I doubt any Canadian city is destined for HQ2, but this news has nothing to do with it anyway.

Toronto might. It's quite the cosmopolitan city, isn't it? Just look at the diagram for Toronto - hundreds and hundreds of new projects. Still, being outside the country is a major disadvantage. Aside from that, they could be a real contender. I doubt anyone took Vancouver seriously if they made a proposal.

Umm , yes a few pages back . My list picked DC #1 , Toronto #2 , Queens / Staten Island #3 and every other
city in North America #4 .
I understand it might be a disadvantage because of being in Canada , but I believe it has at least as good a chance
as most other cities located in the US . :yes:

Brandywine makes two pitches for Amazon's HQ2 – for Philadelphia and Austin, Texas

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...s-hq2-for.html

Here's the Austin slant that also mentions Schuylkill Yards:

More details on potential Amazon HQ2 site in Austin: A blank slate with up to 20M square feet

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...2-site-in.html

Summers, the Philly Biz Journal says they sent this supplement in with both the Philly and Austin bids. You mentioned on another web site that Brandywine was actually allowed to give a private presentation to Amazon. Does that still hold up?

They're not supposed to say, as they signed non-disclosure agreements, but yes, they (Brandywine) presented privately to Amazon.

Of course they did. Anyone who doesn't believe there are strings being pulled and decisions already made should read PT Barnum's biography.

There is PR and then there is the real world. Let's hope Brandywine has enough clout to push Amazon to SY. I really have a feeling they do, otherwise they wouldn't have hastily bought the building at 30th & Market for far more than it's worth.

This is interesting because Austin is often listed as a top contender, if not most likely, while Philly often gets left off of these "most likely" lists. Most people would probably think Austin is the better option, and that may very well land it there. Even though I may be biased, I really do think there isn't a better proposal in the nation than Schuylkill Yards.

I have to agree with you. No other site in the country offers this much connectivity to the central core of said city, to other major cities (NYC, DC, Baltimore, Boston, etc.), to two international airports (PHL and Newark), to endless colleges and universities, to parks, highway, trains, subway, buses...etc. etc. etc.

No other site checks off literally every single box Amazon is looking for like Schuylkill Yards does. Add in an endless supply of human capital/easy recruitment capability along the East Coast and Europe/Middle East, and easy access to a never ending talent pool via surrounding universities in Penn, Drexel, Temple, Villanova, UDel, Princeton, Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, Penn State, Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, etc. etc. - you can easily recruit from every single on of those, and them still be within a 2 hour train ride or flight to their home city.

I think I've said this before, but my theory is that Amazon has had Schuylkill Yards in mind all along. As you said, it checks too many of the boxes not to have been. But rather than just call up Brandywine and say, hey we'd like to be your tenant, they wanted to throw it open to North America to see how they could get Brandywine and the city to make it worth their while. So I think it's ours to lose. There are other attractive offers out there, to be sure, but I fail to see how any of them could match up as well as SY.
Or Amazon could just call an audible and go a completely different way, we should be prepared for that also.

I was told by someone in the real estate biz and involved with an alternative, independent pitch to Amazon here that there was always only three cities in contention: Austin, Philadelphia and Chicago. I really hope they're right.

That would be ideal, as we are probably the most likely out of those three. Others said Atlanta and Boston were going to get it, and having those two eliminated would be great. But then again, we don't know anything about this person, or how legit they are.

A lot of "insider" people have been saying a lot of different things. Time will ultimately tell.

Forgot to emphasize my major point in my post - shouldn't write posts late at night. This company discussed their proposal with Amazon even though they are not part of the city's bid. Which would indicate that the official folks got to talk directly to Amazon too.

Looks like today was the official Schuylkill Yards groundbreaking ceremony: https://twitter.com/BrandywineREIT/s...01578167218177

$3.5 billion Schuylkill Yards breaks ground on future park

https://philly.curbed.com/2017/11/8/...groundbreaking

$3.5 billion Schuylkill Yards breaks ground on future park


New look at first tower - 3003 JFK:
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WUN-...1.25.57_AM.png

New look at the new park - Drexel Square:
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f5rF...1/0183_E10.jpg

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lxWy...7/0183_E11.jpg

https://philly.curbed.com/2017/11/8/...groundbreaking

Brandywine, Drexel break ground on $3.5B Schuylkill Yards project

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...chuylkill.html

OK, but we still don't know how valid this unspecified person from this unspecified company is. It's hard to judge without those things known.
Wow is that ugly. How tall is it?
Alright. Getting started. That should probably be another advantage for Amazon, if we have things ready for construction by the time they make the decision.

