Amazon HQ2 thread

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

residential housing prices aside...

Commercial real estate will no doubt be impacted, as well. With total Amazon spending on real estate reaching nearly $4 billion, the company now occupies 8.1 million square feet of office space spread across 33 buildings in Seattle, according to Seattle Times research, the largest footprint by both raw area and percentage of any single company in any single city. In the last three years, Amazon had gone from occupying 9% of the city’s prime office space to 19%.

The "largest" stat is BS. Across town in Redmond and Bellevue, Microsoft has 14 msf, and employs more people. Though Amazon is closing fast...they'll be more like 12 msf with recent groundbreakings.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by isaidso

^^ Ok, but the point stands.



Geography is Vancouver's biggest drawback. Besides, Amazon would likely hoover up a big chunk of the city's talent that would otherwise go to Vancouver based start ups. Vancouver might get more Amazon employees out of this process though. They likely know that there's alot of talent 90 minutes north of them.

Aren't they trying to develop that water front area directly west of Granville Island for tech companies?

Geography could both be Vancouver's biggest drawback and also it's biggest asset. We have no idea if Amazon wants to be far away from Seattle or close; everyone assuming an east coast location is just speculating.

Regardless I don't think Vancouver will get it because our housing market is completely out of whack. I'd just like to see where they could have been located out of curiosity. I love to imagine.

I haven't heard anything about the area west of Granville Island, I was under the impression that Mount Pleasant and Railtown (north Downtown Eastside) were the main tech areas in the city, but I'm so far out from that scene I really wouldn't know.

[Centropolis]

damn, chicago really is the dark horse.

[dubu]

I’m thinking it will be somewhere that’s sunny. Cali, it would be cool if it was Sacramento. I’d like to see a smaller city get bigger

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Geography could both be Vancouver's biggest drawback and also it's biggest asset. We have no idea if Amazon wants to be far away from Seattle or close; everyone assuming an east coast location is just speculating.

Regardless I don't think Vancouver will get it because our housing market is completely out of whack. I'd just like to see where they could have been located out of curiosity. I love to imagine.

I haven't heard anything about the area west of Granville Island, I was under the impression that Mount Pleasant and Railtown (north Downtown Eastside) were the main tech areas in the city, but I'm so far out from that scene I really wouldn't know.

Amazon has pretty strongly hinted that HQ2 won't be in the Pacific Northwest:

Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke implied that the company’s second headquarters will be in a city outside the Pacific Northwest during an on-stage interview at the GeekWire Summit Tuesday.

“Not everybody wants to live in the Northwest,” Wilke said. “It’s been terrific for me and my family, but I think we may find another location allows us to recruit a different collection of employees.”

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazons-se...ific-northwest-says-top-exec-jeff-wilke/

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by bigstick

Atlanta...One odds maker puts it 2/1..NOT going to the NE, (COL)

median home value in philadelphia (and chicago) is lower than atlanta. just saying.

atlanta has good numbers, though. good geography. bad bad infrastructure (airport/heavy rail lines excepting). i can definitely see it, though.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

the people not mentioning boston....why not? i've read that there is an internal executive push for boston.

It's a very expensive city with nowhere to build.

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

damn, chicago really is the dark horse.

racist.

[Steely Dan]

^ a racist and a horsist.

[F1 Tommy]

I think this is going to Texas, maybe Dallas. Jeff Bezos already has strong ties to the state. He is teasing us!!

[cabasse]

i'm thinking austin myself. (fun to speculate of course)

it's got the cool/new factor that few other biggish cities in the sunbelt have, moreso than atlanta, is definitely one of the prettier cities of the south, and is also one of the biggest tech cities.

i don't think the smallish airport is a problem, or the road infrastructure/transit - seattle still gets the majority of its ridership numbers from bus service, no?

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by cabasse

i'm thinking austin myself. (fun to speculate of course)

it's got the cool/new factor that few other biggish cities in the sunbelt have, moreso than atlanta, is definitely one of the prettier cities of the south, and is also one of the biggest tech cities.

i don't think the smallish airport is a problem, or the road infrastructure/transit - seattle still gets the majority of its ridership numbers from bus service, no?

