It appears Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness have decided to join forces in making an aggressive bid to land the new second Amazon headquarters complex.  According to Hayliegh Columbo’s story posted on the Indianapolis Business Journal’s (IBJ’s) Web site,  Amazon plans to create 50,000 new jobs with an average annual compensation of $100,000 in the community that gets this second headquarters.

Cities across the country appear to be preparing bids. But there’s a short timetable. Localities must submit their bids by October 19th, which is not a lot of time.

The two mayors are saying their joint bid will “surprise a lot of people” and “turn some heads.”  But before we get all excited about this prospect, I would encourage you to read a piece posted by the Brookings Institution’s Richard Shearer.

Mr. Shearer is a Senior Research Associate & Senior Project Manager in Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program.  In other words, he is a certified expert in these matters.  He makes an argument everyone in Fishers and Indianapolis should examine.

According to his analysis, Amazon has already chosen the site of the new complex, but is keeping it a closely guarded secret.  However, the corporate behemoth is inviting bids looking for incentives anyway.

So, whatever community Amazon has already chosen, will feel the need to put together an incentive package in order to attract Amazon.  In fact, Amazon may have planned on going there all along and that same locality would have received the project without any incentives.

I am not being critical of the mayors.  But lets enter this game with our vision at 20/20 and know what we are getting into.  Do we want to get into a bidding war if the site has already been chosen?

Something to think about.