Amazon Headquarters Two bids due tomorrow – Will Quincy be an HQ2 bidder?

Amazon packaged goods
An Amazon image

– News and commentary from Quincy Quarry News. 

Amazon Headquarters Two bids are due tomorrow – will Quincy be a last minute HQ2 bidder?

The hoopla and the hype reach their zeniths tomorrow when bids to host Amazon’s so-call HQ2 are due.

As such, one cannot help but wonder if the City of Quincy will be a surprise late bidder given that Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s long touted as well as long slow moving plans for a New Quincy Center are still in need of tenants.

Plus, with Weymouth’s Union Point submitting an HQ2 bid, Quincy not also doing so would surely give rise to all manner of (further, ed.) embarrassment for Quincy’s Mayor Thomas P. Koch.

French Kiss on line 2!
A Warner Brother’s still image

Accordingly, Quincy Quarry has patched together an arguable scenario for a Quincy HQ2 bid based on past problematic Koch Maladministration actions as well as the only plausible implications of same. 

That and given the usual level of leaks provided to Quincy Quarry during clandestine meetings with its longtime as well as invariably reliable inside source “French Kiss” in the last parking garage still (readily as well as legally, ed.) accessible in Quincy Center and thus available for discussions on the down low.

Hospital Hill HQ2 Tower?
A Pinterst image

First off, to meet Amazon’s one hundred acres of land specifications, one can readily imagine several viable options in Quincy.

Some combination of the following parcels of local land could readily meet Amazon’s one hundred acre site specification: the largely still yet to be redeveloped Quincy Center, the site of the former Quincy Medical Center, the Star Market and Osco Drugstore strip mall adjacent to Quincy Center, the Fore River Shipyard as well as various parcels in and around Crown Colony.

While a high-rise main office building for the Amazon HQ2 on top of Hospital Hill at the site of the now former Quincy Medical Center would make for a signature skyline edifice complex, the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval of such a high-rise somewhat adjacent to the primary final approach for aircraft heading into Logan International is less certain.

As such, the Koch Administration could instead simply opt to undertake a likely mid-nine figure local municipal bond-funded “friendly takings” of the whole of the Crown Colony complex, along with the nearby Home Depot and underutilized property adjacent to both Home Depo and the Quincy Adams MBTA station, to meet Amazon’s hundred acre site requirement.

20 Furnace Ave going one, going twice, Sold!
A longtime Koch habit

After all, the Koch Maladministration has a long history of undertaking “friendly” takings even if all to date have run over to well over reasonable market value even for an eminent domain takings.

Fortunately, as for any and all potential local zoning issues, such are not issues as essentially all recent major redevelopment projects in Quincy have been approved via variances as opposed to bothering to duly comply with local zoning codes, much less any of many other local issues such as locals’ concerns.

Soon to be demolished Quincy MBTA garage
A Quincy Quarry News file photo

Even transportation needs should no prove to be a problem as – after all – an Amazon HQ2 in the Q would be a transit-oriented development.

Further, emerging technologies could readily address individual transportation needs.  For example, compact and battery-powered autonomous vehicular transportation pods could be used to not only bring Amazon employees into the Q, but also to then transport Quincy residents to their jobs elsewhere.

An autonomous personal transportation pod
Image via bbc.com

After all, given that Amazon has already taken de facto control over so many other companies, why not also take over virtual control of both Uber as well as Tesla Motors?

Similarly, parking needs for autonomous personal transportation pods could surely be compactly as well as efficiently managed by applying Amazon’s fulfillment center technology to rack and then stack the compact pods as well as recharge their batteries while they are not in use.

“Platooning”
A SARTE Project image

Further, by platooning autonomous personal transportation pods into closely coupled conga lines of a sort, a handful of pods would take up less roadway than the typical SUV behemoth currently favored by many, if not most, local residents.

Not so clear, however, is if already congested local streets would be able to accommodate a massive influx of platooned autonomous personal transportation pods or if the pods can deal with local potholes.

Droning a big load
A Walmart drone project image

In any event, at least VIP Amazon employee transportation could be at least partially addressed by Amazon ramping up its nascent drone package delivery technology to handle payload capacities sufficient to schlep VIP’s to at least as far as Logan International and so avoid both the parking lot that is the Central Artery as well as the Third World MBTA transit system.

Further, the Quarry can readily image how the Koch Maladministration might want to consider issuing even more bond debt so as to be able to fund its becoming a joint venture partner with Amazon to develop both the autonomous vehicular transportation pod and passenger drone technologies. 

Raining money!!!
A danieldervartanian.com image

In turn, the maladministration could thus dream of so reaping massive Silicon Valley rates of return on investment by participating such venture capital investments.

Whether or most likely probably not, however, the returns on investment would be sufficient to offset the cost of both the incentives that might be provided to Amazon as well as also cover the funding nuts needed to participate in these joint venture new technology investments – much less also fund the City of Quincy’s currently roughly a half a billion or so in unfunded city employee retirement benefits – is unarguably uncertain.

Drink the Kool Aid …
A Facebook photo

Even so, with municipal bond interest rates continuing to remain near historical lows, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch would surely yet again argue that the City of Quincy cannot afford not to yet again roll the dice now and so continue spend taxpayer-funded money.

In turn, as for the total amount of incentives potentially offered via a prospective Quincy HQ2 cost, such is actually relatively easy to project.

Wicked easy, as a matter of fact.

“Follow the money”
An oxycom.com image

Given Mayor Koch’s most recent agreements to provide the still pending O’Connell luxury mid-rise apartment building and LBC Boston’s premium rental rate apartments with incentives which would essentially rebate twenty-five to thirty years’ worth of local property taxes as well as further undertake publicly-funded infrastructure in support of these two projects, the grand total of the ultimately taxpayer-funded potential support of these developments works out to a dollar for dollar matching of taxpayer-funded money provided for each dollar of privately-funded spending.

Show me your money!
A satire.com image

In turn, given a projected cost roughly four billion dollars for Amazon to build its projected eight million square feet of building space, the Koch Administration’s current dollar for dollar match protocol would dwarf the half billion dollars in incentives offered in Worcester’s QH2 proposal.  

In fact, given that the working rule of thumb is that it takes three dollars of private investment for every dollar of public-funded infrastructure and incentives outlays for the host community to basically break even, a one-to-one ratio offered by Quincy to be the host city for HQ2 would surely blow away as well as going away all of the competing bids’ incentives packages.

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