Amazon and Connecticut--A Good Match?

Plenty of pundits have already weighed in on the issue, but I feel compelled to comment on the Amazon search for a second headquarters, because the question emphasizes both the benefits and deficits of Connecticut.  Everyplace in the country is competing, so we should strut our stuff as well.

They want a place with access to a skilled workforce.  We have that in abundance.  Our higher education system is good, and our proportion of highly educated workers is above most other locations.  We also have lots of people looking for good jobs, or leaving the state because they can't find them.

Amazon is a distribution company at heart.  Its real mission is to get you what you want, when you want it. That's different from manufacturing, or even from most retail businesses.  Rather than having a unique product, they have a unique delivery and distribution system, because they both store and consign items.  They ship from other places and other companies, even from other distributors, and they do so on a timeline that's very hard to beat.  Where is Connecticut located?  Right between the Northeastern hubs of NYC and Boston.  Our future is, as some have said, in distribution.  We are too high-cost to manufacture some things, and too small to have the population to use all the goods ourselves.  But we can ship in every direction.  And we have excess real estate at reasonable prices.

So why aren't we on the short list?  Probably we never made the long list, and that would be because we have a reputation for being a tough place to do business.  Not just expensive, since both Boston and NYC can beat us on that front, but unfriendly and anti-business.  We are almost alone in our own quadrant there, although Vermont is probably nearby. 

It certainly doesn't help that Hartford is poised to file for bankruptcy, we have no state budget, and we have union contracts that are far more generous that the states around us, or anywhere.  If you were outside the State, reading the papers, would you consider us?  I certainly hope so, for the reasons above.  And I hope even more that the Legislature and the Governor's cabinet do everything they can to address the issues in this paragraph. 

New Haven has lowest residential vacancy rates in the country in 2013

As of the end of 2013, New Haven had the lowest apartment vacancy rate of the 79 cities followed by Reis Inc.   New Haven's vacancy rate was 2.2%, down from 2.6% one year before.  There are many reasons for this, including the large student population, especially in graduate schools, which have very little campus housing.  Also, its location on a major rail line makes New Haven a great place for people who work between New Haven and NYC to live, considering the ease of commuting and the amenities and nightlife offered in the city, particularly for young professionals.  In addition, the high cost of housing means that more people will choose to rent instead of buy, pushing up demand in the rental sector. Average rents in the area were $1154/month last year.  Hartford was the sixth tightest market in the survey.

What does this mean for commercial real estate?  Retail and office follow housing, since people living in a region demand services and often choose more convenient work environments.  In New Haven, we are seeing a major suburban employer, Alexion, moving downtown, both for the proximity to Yale and Yale Medical School, and for the benefits employees have for lunchtime and after-work dining, shopping, and entertainment.  Also, younger employees will usually choose an urban setting when possible.  Given the number of hours we all spend at work these days, having the ability to do errands or grab a meal is a plus for most people, and retail uses will prosper with higher levels of renters, especially since those renters are disproportionately clustered at the empty nester and young professional ends of the housing cycle, both of which are groups that eat out and go to events more often than suburban parents with children.  One study quoted to me claimed that approximately 30 jobs in the service sector are created for each high-income renter downtown.  New Haven still is under-retailed, according to national statistics, so this creates an opportunity for real estate investors and owners.  Please call any one of our commercial associates, if we can assist you in prospering from this market condition.