Check Out Miami Worldcenter & Miami Innovation District's Pitch To Transform Downtown Miami Into Amazon's HQ2 Supercampus

Miami Worldcenter and Miami Innovation District have teamed up to offer Amazon a massive opportunity in Downtown Miami's Park West neighborhood for their highly anticipated HQ2. Last week Amazon narrowed the potential cities down to 20 finalists, who are competing to to secure an expected 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment. The Miami Worldcenter and Miami Innovation District's pitch is already shovel ready with buildings already under construction regardless of the outcome of Amazon's choice. The proposal is one of eight offered to Amazon in Miami-Dade including 3 within city limits. Other highlights include high zoning density which offers a live, work, play opportunity as well as over 23 million SF of office, residential, retail and hotel space already in the works. Additionally, as the proposed site is within Overtown Community Redevelopment Area boundaries, the projects would be eligible for Tax Increment Financing which could exceed over $1 billion in value.

Miami Worldcenter will feature a 500,000 SF Hines office tower which is expected to break ground Q2 2018, a currently under construction Marriott Marquis Hotel with 1,800 keys, 500,000 square feet convention space . MiamiCentral will feature retail, office, residential and transit. Museum Park features the Frost Museum of Science, Perez Art Museum and luxurious residential towers such as Zaha Hadid's One Thousand Museum, Ten Museum Park and Marquis. The Arsht Center for Performing Arts is also nearby. The campus would also have strong transit connectivity, with four different rail services including the Brightline high speed rail service connecting Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando; the Tri-Rail to Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, Metromover through Downtown and Brickell; and the Metrorail, including airport access. Highways include easy access I-95 via 395. 

Miami Doubles Down As A Top 20 Finalist For Amazon HQ2

After PROFILEmiami first reported that Miami was a frontrunner for Amazon's now infamous HQ 2, Miami has now made the final cuts as Amazon has named the top 20 finalists. The cities are competing to to secure an expected 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment. The finalists are Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Columbus (OH), Dallas, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Montgomery County (MD), Nashville, Newark, New York City, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh (NC), Toronto, Washington, D.C. Miami's application was submitted by the economic-development arms of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties although details of the bid have not been made public. 

Jeff Bezos lived in Miami for a period of time during his childhood and has an affinity for South Florida. Miami is an attractive city as it features a high quality of life, strong infrastructure growth, a growing educated workforce, strong job growth, etc. Quality of life has become a major factor when choosing a new headquarter location as both housing cost, livability and amenities play a major roll in a firm's ability to attract top-end talent. Miami has the low pricing when compared with other major cities without sacrificing the quality of life and the city features all of the amenities that highly paid and educated employees seek including top-tier restaurants, recreation and culture. The low cost with a high quality of life in Miami would make it easy for Amazon to attract top-end talent. Some factors that hurt Miami is the lack of public transportation and traffic congestion.