Earlier this week, tech giant, Amazon, announced the final 20 cities it has narrowed down to for its “HQ2.” HQ2 will be a full equal to their current headquarters in Seattle. Without naming them all some of the cities on the list are New York, Boston, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and our beloved Nashville. Looking at that list you might question why Nashville is even in the final 20 cities, but Nashville makes a lot of sense for a company like Amazon.
First off, Amazon is going to invest in a lot of real estate no matter where they build. Since HQ2 will be a full equal, then we are talking 33 buildings with a total of 8.1 Million Sq Feet and over $3.7 Billion in capital investment. That is a ton of real estate and sure Nashville is currently a hot market. But when you start looking at some of the cities listed above, you realize that Nashville is still much more affordable than those cities. Hard to believe that in this hot market, but it’s true.
Not only that, but Nashville has more room to grow and therefore has more potential to yield Amazon a bigger return on their real estate investment. There’s also several options for them if downtown doesn’t make sense. If Amazon built a 8.1 Million Sq Feet, 33 building campus in Antioch, Madison, Inglewood, or Hermitage it would completely revitalize and transform that entire area while buying their real estate for next to nothing. Same thing for pretty much in area in Nashville. We’ll also be willing to knockdown whatever we have to for Amazon with the exception of the Batman building. Wherever Amazon builds, the real estate will automatically be worth much more.
Full disclosure, I am in the tech field myself and might even consider working for a company like Amazon if they moved here. Most of the tech people in Nashville are consumed by healthcare companies and shitty contracting companies. On the surface, it does not look like Nashville has a lot of technical talent, but there is more than meets the eye. Vanderbilt has a very good computer science program. Then we have Belmont, Lipscomb, Trevecca, and TSU within the city. Within 4 hours of Nashville there is UTK, UTC, Tennessee Tech, MTSU, ETSU, Western Kentucky, UK, University of Memphis, UT-Martin, UAB, University of Alabama, UGA, Georgia Tech and the list goes on.
Sure not all of those schools have great computer science programs, but UTK, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt puts out graduates that are just as good as those from Stanford, UCLA, USC, and Cal. The trick is that Amazon would need to get the talent to stay here and not get sucked out to the west coast. They would also do a lot of good by investing in local computer science programs to help develop that talent. So, I really think Nashville has a lot of tech talent, it just might be a few hours away though.
If you’re a major corporation, sports team, or bring any kind of jobs to the city, Nashville will give you ridiculous tax breaks. Nashville gave the show “Nashville”, $31 million to film the show here. I’m sorry, but this is quite possibly one of the dumbest tax breaks in the history of the world, but the list goes on with the tax breaks and cuts Nashville gives to this type of stuff. We gave, $623 million for the new convention center, $70 million for the Sounds Stadium, $182 million to the Omni, and we most recently agreed to spend $275 million on a MLS soccer stadium.
If Amazon came here they would probably get $1 quadrillion dollars, everyone’s first born child and unlimited Hattie B’s hot chicken. I completely disagree with this type of behavior, but I’m not here to have that argument and facts are just facts. The fact is, if you want a tax handout, Nashville gives tax handouts like no other city in the United States.
Another thing Amazon wanted is to be within 45 minutes of an international airport. Well we have that and it’s getting a $1.2 billion expansion and a hotel. It may be a small airport for now, but it’s well kept. The bathrooms are always clean, the seats all have chargers on them, and you can get some BBQ and country music in lounges. Other airports have shitty food, shitty music and shit all over the bathrooms. They also recently announced that there will be direct flights to London from Nashville. It’s not LAX, but it is an international airport with an expansion coming.
You want to be close to major highways and interstates? Nashville has got that. I-24, I-40, and I-65 all flow through Nashville. Tennessee borders 8 states, tied with Missouri for the most in the entire country. If you want to transport stuff or need people, Nashville is a great location. We’re just a little southeast from the mean center population of the United States which is in Wright County, Missouri. That would make sense for a company who already has a west coast presence in Seattle. If you want to be the in middle of the population center of the country, it doesn’t get much better than Nashville.
The one thing Nashville lacks is mass transit. We just don’t have it, aside from a few buses and the Music City Star, both of which are a piss poor example of mass transit. However, Amazon can help invest and work with Nashville to design the mass transit system they wanted. Hell, Nashville will probably force slave labor on the citizens to build it for you. You want a train that runs right into Jeff Bezos’ Nashville office? Easy, we got you fam. You want a train that does 3 loops through a cave then goes Percy Priest Lake and reminds people of the Chaos rollercoaster at Opryland? We’ll do it for you, and even force Carrie Underwood to sing on it everyday. Basically, when it comes to mass transit, just say what you want and Megan Barry will make it happen.
Nashville and Amazon would make a great fit, and we meet almost everything they are looking for. Millions of square feet in office space? Check, we’ll knock down whatever we have to. Need $1 zillion dollars? You got it, we’ll pay it to you over the next few centuries. Need tech talent? There’s tons of major universities within a short drive of Nashville. Need an airport that doesn’t suck and has country music? Check, and it’s getting better. The two would be a match made in heaven, even if that means that Nashville has to pay Amazon the next 5 centuries. Nashville is an amazing city and I wouldn’t be shocked to see Amazon HQ2 end up here.
Smokey covers the Tennessee Volunteers for the SoBros Network. He loves a good backpacking trip, but hates taking a shit in the woods. Follow on Twitter: @SoBroSmokey
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