DFW Strikes Out In Amazon HQ2 Opening Play

This morning I learned via the Seattle Times As Amazon’s deadline for HQ2 bids closes, speculation on winner heats up article that yesterday was the deadline for metro areas to submit their bid to be considered as the location for Amazon's second headquarters.

This second headquarters thing continues even as Amazon continues to gobble up downtown Seattle. Yesterday I read Amazon has taken over the old Bon Marche/Macy's building, site of a HUGE former department store.

The article in the Seattle Times included info about Amazon's criteria for its second headquarters, along with info about what metro areas have the best shot.

A paragraph about Amazon's HQ2 criteria..

Amazon has, however, detailed its wish list of amenities for a second home — perks like a highly educated workforce and a place with a flexible transportation network.

Oh oh. A highly educated workforce and a flexible transportation network would seem to eliminate one candidate which the Star-Telegram thinks should be a shoo-in. We mentioned this particular Star-Telegram delusion in a blogging last month titled Searching For Dozen Reasons To Lure Amazon To Fort Worth.

That delusion continued this morning when I saw what you see below in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The Star-Telegram's DFW makes its pitch for Amazon HQ2. Is your city in play? article includes a Star-Telegram produced propaganda video. In the video the Star-Telegram shows various locations in DFW being pitched to Amazon.

In the video guess which location the Star-Telegram pitches first?

If you guessed the first pitch went to that industrial wasteland of an imaginary island screwily misnomered Panther Island, you guessed correctly. Since nothing actually exists on the imaginary island the Star-Telegram used animation to illustrate that which likely will never be, but also included actual video of hapless souls inner tubing in the Trinity River.

Yes, I'm sure Amazon will see tube touting as a big selling point. It is not too difficult for an info/tech savvy company like Amazon to find out most people think the Trinity is too polluted to get wet in, and that Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision (and Panther Island) is what is known in the tech world as vaporware. Vaporware which has developed a well earned reputation as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Blurb from Star-Telegram touting the imaginary island and likely future Superfund site, that is if Trump does not totally destroy the EPA...

Leading sites in Tarrant County include Fort Worth’s Panther Island, the future Trinity River development north of downtown, and 800 acres in Grapevine that is part of Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

These two are the leading sites in Tarrant County? As if there are a lot of other sites considered? That open acreage north of the airport seems like a sane candidate. Lots of nearby amenities, including that airport.

Meanwhile, the Seattle Times article also speculates which metro areas are in the lead for the Amazon HQ2 prize, using data from an economist from something called Moody Analytics. A Texas town comes in #1 by this Moody analysis. You can go to the Seattle Times article to see the entire Moody list and some of the determining criteria, but here's a blurb that will reveal which Texas town is Moody's #1....

Mark Zandi took a different approach. The economist for Moody’s Analytics, along with colleague Adam Ozimek, lined up 29 sets of data designed to match Amazon’s preferences.

To gauge a city’s business environment, Moody’s weighed things like metropolitan credit ratings, tax systems and employment growth rates. For quality of life, they used measures of the school dropout rate and arts establishments per capita.

Shake the cocktail, and Austin, Texas, came out No. 1, lifted by a low tax rate and strong job growth.

What a shock. Fort Worth is not on the list. Even with Fort Worth's impressive flexible transportation network. Amazon must not have heard about Molly the Trolley...

Look At Fort Worth's Industrial Wasteland Boondoggle Location For Amazon HQ2

I saw that which you see here a couple days ago, and thought to myself, what fresh nonsense is this?

Just a few days ago the Star-Telegram had embarrassed itself over the Amazon HQ2 thing, which had me then blogging about that instance of Star-Telegram embarrassment in Searching For Dozen Reasons To Lure Amazon To Fort Worth.

Even before I read this most recent article I assumed it was the bleak industrial wasteland known as Panther Island where "city leaders" would like to see Amazon HQ2 locate.

The Amazon in downtown Fort Worth? Here’s where city leaders would like to see it article made clear who these city leaders were who were suggesting the location of Amazon HQ2.

Of course, J.D. Granger is a supposed city leader. This explains so much which seems so inexplicable. The Granger part of the article...

