Amazon looking to expand. $5B investment.

[rage2]

If Alberta wants to diversify and Calgary wants to be Silicon Valley North, they better be working on the Amazon RFP.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....516043504_.pdf

Roll out the red carpet, throw silly tax breaks, there's going to be 50k employees with 6 figure salaries. This is literally an opportunity to quickly cut the cord on Calgary and Alberta's reliance on the energy sector. They need 8m sqft of space? We have 11m sqft of vacancy downtown right fucking now haha.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...ters-1.4279852

[adam c]

Vancouver doesn't make a lot of sense since Seattle is so close yet at the same time it would cut down on alot of travel, I don't see Halifax being a viable option so it's really down to Calgary vs Toronto

[civicHB]

I wonder if any non- US city has any actual hope in landing this.

[cyra1ax]

Calling it now, it won't be Calgary. Relatively too close to Seattle and Amazon will probably want something East coast.

[HiTempguy1]

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Calling it now, it won't be Calgary. Relatively too close to Seattle and Amazon will probably want something East coast.

Skimming through the RFP, Calgary hits all the marks. Who gives a shit east or west coast, its a global business. Calgary is ranked as a pretty damn decent city, only real downside is the winter, but maybe that will attract a different type of employee than Seattle. It rains half the god damn year in Seattle anyways, so at least you can go snowboarding/snowmobiling in the winter months. Cost of living in Calgary is one of the lowest for metropolitan areas in Canada, and as far as I can tell ranks pretty good compared to a lot in the USA.

Fuck it, diversify up in this bitch. Do your pandering magic Nenshi!

[RealJimmyJames]

If the Seattle executives are tired of winter rains Calgary has a very sunny climate all winter.

[Disoblige]

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I wonder if any non- US city has any actual hope in landing this.

This.

[rage2]

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Cost of living in Calgary is one of the lowest for metropolitan areas in Canada, and as far as I can tell ranks pretty good compared to a lot in the USA.

Cost of living will go through the roof if this actually happens. Slumlords will have fuck you money. Gonna suck for renters haha.

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I wonder if any non- US city has any actual hope in landing this.

Hard to say but I think we have a small advantage in that Bezos hates Trump. But Trump will do anything possible to punish Amazon for investing outside US, but as we've all seen, it's easier said than done, and would be short term until Trump is out of office.

[Manhattan]

Canadian city would be a dark horse pick. They announced it would be in NA and not just US because they had Canada on the radar. Amazon still has a relatively small presence in Canada so it would be a great way to break into the market.

Calgary has office space but I don't think old empty oil towers will appeal to the people they're trying to attract. Weather is too damn cold here. And the biggest obstacle would be the bad publicity and shaming they'd get for not giving those jobs to Americans.

My bet would be somewhere in Texas or Florida. Geographically diversified and tons of cheap land and no state taxes.

[ercchry]

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Calling it now, it won't be Calgary. Relatively too close to Seattle and Amazon will probably want something East coast.

If it was a logistics hub... you might be onto something, but as a "head office" I would argue that close proximity would be a good thing for employee travel... for logistics, Winnipeg would be a great pick, cheap everything, and such a good hub even organized crime likes it for distribution

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My bet would be somewhere in Texas or Florida. Geographically diversified and tons of cheap land and no state taxes.

I dunno... current events would say that would be a little costly in interruption of business

[D'z Nutz]

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Cost of living will go through the roof if this actually happens. Slumlords will have fuck you money. Gonna suck for renters haha.

That's the first thing that came to my mind too. I was in Seattle in July for the first time since 2010 and they were saying the price of real estate has skyrocketed in the last few years just cause of Google, Amazon, etc being in Seattle. Anyone who owned property there is laughing now.

[max_boost]

Lol a spike in real estate prices would send my folks into retirement nicely or just benefit the casinos.

[HiTempguy1]

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Cost of living will go through the roof if this actually happens. Slumlords will have fuck you money. Gonna suck for renters haha.

I don't know about that, hasn't Calgary alone lost something like 60k office employees?

It's not like the 50k jobs are instant. It could be exactly what the province needs to put the tilting economy back on track.

I can also see the NDP working with Calgary to do something for the company. And clearly they are not against building the facilities they need. Could be a perfect opportunity to get funding to remediate that land they wanted to build the arena on. Get the provincial gov to chip in, Calgary chips in, BOOM, instant campus sized area to build a world class downtown facility on. In the meantime, easy to rent office space downtown while its under construction, can start up operations and getting people and resources moved before needing the facilities to be finished.

I dunno, I'm just spitballing, but van, toronto, montreal, ottawa, quebec city, ALL will be crazy expensive compared to Calgary. The maritimes are too back water (and having just shipped a pallet by freight and flown there a lot, are harder to get to and manage logistics than most realize, and the 3 hour time zone change sucks).

Sure, I'm probably biased, but I see very few downsides to Calgary besides 1) Winter and 2) The actual physical location may not be ideal for SOME reason I'm not aware of

[rage2]

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I don't know about that, hasn't Calgary alone lost something like 60k office employees?

If Amazon does comes here, it'll take 10-15 years (as per their RFP) to hire 50k employees, but you're missing the big picture. The trickle down effect is that other tech companies would consider coming here, more startups would thrive here because of the advantages of having a strategic partner so close to home, as well as a wealth of tech talent coming here increasing the local talent pool, increasing much more than Amazon's 50k employees. These are all high skilled high paying jobs, spiking up household income, which in turn spikes up cost of living.

[Disoblige]

The transit system ALONE is enough for Amazon not to consider Calgary. Not trying to be pessimistic, but I can't see this happening compared to so many other choices in the States.

[Neil4Speed]

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such a good hub even organized crime likes it for distribution

I hope Winnipeg works that into the RFP.

[R-Audi]

Key point many are missing is that Amazon wants a campus like their Seattle office, not to be spread out among 5-10 buildings downtown. This does nothing for our DT issues, as they would most likely be out in Suburbia somewhere as they need a large plot of land to make this work. On top of that, any of the developers that own this land certainly arent giving it away to make the rent work... then add in the transit issues.. and close proximity to Seattle... Id say its an extreme long shot.

[jwslam]

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close proximity to Seattle... Id say its an extreme long shot.

Am I the only one who finds this advantageous on the aspect of working office hours? If they go east coast, the only feasible times people would be able to conference call is limited to less than half the work day.

[Manhattan]

I hope cities resort to smear campaigns like during elections and trash each other lol. Personally I'm not that fond of Amazon - seems like an awfully stressful place to work but I can understand how it can revitalize a city with the new businesses and talent it would attract. Don't like shopping on Amazon either.

[jwslam]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...ters-1.4279852

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says Calgary has 'serious advantages' to race to host new Amazon headquarters