[ad_1]
Jonathan O Connell
Reporter covering economic development with a focus on commercial real estate and Trump organization
Amazon.com executives visited the 20 finalist sites envisioned by the company for its second headquarters and 50,000 jobs.
But how many cities did the company's founder, Jeffrey P. Bezos, go to in search of the best site for his business?
It is impossible to know for sure. But Bezos, the richest person in the world and owner of The Washington Post, frequently goes aboard his own jet, a Gulfstream G650ER.
Flight data reviewed by The Post show that the luxury jet has made more than a dozen flights a month in 2018, many of them leaving or returning to Seattle, the current home of Amazon.
Flight recordings are sometimes inaccurate. They do not show who is on board the plane, but they closely match public appearances of Bezos in 2018, including his arrival in Palm Springs, California, in March for his "summer camp on invitation". "Geeks" in Dallas in April for a speech and in the Washington area in September to appear at an Air Force conference.
And based on the movements of his plane, Bezos has not reached more than half of the cities on Amazon's list since the announcement of the 20 finalists in January – a sign that, according to experts, does not bode anything good for these cities.
During this period, the plane landed in the Los Angeles area more than a dozen times and made several trips to Boston, Dallas, Miami, the D.C. and the New York area. Amazon has nominated three finalists from the D.C. District (District, Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland) and two finalists in the New York City area (New York City and Newark).
[Amazon tours D.C., Maryland and Virginia in search for new headquarters]
The plane has not been to 11 other finalists cities. Some of them were considered from the beginning as long shots, among which Columbus, Ohio; and Indianapolis.
But experts say it could be disappointing for other cities considered very promising, such as Chicago, Atlanta and Austin, if Bezos would not go to these places otherwise. According to them, it is very rare to see a director choose a new headquarters site without looking at him personally, even if he is not involved in the beginnings or the intermediate stages of the project.
"Generally, the CEO and senior executives visit specific sites late in the process," said John Boyd, a resettlement consultant in New Jersey, who has advised companies such as PepsiCo and Dell.
"I think it eliminates all the cities he did not go to," said Arthur G. Greenberg, a broker at Savills Studley, who advised Marriott International and other companies. "I can not think of any major headquarters move without the direct involvement of the CEO, and I do not know how he could do it without seeing it."
A spokesman for Amazon said that Bezos' trip had no connection with the company's research. The company has announced its intention to make a decision on a second seat before the end of the year.
The data reviewed was extracted from FlightAware, an international flight tracking company, and ADS-B Exchange, an online flight data source for aviation enthusiasts.
Amazon, which employs 563,000 people worldwide, makes hundreds of real estate decisions every year that would be considered a major choice for much smaller companies. Executives, especially Bezos, could not search for locations for all.
However, a second seat, expected to have 50,000 employees in 10 to 15 years, would require capital expenditures estimated at $ 5 billion – a type of investment that could reshape a region's economy.
"It would be hard to imagine that they would make such a big decision without him," Greenberg said. "We are not talking about a back office somewhere. This is the second seat. I can not imagine that he would not want to see it. "
[The unspoken factor in Amazon’s search for a new home]
Bezos has other reasons to visit each of these places. Amazon has existing business in many cities. For example, experts do not consider Los Angeles as a serious candidate, but Amazon Studios, the company's television production company, and Bezos owns a house in Beverly Hills.
Amazon is already expanding in Boston, where it employs more than 1,000 people and plans to add nearly 3,000 more. Audible, Amazon's audio books division, is based in Newark, while its cloud computing business is located in northern Virginia.
The aircraft's most recent flights, particularly to the District, Miami and New York-New Jersey area, may be more important, experts said.
John Schoettler, head of real estate for Amazon, has worked for the company for nearly two decades and oversaw its expansion in Seattle, which may have earned him some independence.
But maybe not complete independence.
"It sounds like a very small team involved in this process," said Chris Volney, site selection expert at Newmark Knight Frank, a commercial real estate services company. "Usually, if it's a small team, the CEO will probably be more involved."
So what does Bezos think?
Speaking Thursday at a conference in New York, he acknowledged that there was a lot of information to take into account. In the end, he said, "You immerse yourself in this data, but then you make the decision with your heart."
Which place does he like best? That's what everyone guesses.
[ad_2]
Source link
