Member of Amazon HQ bid team says it’s down to two cities: Calgary and Denver.
CALGARY• Scores of North American cities are expected to bid for Amazon’s second corporate headquarters, or HQ2, but only two — Calgary and Denver — are in a real race to win it, based on the giant Internet retailer’s requirements, says Adam Waterous, a member of the executive advisory committee of Calgary’s bid.
“Here’s the punch line: Based on the data, thirdparty analysis shows that it’s a two-horse race between Denver and Calgary … and we are running the faster race,” the chief executive of Waterous Energy Fund and the former global head of investment banking at Scotiabank, said Wednesday.
“We think we have a large competitive advantage over Denver. We think we have a very good chance of winning this.”
In an interview, Waterous said Calgary beats the Colorado city in four areas: lower cost of living, less traffic congestion, office space, and opportunity for Amazon to amplify its global nature.
Calgary Economic Development announced Wednesday it has established an advisory committee to support the city’s bid.
In addition to Waterous, the committee includes Gregg Saretsky, CEO of WestJet Airlines; Gianna Manes, CEO of EnMax; Alice Reimer, entrepreneur and a member of Calgary Economic Development’s board; Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and Mary Moran, CEO of Calgary Economic Development.
Moran has been leading a major civic effort to woo new business to Calgary to fill an abundance of top- drawer office space left vacant by downsizing oil companies. Calgary Economic Development has also formed a business base task team to build out the bid strategy and a campaign team to develop a PR campaign.
Seattle-based Amazon announced Sept. 7 it was looking for a North American location to establish a second corporate headquarters, where it would hire as many as 50,000 new full- time employees with an average annual total compensation exceeding $ 100,000 over the next 10 to 15 years, and spend US$ 5 billion in construction alone.
The announcement stoked a frenzy of interest, with several Canadian cities stepping up to be considered. The deadline to respond to Amazon’s request for proposals is Oct. 19 and a decision is expected in 2018.
Waterous said Calgary’s optimism is based on data rather than “rooting for the home team.”
On Sept. 9, The New York Times looked at how 50 U. S. cities stacked up against the criteria Amazon listed in its RFP. They include population of more than one million people, a stable and business- friendly environment, the ability to retain and attract strong technical talent, big and creative thinking in attracting real estate options. It concluded that Denver led the pack.
A Vancouver- based data firm, MountainMath Software and Analytics, did a similar analysis of major Canadian metropolitan areas, arguing that “the attractiveness of a location in Canada for a company that will undoubtedly want to attract talent from beyond national boundaries can’t be understated in today’s political environment. And recent changes to Canada’s work visa process for tech workers, where work visas are now issued within two weeks of application, stands in stark contrast with developments south of the border.”
Of these, six fit the bill of having more than one million in population: Montreal, Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa- Gatineau.
But Calgary emerged as the best fit because it has more of the other things Amazon is looking for: the right and a growing labour pool, a high quality of life, the ability for workers to easily get around and out of town, availability of space, willingness to pay to play ( that is, offer incentives, which Calgary is prepared to do with help from other levels of government, said Waterous).
“Calgary ( is) a city frequently ranked near the top of global livability indices, situated in proximity to beautiful national parks in the Rocky Mountains, with the recent expansion of their light rail system and downtown bike infrastructure … with an existing and growing pool of tech- related professionals and currently a good amount of office space already built and available,” MountainMath said.
Waterous said Amazon would co-exist well with Calgary’s energy- focused economy. Notably, Denver is also a major energy centre near the Rocky Mountains.
Calgary has a highly edu- cated workforce and particularly an abundance of engineers, plus plenty of executive and administrative talent, he said. Indeed, a lot of that talent is on the sidelines and motivated to work as a result of large oilpatch layoffs in the past three years.
“There is a bit of a perception that Amazon is a software business, but it’s an engineering-intensive business in terms of logistics management, distribution and capital spending projects,” Waterous said. “That plays exactly to Calgary’s historic engineering strength.”
PLAYS EXACTLY TO CALGARY’S ENGINEERING STRENGTH.