Amazon HQ2 thread

[C.]

Thinking about lands reserved for employment/office space and residential uses. A technology company like Amazon should have a number of people that work from home or telecommute. Gone are the days when an office worker must be in the office 5 days a week to work.

To me, this makes the mixed-use nature of the campus even more important. A person can work from home, but can be a short walk to a in-person meeting if need be. In fact, the more housing on campus the better as more employees will be able to walk to work and eschew long driving or commute times.

City planners in Toronto may be behind the times here a little for the site that called for 100% office uses.

[twister244]

Denver developers are coming out with announcements about redeveloping dozens of acres of surface parking lots down by Elitch's/Pepsi Center.

https://www.rivermiledenver.com/

This news was immediately followed up by the Denver Post reporting Amazon folks were out here at the end of January.

I would be shocked if the River Mile project wasn't pitched as the top site to Amazon. There were 8 pitched, but of course that's all redacted from the public at this time.

[maru2501]

not sure denver gets you close enough to the eastern US to actually get picked in the end, but who knows, it's all speculative

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by Atlanta3000

ChooseATL, who this person's friend works for is run by an advertising agency for the social media campaign of attracting companies to Atlanta. There is 0% chance anyone at the advertising agency or at ChooseATL would have any insider info.

Don't you be coming around here bringing up facts.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by CIA

Thinking about lands reserved for employment/office space and residential uses. A technology company like Amazon should have a number of people that work from home or telecommute. Gone are the days when an office worker must be in the office 5 days a week to work.

To me, this makes the mixed-use nature of the campus even more important. A person can work from home, but can be a short walk to a in-person meeting if need be. In fact, the more housing on campus the better as more employees will be able to walk to work and eschew long driving or commute times.

City planners in Toronto may be behind the times here a little for the site that called for 100% office uses.

LOL Are you ever stubborn and inflexible to community needs vs site specific planning policy.

Last time and I'll make it as simple as possible. There's an overabundance of housing already in the community. There's not enough jobs for people to have that opportunity to walk to a meeting. Residential means less space for employment use.

C'mon. Take off the blinders and open your eyes to what exists and is developing around this one, lone site. Is there residential mixed into Amazon's self built campus?

[bnk]

The stage with wheel chair access.

https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/3/12/17109544/south-loop-construction-the-78

Activity at The 78: New geodesic dome sparks Amazon HQ2 rumors
By Jay Koziarz Mar 12, 2018, 1:20pm CDT

Construction crews are up to something at the massive South Loop development site known as The 78. The recent activity at Related Midwest’s 62-acre parcel fueled rabid speculation. Was it a movie set? Or perhaps related to forthcoming announcement from Amazon regarding its HQ2 campus?



...

Interestingly, the site in question was issued a building permit late last year calling for a “30-foot diameter dome” to be used for a “24 hour press event.” According to its description, that permit was set to expire on December 13. Interesting stuff indeed.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I think they're building that dome just to get bnk's hopes up, only to dash them when Chicago doesn't get it.

[C.]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

LOL Are you ever stubborn and inflexible to community needs vs site specific planning policy.

Last time and I'll make it as simple as possible. There's an overabundance of housing already in the community.

You should ask yourself the same question. BTW, what's the residential vacancy rate in Toronto again? Given the "overabundance of housing" it should be pretty high, no?

There's not enough jobs for people to have that opportunity to walk to a meeting.

I don't even know what you mean by that. There's 50,000 new jobs Amazon will bring plus at least another 50,000 that will open up in support industries nearby. Walking from residences to the office or from one office building to another will be common occurrences.

Walking to work is nothing new, and it's only been increasing in recent years as there is a trend of new housing being built downtown.

Probably one of the best way a city can increase the walking modal share is to intertwine their residential uses with employment. There is a large part of the population that would live within walking distance of their work if that's an option.

You sound like Toronto is like Irving, CA where everyone drives everywhere.

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/car-ownership-numbers-of-vehicles-by-city-map.html

Residential means less space for employment use.

