urbanSTL

jstriebel wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

Yeah, the proposal actually is unexpectedly well done and stunning. It's a pretty tremendous master plan for the areas, and while I'm giving local leadership trouble for calling such a massive failure a "blueprint" for the future, it really is something that hopefully has some merit going forward.

I agree with this. I thought it was pretty good. Hopefully we will be able to download the documents at some point.

The videos were good. Excited me to see what in theory the downtown "could" look like at some point. I know it will be a slow process but at least it gives me and idea of what can be down with it.

The welcome center at the airport for Amazon was an interesting concept but I would be curious to see them expand on that to be more of an all inclusive thing for company. I always wondered how they could improve things at the airport and that gave a peek into what they could do.

chaifetz10 wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

They should just scrub off Amazon from this proposal and send it to every single Fortune 1000 company. So we lost on Amazon... we still spent some good money getting this proposal together so lets use it to land someone!

B-b-but that would take time to send e-mails and proposal packages...

Let's just bow out and give up as a city, shall we?

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

It says you need a password to download it. Do we know the password?

password1

ricke002 wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

It says you need a password to download it. Do we know the password?

password1

haha...

I have a link to it from kmox now anyways

story

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2018/01/18/ ... dquarters/

Incentives from the state of Missouri total $3.82 billion and from Illinois total $1.627 billion for a grand total of $5.44 billion offered to the e-commerce and cloud hosting giant.

State of Missouri $2.429 billion
City of St. Louis $1.331 billion
St. Louis County* $56.5 million
TOTAL $3.82 billion



State of Illinois $927 million
St. Clair County $700 million
TOTAL $1.627 billion

full doc

https://cbsstlouis.files.wordpress.com/ ... e-open.pdf

More detailed parts of incentives (way more than this are listed)

Employee Earnings Tax and Employer Payroll Tax Reduction - Rebate to Amazon of
at least 50 percent of the 1 percent earnings tax paid by Amazon employees and 50
percent of the 1/2 percent payroll tax paid by Amazon for the first 15 years of operations,
and a gradual increase in such taxes over a stated time frame; the rebates shall be at least
75 percent for employees that meet stated “low-to-moderate” income or other specified
thresholds or requirements

Provide Amazon Tower (the first building at 909 Chestnut) at a $20M purchase price, which is
dramatically lower than the cost of new construction $110 million

Stenger really stepped up.

St.Louis1764 wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

spreadsheetwizard wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

BTW, all this ragging on Indianapolis is beyond stupid. It is a great place to live, with world-class amenities. The crying shame is how far past Indy is beyond STL and whether or not STL will ever catch-up....

Umm i beg to differ Indianapolis isn't a bad place however its not far past St.Louis that's simply your opinion I also can attest St.Louis has world class amenities then some.
What does Indy have that St.Louis doesn't please tell me?

Not much of anything besides a state capitol and nicer downtown. Lots of growth in the pastures (which we don't have in the city and not much left in the County either); especially in Hamilton County. We have a lot more amenities and share much of the same challenges.... people got to get past downtown as the end all/be all; and Indy has big socio-econoomic problems same as we do,

It does have a more advanced tech climate, which may be why Amazon has it on its list and not KC, STL, Cincy, etc. But Amazon isn't going to pick it anyway, lol.

Indy is a decent enough place but it's laughable that it's far past STL.

Different strokes, for sure.

But UNIGOV alone puts it significantly ahead of STL.

A City/Counter merger, which is both:

(a) highly unlikely
(b) nearly universally viewed as requirement to improve the region

Would take how long if started in earnest today? 10-years? 20-years? 25?

The other key element that Indy has: growth.

The other components are more what Indy doesn't have, that STL does:
* murder capital of U.S; spin it all day long but headlines matter
* terrible national reputation (Ferguson)
* a divided metro region; where 2/3 don't care at all about the other 1/3

I've said this before, but in our short-stint there, we met many people fled IL and moved to Indy. I've never met (1) person who left IL and moved to MO.

