The surprise reason why Toronto is already the big winner of the Amazon HQ2 Sweepstakes
Click here to read the original article:
http://torontostoreys.com/2018/01/toronto-make-amazons-short-list-of-hq2-contenders/
TRANSCRIPT
SO you gotta check out this article here from Toronto Storeys, about Amazon HQ2. Of course Amazon is looking for a second headquarters in North America, and they just released a short list. They’ve whittled it down from 238 potential cities, down to just 20, and Toronto has made the cut. Of course, the only Canadian city, everything else is in the US, and nothing in Mexico either. Very exciting news, and good to see. Obviously as real estate investors we would be absolutely thrilled if a company like Amazon setup shop in our city. It would certainly be good for real estate values. Some of the other interesting things from this article here, you want to make note of, which are some good points. That is, Amazon would save 600 million dollars a year, it says, just in healthcare costs alone, because of course of our universal healthcare here in Canada versus the US. You gotta have your own private.
The currency exchange obviously I think is a major plus for Toronto. The Canadian dollar being 25, 30% cheaper than the US dollar. And interesting that we added, the city of Toronto added 23,000 tech jobs it says, in the past year, which is more than San Francisco and New York combined. Some very interesting things, and food for thought to think about. I think we all have to take our collective … Take a collective breath and sort of acknowledge the fact that chances are still very slim that Toronto will actually win this bid, and get the Amazon two headquarters. But, I think as the article points out, the first line says, “Even if Toronto loses, it wins, just by making the cut and making international headlines.”
I think that’s very true. The reason I think that’s true, is because, think about it. There are probably thousands of major corporations around the world who are looking, not just Amazon, but thousands of other smaller companies that are looking to set up shop somewhere in North America, looking to set up new headquarters. And now, Amazon has done the homework for them. They basically said, “Here are the top 20 cities where if you are a company that aspires to be like Amazon, that you have similar values in tech and goals as Amazon, then here are the top 20 cities where you want to set up in.” They’ve already done the homework for all the companies around the world, who are looking to set up shop in this part of the world, and Toronto is now on that list.
A city where maybe the companies are only considering places in the US, now they’re going to add Toronto to that list, and they’re going to automatically consider us. It’s just a very good thing for the city of Toronto, and again, continue the amazing growth that we’ve seen, both in population, but also in jobs in our city. So very exciting times here for Toronto. I hope you enjoyed that article.