You just don't get it, do you? I can understand separating light industry and residential uses. However, we're talking about prime downtown land here. Industry will often be located away from population centers at the fringe of down. Plus, globalization has forever changed the amount of land needed to be dedicated to industrial space, since it's often cheaper to build and manufacturer in other countries with less stringent environmental laws.

But when we're talking office space, it makes no sense to demand it be separated for other uses or to preserve plots of land only to be used for office.

You know it's possible to deliver the desired amount of office space and allow for other uses on a plot of land through the use of density. To build 12,500,000 sqft of office space over sixty acres would require a gross Floor Area Ratio of 4.8. It's common for a city to specify incentives in its zoning to encourage mixed-use districts, or flat our require it as is often seen with retail at street level or office uses in the base with a residential structure rising above. It's not rocket science.

If there was truly a shortage of land dedicated towards office space, the city could simply up the allowable zoning for commercial development. It can also create a mixed-use district by allowing residential as an accessory use.

Maybe a picture comparison will help...


750,000 sqft over a 42 acre site, consistent with a desire to keep 100% of the land for employment uses.


1.7 million sqft with 10 floors of office space over a 1.5 acre site, inconsistent with a desire to keep 100% of the land for employment uses.

Do you know understand what you're advocating when you say you want to keep a site for employment uses? Probably not.

Is there residential mixed into Amazon's self built campus?

Looks the campus is interwoven into the city, a mix of commercial and residential uses, but I would be interested to hear from a Seattle perspective.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

If they want to bring HQ2 on line in 2019, I doubt they'll wait until the end of the year to make a decision.

I'm thinking a decision will be made by the Summer (at the latest).

Just speculation here, and overthinking probally but here it goes.

IF they want to bring their HQ online by 2019... given thats 1 year pretty much or lets just be conservative and say Q4 of 2019...

... wouldn't that mean that the city who hosts it will already have an existing tower to match these goals?

Because any sort of construction would not yield a 2019 opening (given the square footage), much less Q4 2019.

So that leads me to believe, in my speculation or overthinking, that the host city will already have that sqft already built or on its way to being finished sometime by 2019.

Hudson Yards anybody?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I think they're building that dome just to get bnk's hopes up, only to dash them when Chicago doesn't get it.

I think this entire ordeal is a ploy to make Bnk go insane

[jd3189]

This is all a bunch of foolishness. What if no city gets picked? You guys have to relax about this.

[skyscraperpage17]

From Time's Money Magazine...

http://time.com/money/5196442/amazon-hq2-location-pick/

But even the losers may end up winners eventually. Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s head of worldwide economic development, released a statement earlier this year telling the overlooked locations that, now that Amazon has learned all about them, the communities could be picked for future projects.

[maru2501]

dome suspicious though

and the fact no one knows what it is makes it moreso

edit: apparently just a construction operations center for the giant development going there, not HQ2

[JManc]

Originally Posted by bnk

The stage with wheel chair access.

https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/3/12/17109544/south-loop-construction-the-78

Activity at The 78: New geodesic dome sparks Amazon HQ2 rumors
By Jay Koziarz Mar 12, 2018, 1:20pm CDT

Construction crews are up to something at the massive South Loop development site known as The 78. The recent activity at Related Midwest’s 62-acre parcel fueled rabid speculation. Was it a movie set? Or perhaps related to forthcoming announcement from Amazon regarding its HQ2 campus?



...

Interestingly, the site in question was issued a building permit late last year calling for a “30-foot diameter dome” to be used for a “24 hour press event.” According to its description, that permit was set to expire on December 13. Interesting stuff indeed.

That is a surveillance facility that enables Alexa to spy on you. Think Amazon's own Echelon.

[bnk]

AI thinks Boston



https://www.barrons.com/articles/boston-...pstakes-says-a-i-system-aiera-1520886613

Boston Will Win Amazon HQ2 Sweepstakes, Says A.I. System Aiera


Boston, with Chicago a close second, according to Wells Fargo Securities' A.I. system, Aiera.


The prediction was based on publicly discussed factors such as company name (AMZN), dates (September 2017 to March 2018), keywords (HQ2, HQ, Headquarters) and outputs (location), and their impact on stock performance and frequency of discussion, the Wells Fargo (WFC) unit explained.