I don't say these things to dump all over STL. There are many good/great things happening here - it is a reality check in terms of how STL is viewed nationwide.

spreadsheetwizard wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

I've never met (1) person who left IL and moved to MO.

Half the people in my office fit this. I am one of them. Most went to school (and are from IL) and now live here. Lots from Chicago. I would say most transplants to STL are from Illinois.

^^ with all due respect, spreadsheet, you're talking largely about perception and little with on-the-ground reality. Yes Indianapolis has a nice downtown and some overall citywide growth but it also has a poverty-ridden core with record-breaking homicide levels and a crappy public school system. STL CIty itself has less poverty and a more highly educated population (measured by B.A.+) than the Indy core and almost the entire Marion County. And even with the state capitol, Indy can't even outperform national population growth. Again, I'm not saying its a bad place to live and without many things to offer but it's just nonsense to say that Indy is far beyond Saint Louis.

Im very proud of the St.Louis bid i think it was bold creative progressive and aggressive i think many St.Louisan's should be equally proud. Although we weren't in the top 20 i hope that our leaders can put some of this visionary into reality..
I'm thinking geographically St.Louis didn't make the cut.
We really need our fortune 5's and 1000's to expand in St.Louis particularly the cbd.
I kind of wish Centene could take those 5,000 jobs in Sacramento and plant them in Downtown.

I'm glad to see the general reaction has been less meltdown and more reflective. Hopefully it's followed up with something substantive and swift, whatever that may be.

I hope Indy or Nashville lands it.

It's very disappointing, for sure. I thought we had a legitimate shot, though I'm sure many cities are saying the same. I do find it interesting that 9 out of 20 of the cities left are state (Provence) capitals. Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Columbus, Denver, Indy, Nashville, Raleigh, and Toronto are all capitals. 4 more (LA, Chicago, NYC and Newark) are in the three biggest metros in the US. And DC, northern VA, and Montgomery County, MD are all in the nation's capital area (and are the 6th biggest metro).

So that leaves Philadelphia (7th largest metro), Dallas (4th largest metro), and Miami (8th largest) left.

And Pittsburgh...not sure on this one; perhaps they had an amazing proposal.

All of the top ten largest MSAs (except Houston, wonder what happened there?!) are still standing so size and government connections appear to be big factors.

I do think Amazon had a HQ2 (or a very short list) already before this competition. My opinion from the beginning was ATL but I could see it being DC.

STLrainbow wrote: ↑

Jan 18, 2018

I'm most interested in seeing why Amazon included Pittsburgh and Philadelphia -- two cities with regionalism/fragmented govt. issues of their own.

As far as Pittsburgh is concerned, a couple things come to mind:

• CMU's tech reputation. (And it's proximity to the urban core probably doesn't hurt)
• This is totally anecdotal, but I have an acquaintance who works at the executive level in SF for a well known tech firm. In casual conversation last week about how things were going in SF and his firm in general he mentioned how he's hearing the "younger", "hipper" tech workers are talking about how SF is passé and he then specifically mentioned Pittsburgh (and only Pittsburgh) as a city he's been hearing these "younger", "hip" people talk about as a "cool place". True story... For what it's worth.

Additionally, just one dude's stance and outlook here, but I have been looking to put down serious roots the last year or two and would LOVE to do so in my hometown of STL. And downtown STL would be my first choice of anywhere in STL, but I continue to kick that can down the road and pass on signing on the line. The main reason? The crime and policing issues.

Car smash and grab? No problem, been there. Woken up by gunshots at 3AM? Been there, not pleasant, but I can deal with it. I think I can even deal with being mugged by misguided youth (fortunately I haven't experienced this yet).

What I'm not sure I can deal with and basically keeps me from pulling the trigger:

• A friend or family member being a victim of crime in my neighborhood while visiting.
• Being treated like sh*t by law enforcement after being a victim of crime.

I'm guessing DC area was always their first choice. Bezos owns the Washington Post, and as we learned from the move of Boeing Military Division HQ from St. Louis to DC, your top people need to live in DC if you want to influence legislation or if you want a cut of the tax dollars we all ship to DC.