Taller than Cira Centre for sure. Looks to be 40 floors. That design seems to match this rendering we've seen recently:

https://image-store.slidesharecdn.co...-original.jpeg

Without getting into it, there is one very good reason why I doubt Amazon will end up in Austin. The relatively moderate (read business conservative) Speaker of the Texas house is resigning. If the ensuing race for Speaker goes in favor of a candidate with more religious conservative leanings Texas will be up to its knees in bathroom bills and other socially conservative legislation right at the time Amazon is building its first building. I doubt Amazon would be willing to take that risk, given their stated preferences. Austin is liberal, but it's the politics of Texas as a whole that matter.

I would think the well-known business friendly advantages in Texas would outweigh bathroom bills. I think you're putting too much stock in a relatively minor social issue bill over the something more concrete and relevant to a business's bottom line in taxes. It's not even comparable.

The bottom portion is clearly different in the new rendering, as it now sticks out. Personally, if it weren't for the awful change of color at the very bottom, I would like this new version more. Regardless it's nice to see a new building in this city finally take some chances.

"Hold my beer." -Charlotte

In all seriousness, I would've agreed with you 2 years ago. But North Carolina has lost an estimated $3.6 billion from its transgender bathroom bill. Ringo Starr cancelled a concert there, the NCAA has avoided the state, the NAACP organized an economic boycott, and most significantly, PayPal abandoned plans to set up facilities in Charlotte that would have brought an estimated $2.66 billion to the state's economy. That's just a few examples. Now all the actor's could be lying, but the bathroom bill is their stated reasons. All things being equal, companies care about this stuff nowadays, and there are a lot of other concrete advantages that put other cities'states with more aligned social views on equal footing to Austin.

One issue with all the examples you cited with the exception of PayPal...they were individuals or organizations and not companies, so the rationale is not going to be exactly the same. Again, I think a potential bathroom bill that'll be out of the spotlight in 6 months is being overstated when Amazon is contemplating a major business move that'll involves dropping $5 Billion in investment....Call me a cynic, but I really don't think a theorized bill like this enters the equation with that much at stake monetarily.

Estimated heights for each tower

1,095 FT - 70 FLOORS - 3101 Market Street
725 FT - 48 FLOORS - 3125 John F. Kennedy Boulevard
515 FT - 42 FLOORS - 3001 Chestnut Street
435 FT - 36 FLOORS - 3151 John F. Kennedy Boulevard
425 FT - 30 FLOORS - 3000 Market Street
385 FT - 28 FLOORS - 3020 Market Street
380 FT - 28 FLOORS - 3003 John F. Kennedy Boulevard
375 FT - 31 FLOORS - 3151 Market Street


Well unless there has been a dramatic change .... 3003 JFK listed at 28 floors . :shrug:
...... PS , Cira Center is listed at 437' .........:)

who is and isnt business friendly in an incentive rich environment means nothing. IT's already been established that states of all kinds are offering GENEROUS incentives to amazon that will insulate them from their normal tax structure. who cares about PA or NY or IL being supposedly anti business when amazon wont pay many taxes in any of them?

Completely agree here. We shouldn't focus on all of the other competitor cities. Many put together generous packages and those cities are they way they are and Philly is what it is. None of that will change in the immediate future or has changed in the few months Amazon set off this bidding war.

What I care about. Between the official Philly proposal and now the existence of the separate Brandywine proposal, IMO Philly really stepped up to the plate on this. I was fearful that the proposal might lack the "wow factor" to demonstrate how much of a great fit the city is for Amazon. Currently, I feel the exact opposite. From what has been made public, I feel like Philly hit a home run (well a triple for now, if we win, a home run). If Philly loses this, I won't feel as though the city really sh*t the bed.