Based on those criteria, the clustering model processes the entire graph of processed data between the two aforementioned dates -- in this case, about 900,000 objects -- and uses the keywords and output requested as pivot points to generate all detectable clusters.

Those clusters, in turn, are organized by velocity and trend, sentiment, topic and narrative pattern, and scored against other performance factors (macro analysis, stock price, etc.). Once scored, all possible outputs are sort-ordered and the top selections are sent to the summarizer (which allows Aiera to explain its selection).

When all was said and done, the top-predicted finishers among the 20 finalists for Amazon's $5 billion project were Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Toronto, Austin and Washington, D.C., Aiera calculated....


Though hardly a make-or-break prediction, Aiera's prognostication is another early test of the accuracy of artificial intelligence as it increasingly becomes a resource to parse through data and algorithms on business patterns and decisions.

...

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by CIA

You should ask yourself the same question. BTW, what's the residential vacancy rate in Toronto again? Given the "overabundance of housing" it should be pretty high, no?

Like I warned last week, you're beating your head against the wall trying to get through to WhipperSnapper.

Toronto had an office zone (which is now adding residential/retail), a hospital zone (that's now adding residential/retail), and residential (that's now adding office). Planning policy in Toronto encourages mixed use so the Amazon HQ2 (Unilever site) proposal does seem like it's from another era (being 100% office).

[suburbanite]

In the era of everything being mixed-use, I find it somewhat refreshing to have an office-focused proposal. Not to mention it's being built around a massive new transit hub so it's not like it's going to be some isolated car-dominated office campus.

Also worth noting that if this were to be the location that Amazon selected, it's likely that the only way to achieve their space requirements would be to keep the site primarily office. Unless the city is going to give them approval to build to 400m for the sake of including residential as part of the towers.

There is still ample land around the site for residential development to support the housing requirements of a new workforce. Keeping the core East Harbour site as employment lands may serve the additional benefit of sparking the redevelopment of the nearby Port Lands into that ideal mixed-use community that feeds into the business district.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

From Time's Money Magazine...

http://time.com/money/5196442/amazon-hq2-location-pick/

What is it with the fascination about Bezos having a 2nd home in Washington being a big deal? Being the capitol it makes sense but this idea that he has a second one so he has an "investment" there is laughable. Bezos could buy a $10 million house in everyone of the 20 short listed cities out of his petty cash box.

I'm not saying Washington can't win but him having a 2nd home there will have NOTHING to do with it.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

What is it with the fascination about Bezos having a 2nd home in Washington being a big deal? Being the capitol it makes sense but this idea that he has a second one so he has an "investment" there is laughable. Bezos could buy a $10 million house in everyone of the 20 short listed cities out of his petty cash box.

I'm not saying Washington can't win but him having a 2nd home there will have NOTHING to do with it.

No disagreement from me.

Someone on another forum (I believe it was James Bond Agent 007 here) mentioned that when the papers in Seattle interviewed Jeff Bezos back in the 90s and asked him why he moved there, he gave 2 main reasons:

1) the scenery and general hip and fashionable vibe of the place.
2) the UW with its good computer science school.

So there's no reason to think those things won't be the most important in deciding where HQ2 goes.

[Khantilever]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

No disagreement from me.

Someone on another forum (I believe it was James Bond Agent 007 here) mentioned that when the papers in Seattle interviewed Jeff Bezos back in the 90s and asked him why he moved there, he gave 2 main reasons:

1) the scenery and general hip and fashionable vibe of the place.
2) the UW with its good computer science school.

So there's no reason to think those things won't be the most important in deciding where HQ2 goes.

And, yet, there's a 60 minutes episode which aired in 1999 about Bezos which describes how when Bezos chose to leave Wall St he wasn't sure of where to go - and made the decision to choose Seattle at the very last minute, once his movers already had his stuff packed and needed to know where to go. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWUIxqWPktQ)

There are a lot of good characteristics to Seattle that one can focus on to explain why they may have moved there. Similarly, one can point out one or two negatives to explain, to others or themselves, why they left. In reality, everything plays a part in one's decision.

Anyway, Amazon today is a different beast with different needs than Bezos had back in the 90s.