how to do the work.

^amen

Photos from Elyria illustrate @NYTimes piece re: places that haven't recovered from Great Recession - and might not. https://t.co/WEMTyWbirA

OK, so everyone is in....

 

@21WFMJ  2m2 minutes ago

NEW INFORMATION | Trumbull County site pitched for Amazon HQ2 http://www.wfmj.com/story/36555184/trumbull-county-site-pitched-for-amazon-hq2