3003 JFK - Schuylkill Yards Phase I - 570 FT - 38 FLOORS - Thread here:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...=1#post7980898

^^A separate thread has been created for the first tower in the Schuylkill Yards development - 3003 JFK Blvd. The estimated height is 38 floors and 570 feet tall. All news on 3003 JFK will go in that thread. All news for future phases will remain in this thread.

Work Officially Begins on Schuylkill Yards

http://cdn.phillymag.com/wp-content/...on-900x600.jpg

Read more here:
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2017/1...uylkill-yards/

I know it's not really in your hands but any way mods can get a hold of whoever necessary to add this thread to the Philadelphia Projects and Construction subforum?

Already did. It will be added shortly.

You might very well be correct about Texas, "I know nothing". But is that all that much different from our good State of Pa, where the State house regularly tries to make it almost impossible for the City to act on it's own, especially if the direction is at all 'progressive'; think about gun control. I realize this is a stereotype, but I'd say the most of the people who live in 80% of the land mass of PA would be ok being having the same laws and mind set as the folk in TX.

As its regularly been mentioned on this site, a great many people in PA truly despise the City and think (wrongly) of it as a giant black hole where most of the states taxes go to support people on welfare.

Exactly. As I've said before, there's always been that one city, seemingly on a weekly basis, that was going to beat us. Now we've become the city to beat. We have the city and Brandywine vouching for us, we have Schuylkill Yards under construction, and a new ad campaign in Seattle. I've not yet been more confident in our odds of winning. Not to sound cocky of course.

You know, over on the New York boards, each building in the Hudson Yards development has its own thread. I have a feeling Schuylkill Yards will be the same way, once everything starts coming up.

Yes. I plan on creating new threads for each tower.

:tup:

Completely and totally agree with you (first time for everything :))

You might be right, you might be wrong, but these "minor social issues" matter a lot to Bezos. I don't know his mind any more than the next person, but I think it has the potential to be more of a factor than you think. Coincidentally CNN did something on this in the last couple of days.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/07/tech...aws/index.html

These social issues also affect recruitment, which very much matters to Amazon, and indeed all companies.

With the amount of companies speaking out against the transgender bathroom bills, it would probably be bad PR if they were to build in a state that had one. Granted, as the CNN article said, neither of them became law, and we don't know if they're coming back, but you never know. And if they're not going to pay the taxes in Illinois or Pennsylvania that other companies would, these controversies give them all the more reason to not go there.

Tax incentives are not necessarily permanent and can expire based on legislative priorities and political changes unless they are made permanent. The laws in place that create either an incentive or general disincentive business climate are more permanent. This is a long term investment in a city and that has to be taken into account.

great piece on tax incentives including amazon
https://youtu.be/8bl19RoR7lc

New Park Underway Next to 30th Street Station

http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...1/IMG_2842.jpg

Read more here:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/naked-phill...street-station

Is this Septa entrance relocating longterm once this is a park? Is that what the oculus-esque thing in the Plaza is? I hope they at least make the entrance more attractive if they leave it here. I am generally not a fan of parks right next to traffic (2 busy roads), but the planting of mature trees all along the edges to separate the parklet from traffic is a great idea and could really help the experience there.

just as an aside, this is a pet peeve of mine. why do people call these things SEPTA entrances? why not subway entrances? in new york, no one refers to the transit agency (NYCTA or MTA), they just call it the subway. in chicago, it's just the el.

I did not give it much thought. I was going by the SEPTA sign...Not sure why calling it that would rub you the wrong way, though.

I don't mean just you, I hear it all the time on the news, etc. it just bothers me. it's just one of my stupid hang ups.

It kind of pedantic but it's because that's not a subway entrance. It's an entrance to the El and Trolley lines. The Subway is 15 blocks east under Broad Street. Especially among old heads the Subway is not a type of service but a specific line.

I wish they'd use something like "Red Line" or "Blue Line"

No doubt, but comparing cities based on their ACTUAL current tax burdens is pointless in a case such as this. No matter where they go Amazon will end up paying next to nothing in taxes. Thats the bottom line. Any deal they strike will have terms lasting 10-15 years easily. If they decide to relocate or shrink the operation 15 years from now I'm sure that's a possibility. One of Philly's biggest tax burdens applies to products sold here and that will barely affect Amazon just like it barely affects other big corporations that do 99% of their sales outside of PHilly.