On the local news, one expert wondered if the Amazon may have wondered if the city, the state, the County, and Illinois could really all work together seamlessly. In a viewers poll on Channel 5, the viewers said crime was the reason we lost.

I wonder if the recent Jeff City fiasco, SB 43, knocked KC and St. Louis out of the running.

Also, since, like Detroit, we are primarily recognized around the country for crime, you have to wonder if that weighed in. That would be somewhat annoying given that -- at the full metro level rankings, not city limit rankings -- St. Louis ranks safer than Indy, Nashville, Miami, and Baltimore for violent crime, and better than Indy, Nashville, Denver, Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta, Austin, and Columbus for property crime. But that's not the conventional wisdom.

I go often to Pittsburgh for work and it definitely feels more vibrant/up and coming than St Louis, Indy or Columbus.

^^ gary, crime may have played some factor but I don't think too much.... Detroit already got feedback and the primary reason was due to shortage of talent; basically said they were on the right track but still weren't there yet to make the cut.

Amazon to Detroit: You didn't have enough talent to get HQ2
https://www.freep.com/story/money/busin ... 043624001/

I think this is probably a big reason STL didn't make the Final 20 either; just not quite there yet with the tech talent at the level Amazon wanted to see.

^ Interesting, I am guessing that Amazon reached out to STL as well and I wonder that will be shared with the public. But I would agree with you that if they ruled Detroit out on the basis of a lack of talent then the same would probably apply here.

We do need to get off those arbitrary Most Dangerous Lists as that drives the nationwide perception that STL is an unsafe metro. However we do it, reunification, city reenters the county or another manner get it done and make it a priority!

STLrainbow wrote: ↑

Jan 19, 2018

Detroit already got feedback and the primary reason was due to shortage of talent; basically said they were on the right track but still weren't there yet to make the cut.

But Nashville does?

BTW, IMO the Hustle video had some great visuals but the talking... OMG, blah blah blah. Imagine having to watch a hundred videos of nonsense like that.

I take Nashville and Austin or even Pittsburgh as the hipster, in places to be on the lists rather than reasonable selection when it comes to logistics, talent & labor force at end of day... Columbus I take it as a nod to their presence of their air cargo fleet based there if not mistaken. Indy surprised me in the way that Salesforce now has a major presence there & being Amazon's major competitor in cloud space. The difference to me between Indy vs Minneapolis/Target is Indy said heck yes we are going to submit a proposal.

I'm curious if they will go all in on DC at end of today? The biggest buyer in the Feds is there and the future of how they are going to regulated will be decided in DC. In other words, Will they pick DC over Atlanta, Chicago, or Dallas which would make sense in terms of NA HQ (large airport hubs, large metro areas, large back office, legal & IT workforces and well connected to NAFTA/diverse population bases)

My two cents on St Louis and KC for that matter is that both metro areas has one of the weakest state government behind them when it comes to economic development and more importantly investment in people and its infrastructure. You can say 7.0 billion is not chump change but it is probably on the low end compared to what most serious proposals offered and not even close to the insane Wisconsin offer to Foxcomm. Scary part for St Louis/Metro East/Downstate IL is how much was offered with the Chicago proposal?

I’ve been to Denver a lot lately and they have a lot of stratup activity going on there, and young programmers like to move there, but I don’t see a top 25 University there like Wash U. Nashville has Vanderbilt, Pittsburg has Carnegie Melon. What does Indy have?


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I wrote a story regarding this. Hopefully we will see pieces of this proposal come to life in some way. I hate to see this go but I have hope that something or some part will happen! https://www.buildingstlnews.com/the-bl ... ns-learned

matguy70 wrote: ↑

Jan 19, 2018

and Ladies and Gentleman...

THIS is why the Top 20 are the Top 20... BILLIONS of Dollars! STL didn't offer enough (along with 231 other non-Amazon finalist cities) $$$billions.

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-h ... -million-1

STL's offer was over 5 Billion. That's more than some of these have listed.