TRANSCRIPT OF JANUARY 10TH, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL WORK SESSION Q & A WITH JAY REINKE OF AMAZON WEB SERVICES
[At 01:43:40 in the video timeline]
MCGUIRE: I don’t understand what you said about “best business practices,” I don’t understand that…in reference to Mr. Mooney, I don’t understand that…I think that needs to be explained.
REINKE: Mr. McGuire, forgive me. What is the reference to the question. There’s a business need…
MCGUIRE: You won’t explain that business need. That’s what I’d like to know. I think the public needs to know, what’s the business need? Why can’t we say that?
REINKE: From a land use perspective, there’s a business need we have here, and so we chose to be here.
MCGUIRE: You choose not to say why, what that is?
REINKE: It’s a business decision.
MCGUIRE: I think that’s important that we need to know…I mean, there’s a veil of whatever there, so…
REINKE: Understood.
SEMPLE: Go back to the slide that was up there…so that’s the visual image of the gateway, I know it’s not 29, but as people drive by on the 17 bypass, they will see that?
REINKE: Yes.
SEMPLE: Wow. Okay, I wonder if there is any other visual impression of Warrenton that is anything close to that along any of our bypasses. The question I have, the next question I have, is, you said that you bought the property for business purposes, and of course, I understand there are proprietary reasons why you can’t disclose all these reasons, but you purchased…but it wasn’t just because it was an industrial use, you required a Special Use Permit. Why did Amazon decide to go ahead and purchase the land before knowing the SUP was even approved?
REINKE: There’s times when we take business risk, and that was a business risk we deemed appropriate at the time.
MOONEY: Is there a reason why the business risk was…I want to be clear that based off of your podcast, we could be friends, but I want to ask this question…um…your business decision to pay 10X what the property is worth…um, prior to even having a…you know, it’s a business risk, I understand business risk, but I don’t understand that I don’t think I might have a really good shot at paying 10X for something.
REINKE: Yea, and if we paid 10X then that’s our fault, for sure. Ah, what we find is when we look at data…when we look at land that’s zoned industrial in different parts of the country, we recognize that often demand for that land is high, especially the time we bought it, so the land was high, and so we want to move and get things done, there’s times when we will just make a business decision, and go…we want to move quickly…and so, it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback and go, yea, maybe we shouldn’t…and it’s about evaluation, but the decision was made at the time.
SEMPLE: There are other industrial parcels of land throughout Northern Virginia that have such uses by right, and yet, this particular land within the boundaries of a small town is, required a Special Use Permit, and what I just don’t understand is what was so attractive about this particular parcel that made it worth the purchase price, given the condition that you didn’t even know whether there was going to be an approval or not…
[AT 01:46:41 in the video timeline:]
REINKE: We understood that there was a…we had rumors out there was a phenomenal Town Council to deal with, that made it attractive, partly, um, I say that tongue in cheek. It was…there are business needs at times to move quickly—
SEMPLE (interrupting): Excuse me, you said a “phemonenal” Town Council?
REINKE: Yea, I was trying to give you a compliment, but…
SEMPLE: Why was the Town Council “phenominal?”
REINKE: It…was tongue in cheek…purely tongue in cheek…yea. Purely a business decision to be here in this area.
SEMPLE: Okay, well, um, this goes to other questions, but of course, all right, so I think you’re doing this…a process
[END OF EXCERPT — 01:47:35]
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