In Fort Worth, city and chamber officials have approached the Trinity River Vision Authority to put together an offer for Amazon, detailing which parcels of land are available at the Panther Island site and where the company could potentially expand, said J.D. Granger, the authority’s executive director. “Amazon is the perfect fit for Panther Island,” Granger said. “We are looking for a young, aggressive-type model, and they are a perfect fit for what is being created down there.”

Yeah, a perfect fit for what is being created down there.

Down there, where there is no infrastructure development underway upon which a monster like Amazon could be built.

Down there, where J.D. Granger and America's Biggest Boondoggle have been struggling for years to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Down there, where there is no public transit of the modern world sort.

Down there, north of a downtown so lacking in shopping venues that on the busiest shopping day of the year the downtown is a virtual ghost town.

Why would Amazon have any interest in where Fort Worth's supposed city leaders would like to see Amazon locate its HQ2?

Would those be the same city leaders who mislead Fort Worth into having a public transit system so bad it would be considered inadequate in a big city in a third world country?

Would those be the same city leaders who don't care their town is ill served by public parks? With few of the town's parks having modern amenities, such as running water and restrooms. But do have an incredible number of outhouses.

Would those be the same city leaders who don't care that their town has fewer sidewalks than any other town of its size in America?

The town where Amazon HQ1 is located has the attributes which Amazon is looking for in HQ2. HQ1 has a light rail transit tunnel under its downtown, connected to an airport and an actual major university. HQ1 has multiple recreational options, including trails with shade provided by these things called trees, an attribute mostly lacking on those Trinity Trails Fort Worth's "city leaders" like to tout.

Now, I must admit, Fort Worth does have one thing Amazon does not regularly find near its HQ1.

Dangerously polluted water with signs warning about the water's danger.

In Fort Worth Amazon could enjoy the Rockin' the Trinity River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

Which really should serve as a cautionary warning. Fort Worth is so lacking in fun outdoor recreational options that hundreds of sad souls are regularly willing to get wet in the polluted Trinity River whilst drinking beer and listening to music playing from an imaginary pavilion on an imaginary island.

Willing, that is, on those occasions when it is determined the e.coli level is low enough to render floating in the river to be relatively safe.

Amazon's HQ1 is located in what is known as a progressive city, in what is known as a progressive state. Would Amazon want to puts its workers in danger of arrest due to some minor marijuana use?

Amazon HQ1 is in what is known as a Sanctuary City. In what is known as a Sanctuary State.

Would Amazon want its HQ2 in a town and state where who uses what restroom is a major issue?

Another excerpt from the deluded Star-Telegram article with another deluded quote from one of Fort Worth's deluded "city leaders"....

The city’s Panther Island development may be part of the North Texas bid to snag a second headquarters campus for Amazon. The possible site was revealed at a City Council meeting Tuesday night when Fort Worth Transportation Authority board member Jeff Davis mentioned the downtown project as a great location for the online retailer. “We have the best location in the world for Amazon on Panther Island,” Davis said, before noting that the council’s decision to not devote property tax revenue to expand bus service could hurt Fort Worth’s chances. Amazon has listed public transit among its site criteria.

Best location in the world? Did I mention deluded?

And then there is this blurb from the deluded Star-Telegram article...

Panther Island, the name for the big development envisioned on the north side of the Trinity River once a bypass channel is added, is one of the few Fort Worth locations with enough space to accommodate Amazon’s needs. The new island would include a town lake and encompass 800 acres. Construction on bridges that will eventually cross the new river channel is underway.

Panther Island District is actually the current name for the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, more commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle. The name of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle has gone through many iterations over the course of this century, greatly helping whoever it is who has The Boondoggle's sign making contract.

Construction on bridges is underway? More accurately, construction on bridges has been limping along since 2014, taking longer to build than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge, over actual water.

The imaginary island will include a town lake? You reading this in the Seattle zone. This proposed "lake" is actually a small pond smaller than Green Lake. Only not with water safe to swim in.

The bridges will eventually cross the new river channel? River channel is a fancy way of saying cement lined ditch. That ditch won't get dug til that point in time when those three simple little bridges get built.

Amazon, you are looking at a point way in the future when Fort Worth's proposed site of your HQ2 is ready to get built on, with access via those three bridges taking you across that ditch to that imaginary island, where you won't be boarding a cruise ship docking on that little pond to take you north to Alaska, or a ferry to somewhere else.

But there are alligators, snapping turtles and water moccasins...