The city that Amazon chooses for its second headquarters location will inevitably see tremendous growth—but it will also see some initial challenges. Mike Akerly, VP at Polaris Pacific, says that housing shortages and dramatic increases in rental rates will be inevitable following the announcement. It isn't all bad news, however. There will be ample opportunities for investors and developers, and if the chosen city properly manages the move, they will create incentives for lower income housing. We sat down with Akerly for an exclusive interview to find out more.
GlobeSt.com: How do you think the city that Amazon chooses be impacted by the move?
Mike Akerly: This is a game changer not only for cities but for a lot of tech and industrial firms that have looked at the process that Amazon just did. I bet you are getting a lot of people in board rooms right now saying to themselves what incentives a city would offer if they put themselves out there. I think this could be the start of this sort of thing happening. Amazon was just the first to do it.
GlobeSt.com: How soon will the city see an impact?
Akerly: In a period of two to five years, you are going to see constrained housing supply. It is going to start at the top. Because Amazon has an average salary of $100,000 for the 50,000 employees they will bring to the market, those employees are going to be fighting over the housing stock, and you are going to see rents start to go up. If the best housing stock is $3,000 per month in rent, that will get bid up to $4,000 per month. Then, the people that could afford $3,000 are bidding on the next best housing stock. There is going to be a trickle down effect that starts that the top and works its way down the housing stock. Ultimately, that can have an impact on the most vulnerable in the community as well. I saw a study that for every $100 increase in average rent, the homeless population increased by 15%. That shows that there is no elasticity at the bottom of the economic ladder to accommodate increases in rent. That is the first thing that will happen.
GlobeSt.com: How will the market respond?
Akerly: Developers are going to come into the urban core of the market and they are going to start build product targeting that demographic. That will happen naturally. A city that manages this successfully is going to need to build more middle market product that developers may not be racing to do without an incentive. Amazon would be remiss to choose a city that hasn't already put together a plan to figure this all out. If there is a city saying that they will figure it out once you say yes, that probably isn't going to work. The reality is that they not only need a master plan, but they need to be far ahead in some of these areas as well.
GlobeSt.com: Are there cities that won't be able to accommodate these impacts?
Akerly: There are definitely cities that would have a very hard time keeping up with the demand. It isn't just because they don't have the infrastructure; it is because you really need to have community buy-in. There is just too much NIMBYism. If you have a city where every time you try to promote apartment building over single-family home building you have 1,000 people show up at a council meeting, they aren't going to be able to keep up. I think that Amazon is going to be trying to ferret that out when choosing a location.
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