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Originally Posted by chiphile
This is the kind of stuff that sinks Chicago from these big wins. Every major newspaper in Chicago has talked about the Finkle Steel site, Michael Reese, or some other doofus idea on the south side. No sane CEO or company (or grocery store for the matter) will locate within a couple miles of a war zone.
These are foreign concepts for most people, let alone those from Seattle.
Why on Earth would I want to commute to a site south of Roosevelt if I'm working for Amazon--on top of that, with 50,000 people? Amazon's Seattle campus is urban, with walkers and bikers moving in all hours of the day. Instead of large open spaces, Chicago should pitch the still empty lots on the west loop that can be infilled with Amazon offices (including some buildings ready for a tear down). Or the old post office, connected to the new union station redevelopment. If I were Rahm, I'd push for new and more inspiring union station redevelopment now, with Amazon in mind.
Chicago offers Amazon a downtown Seattle-type of development opportunity, with the amenities of Manhattan, direct rail to both airports and the entire metro area with commuter rail. Nothing beats Chicago for what Amazon wants, in my view. The politicians really need to come together for this one; yes, Chicago will do fine without Amazon, but it'll be a huge, tangible loss if it goes somewhere else. You can't argue that 50,000 tech workers adding to the city 500 at a time through small startups is better, while 50,000 added in a matter of years by one behemoth is worse.
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Finkle is a real option - public and private money are being pushed to make it essentially an environment very similar to the South Lake Union area of Seattle that is very popular with all sorts of people in Seattle. South Lake Union was basically nothing ten years ago and now it's packed with knowledge economy workers and nice residences in 5-15 story buildings. That's kinda what I think Goose Island and Finkle are aiming for, and it's the sort of area you see in Seattle with tech companies, that you see in the waterfront parts of San Francisco for tech companies, that you see in Cambridge, for tech companies. It's a desirable model, and Chicago should offer sometime along those lines for companies that want that.
That said, I think Amazon would be better served choosing one of the several Loop-adjacent spots, and the Old Post Office is really possibly exactly what they want - it'll have 500,000 square feet in the timeframe they want, then a million or so more shortly after, then the adjacent Union Station redevelopment can get them close to the claimed 8 million they want to ultimately end up with, and the other vacant lots nearby could easily provide the difference to get them to that.
But, we have to remember, Amazon, if they do what they say they're going to do, will also pull in nearly as many supporting jobs in other companies, plus if even only 1/4 of their workforce wants to live near downtown in Chicago, that's many thousands of additional residential to support sites like Reese or Tri-Taylor. Adventurous individuals will choose locations that the corporation itself may not. Smaller companies will choose less-prime spots to be close but have cheap rent. This, as advertised at least, is much bigger than just Amazon. And if Amazon located here and drew in a large number of top-shelf tech talent, Google, Facebook, etc, will expand their offices here - it happened in Seattle, it would happen here. All said and done, if Amazon is serious about their goals, this is probably something capable of generating more in the range of 150,000-200,000 new high-paying jobs in whatever city wins over the next two decades. The only real question is whether Amazon is serious or just fluffing things up to draw in strong competitive offers. If they're serious, Chicago and Illinois could let the corporation locate here tax free for 20 years and still come out ahead - I believe it really would be that significant if Amazon is being truthful about their goals.