Buses work in a moderately dense place like the core of Seattle. Outside of that, they're not desirable. Austin's not a city I'd be okay relying on the buses to get me to and from work on time.

[skyscraperpage17]

I think Nashville has a better chance of landing Amazon based on the cool / new sunbelt city factor than Austin.

It has a somewhat cohesive street grid, a decent highway system in/out of the city (unlike Austin) and a halfway decent-size airport that's undergoing a massive expansion, due to it being a tourist town.

[Shawn]

I still think Boston has a much stronger bid than most:

- the largest concentration of STEM and media schools in North America with an annual stream of graduates from around the world
- MIT partnerships including JV incubation labs like the GE ones starting up now (no university in the world is better at monetizing its students' works than MIT)
- the center of nanotech / miniaturization R&D (plus ad-tech) and all Kendall Square has to offer in terms of partner companies and relevant start-ups to buy / poach
- better public transit than any other competing city save Chicago, and a state government with a track record of strong transit expansion support
- Suffolk Downs (a massive, shovel-ready old horse track on top of a Blue Line station which the city will essentially grant for free - people keep saying land is expensive in Boston, but not in this instance)
- the shortest flight times to Europe / Middle East, if as I suspect HQ2 becomes the EMEA-facing side while Seattle stays NA / APAC-focused
- Blue State social laws and norms (i.e. 0.0% chance of bathroom ban gender silliness or whatever else the North Carolina GOPs of the world come up with next)
- a state government lock-step aligned with not just Boston's Amazon bid, but with Boston's best interests in general: no city vs. state / suburbs problems here

I think people are also looking past the whole "while we are looking to the future, we also need this show up and running within the next two years" aspect of the RFP. Shovel-ready sites and supporting infrastructure needs to be there now.

[dc_denizen]

^ strong case for boston.

[skyscraperpage17]

The million-dollar question for a candidate like Boston is how much does a cheapstake CEO of a company that's barely making a profit value tax incentives and the cost of real estate.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Buses work in a moderately dense place like the core of Seattle. Outside of that, they're not desirable. Austin's not a city I'd be okay relying on the buses to get me to and from work on time.

They're over-packed and inadequate in Seattle too, despite a major avenue being bus-only at rush hour, plus a tunnel under that being a bus/rail mix, plus two parallel avenues also having dozens of bus routes. The buses are too full, and the streets are too full.

This is a downtown with 50,000,000 sf of offices that is also the narrow spot in the funnel between the north and south halves of town, meaning it gets pass-throughs including both cars and buses. We're adding rail including a third rail tunnel through the CBD, but that's many years out.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

The million-dollar question for a candidate like Boston is how much does a cheapstake CEO of a company that's barely making a profit value tax incentives and the cost of real estate.

That's why I'm confused about Boston being lauded as the front runner. Boston is literally a repeat of Seattle. It's a mid-sized metro of about 4,000,000 with unaffordable housing. The story changes once you hit western Mass or RI, but what potential Amazon employee is going to make that commute? 100k isn't much anywhere these days, but that's especially true in every major Northeastern city not named Philadelphia or Baltimore.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

That's why I'm confused about Boston being lauded as the front runner. Boston is literally a repeat of Seattle. It's a mid-sized metro of about 4,000,000 with unaffordable housing. The story changes once you hit western Mass or RI, but what potential Amazon employee is going to make that commute? 100k isn't much anywhere these days, but that's especially true in every major Northeastern city not named Philadelphia or Baltimore.

You're practically living like a billionaire in places like Detroit, Pittsburgh or Cleveland (all dark horses) on a $100K salary.

Even in cities such as Dallas, Charlotte, Atlanta or Nashville, where the cost of housing has skyrocketed, you're still balling on that salary.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

You're practically living like a billionaire in places like Detroit, Pittsburgh or Columbus (all dark horses) on a $100K salary.

Even in cities such as Dallas, Charlotte, Atlanta or Nashville, where the cost of housing has skyrocketed, you're still balling on that salary.

Dallas and Atlanta are more comparable to Chicago regarding COL than Charlotte or Nashville. I know rents are climbing quickly in Nashville, but I don't know if they're at Dallas/Atlanta/Chicago levels just yet. Regardless, 100k is good money in all five cities.