By Beverly Ford / Contributing writer
Posted Dec 16, 2017 at 8:31 PM
Don’t count us out.
That’s the message New Bedford’s civic leaders are sending as internet sales giant Amazon mulls over a proposal to site its second headquarters on a municipal golf course in this port city.
“Nobody should be under the illusion we’re the odds-on favorite,” Mayor Jon Mitchell said of the city’s attempt to woo Amazon. “But it’s not inconceivable that if Amazon decides to look for multiple sites, our pitch becomes more attractive.”
From Atlanta to Tucson, from Vancouver, Canada to Chihuahua, Mexico, cities throughout North America are hoping to be on top of Amazon’s list when the company announces the city chosen as the home of its second headquarters later in 2018. The location of Amazon’s new campus, dubbed HQ2, will be selected from 238 cities and regions spanning 54 states, provinces, territories and districts. In Massachusetts, 26 communities, including New Bedford and Boston, are in the running. The winning city gets a $5 billion facility, 50,000 high-paying jobs and an economic boost like no other.
So where does New Bedford fit in the race to become Amazon’s second headquarters?
“The reality is New Bedford has come an awful long way in the last few years to the point where we can make a proposal like we made to Amazon with a straight face,” said Mitchell, citing a long list of civic accomplishments, including the highest bond rating in the city’s history, and a stunning 31 percent drop in crime since 2014. The city also won accolades for having the sharpest drop in unemployment out of all cities nationwide from November 2016 to November 2017, according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics.
New Bedford’s 44-page pitch to Amazon mentioned many of those accomplishments but added a more positive spin, portraying this longtime fishing port as “a city unlike any other”with a proud past, a bright future and a compelling location near transit hubs, highways and universities, all on Amazon’s “wish list.”
“When you’re talking about a move like this with 50,000 employees, you’re talking about a game changer,” said Rick Kidder, CEO at the SouthCoast Chamber of Commerce, noting that HQ2 could be a transformative force, not just for New Bedford but for other surrounding communities as well.
Yet obstacles remain.
Billions of dollars in tax incentives offered by Pittsburgh and New Jersey could be enough to entice Amazon to choose a more financially attractive package. Like some other applicants, New Bedford offered Amazon no clear tax incentives although Mitchell said the city would be willing to negotiate concessions if selected.
The 114-acre municipal golf course which the city suggested as the HQ2 site also may be problematic. While the 8 million-square-foot campus that Amazon envisions could fit on that site, constructing it would more than quadruple the total amount of office space currently in the city and concentrate it in a single location. Add 50,000 Amazon employees to the mix and you have a small city with all the needs and demands that cities of that size require.
That doesn’t worry Mitchell or Derek Santos, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council, who helped create the proposal.
“The most important thing is not what Amazon’s effect will have on New Bedford,” said Santos, “It’s how will Amazon fit in to the community and make the community better. Are they a good fit? Does their vision match our vision? Are they going to be a good corporate partner? Those are the questions we need to look at,” he said.
Michael Goodman, executive director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth and a public policy professor, said it’s important for city leaders to look closely at the impact a project of this size will have on their community before giving any final approvals.
That is, of course, if New Bedford is the top pick.
“At the end of the day there’s only about a half-dozen locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico that are plausible for this (project) and the SouthCoast is, unfortunately, not one of them,” said Goodman, noting that the area fails to meet a number of Amazon’s requirements, among them adequate rail access.
Yet, while the odds are long, they are not impossible, civic leaders believe.
In fact, many speculate that if New Bedford doesn’t win top prize it could still benefit as a secondary location for an Amazon processing or research facility if the company chooses Boston as its new HQ2.
Even if that doesn’t happen, city leaders remain optimistic. The golf course site would be perfect for a biotech or pharmaceutical firm, they say, acknowledging that preparing a response to Amazon’s offer has opened their eyes to other possibilities.
“The whole process has been a learning experience,” Mitchell said. “This is one of those exercises that could turn into something more.”
“If we fail on one lottery, there’s always another,” he said.
And that’s exactly what New Bedford is betting on.
Original story here.