Amazon HQ2 RFP

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tysmith95 said:
Moving to Canada is the easiest way to piss off Trump.

Not sure if Amazon wants the political fallout from that.
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It's Trump... he's going to be angry regardless of where they go. Political fallout is something to consider but I don't think it would be something that would completely dissuade them from picking Toronto for HQ2.
 
tysmith95 said:
Ignoring trump, moving thousands of jobs out of the country would have some sort of political fallout. It would be a risk for Amazon to do this.
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This is not moving jobs out of the country, this is creating net new jobs. I don't think Toronto will end up winning this, but it has a huge advantage over American cities: it can very easily draw from global talent across the British Commonwealth (Britain, Australia, India, Pakistan, Asia, Africa), not to mention the EU, with minimal immigration issues.
 
stellarfun said:
I'll put this article about the tear-down of Wonderland in this thread. 38 acres up for sale. Across the street from the Blue Line. Commuter rail tracks abut the property. Close enough to Suffolk Downs to pair the two as a joint site.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...-wonderland/7Yth9eSpkfQOkF0kjSjTYJ/story.html
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Personally I like the overall potential of the Wonderland site better than Suffolk Downs... a bit further away from the approach path so you have a bit more vertical breathing room and a bit less noise. Looks like Wonderland is in the 300 foot max height range, while Suffolk Downs is in the 150 to 200 max height range and closer to centerline.

Still... it should be on the table for Amazon, but it really looks like they want a more downtown location than either Suffolk Downs or Wonderland would provide. Amazon needs the best centralized location(s) if they want easy access to people from all around Boston/Cambridge.
 
I was walking by North Station and saw another opportunity here. First, obviously, Amazon would more than fill both the TD Garden Office Tower, as well as the Congress Street Garage Office Tower. I was specifically eyeing the courthouse between Merrimac St and New Chardon. I wasn't eyeing it for Amazon mind you, but as a place to build a large government tower on top of, as a replacement to the O'Neill building. Once that's up, the O'Neill can be torn down and Amazon could add another tower there, likely larger/taller than the first 2 it occupied. At that point, similar to Seattle, it would occupy 3 large towers in the heart of a major city's downtown!

Is it feasible to build that government space on top of the existing courthouse? The footprint is huge!
 
DZH22 said:
I was walking by North Station and saw another opportunity here. First, obviously, Amazon would more than fill both the TD Garden Office Tower, as well as the Congress Street Garage Office Tower. I was specifically eyeing the courthouse between Merrimac St and New Chardon. I wasn't eyeing it for Amazon mind you, but as a place to build a large government tower on top of, as a replacement to the O'Neill building. Once that's up, the O'Neill can be torn down and Amazon could add another tower there, likely larger/taller than the first 2 it occupied. At that point, similar to Seattle, it would occupy 3 large towers in the heart of a major city's downtown!

Is it feasible to build that government space on top of the existing courthouse? The footprint is huge!
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I agree that One Congress and the office space portion of the hub on causeway would be make excellent headquarters space for Amazon... And they both appear to be in need of tenants if they are going to get built.

Though the point about redevelopment of the courthouse block is complicated. O'Neill is Federal and the Court block is State, so that gets complicated for swapping around real estate in a timely enough way to include in a proposal... I think the potentially available real estate within a few blocks of those two approved towers would make for part of a reasonably enticing proposal. The two towers alone account for the nearer term needs Amazon has stated in their RFP.


Edit: Also, I wonder how difficult it would be for Bullfinch Crossing to switch gears and change some of the hotel/residential to include more office space?
 
I'd order them

South station,
Orange line,
Beacon yards,
Widett circle,
Suffolk Downs
 
Suffolk downs is a great place to put some housing. For a job center it's a pain unless you live on the North Shore or in Beacon Hill.

Nice to see that Curtatone was reading archboston and pushing for the orange line proposal.
 
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tysmith95 said:
Suffolk downs is a great place to put some housing. For a job center it's a pain unless you live on the North Shore or in Beacon Hill.
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I still say leave it in the mix along with all the other available real estate in or around Boston, no need to limit Amazon's options, but it is very hard to see how alone it would work as a second headquarters.

Suffolk Downs could work with One Congress as the main headquarters and Suffolk providing some additional space. I expect they would also still keep their existing presence in Kendall Square and in Fort Point, so having some buildings a few T stops or an Uber away seems reasonable.
 
stellarfun said:
Shirley L. is underwhelmed by anything that's been put on the table, and particularly underwhelmed by the Baker Administration's approach. Is she a stalking horse for Walsh in that regard?

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...-amazon-bid/nGFVmflgn6QQH1Y9gS8UcK/story.html
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There is a bit of a contradiction in the article in that it is indicated that Mayor Walsh might be frustrated that Gov. Baker hasn't backed a single Boston (as-in Boston centered) proposal, but then the article goes on to suggest various proposals that straddle Boston and Cambridge to best connect the proposal to Kendall/MIT.

I think Shirley (and the headline writer) mean "Boston" as in Greater Boston since she also humbly suggests Boston (Mayor Walsh) might need to share with Cambridge and neighbors for a successful proposal. And also potentially for Amazon to have some anchor presence at MIT's Volpe.

Unlike GE this site selection really could be bigger than just one municipality and more than one contiguous parcel and eliminating potentially available and viable real estate before putting everything on the table for Amazon themselves to choose from could really be detrimental to Metropolitan Boston's chances.

To me the ideal would be one proposal from the state for all the Boston area proposals, but that requires Boston to accept competing with properties in other municipalities being in the same proposal.
 
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tangent said:
There is a bit of a contradiction in the article in that it is indicated that Mayor Walsh might be frustrated that Gov. Baker hasn't backed a single Boston (as-in Boston centered) proposal, but then the article goes on to suggest various proposals that straddle Boston and Cambridge to best connect the proposal to Kendall/MIT.

I think Shirley (and the headline writer) mean "Boston" as in Greater Boston since she also humbly suggests Boston (Mayor Walsh) might need to share with Cambridge and neighbors for a successful proposal. And also potentially for Amazon to have some anchor presence at MIT's Volpe.

Unlike GE this site selection really could be bigger than just one municipality and more than one contiguous parcel and eliminating potentially available and viable real estate before putting everything on the table for Amazon themselves to choose from could really be detrimental to Metropolitan Boston's chances.

To me the ideal would be one proposal from the state for all the Boston area proposals, but that requires Boston to accept competing with properties in other municipalities being in the same proposal.
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Baker, being a republican, needs to carry Central MA to have a chance of reelection. He's probably worried if he backs Boston over a Worcester bid it could alienate a lot of Central MA voters.

Worcester needs to get a grip on reality and withdraw its application so Baker has the political cover to go all-in on Greater Boston.
 
I think all of this is a lot of blah blah blah. IMHO Amazon has already narrowed this down to a couple of cities, but they're throwing it out to the world in order to fatten the incentive package they got from the few places they actually want to be in. Mind you I don't know if Boston is one of them, but if it is a competing bid from Worcester or Springfield isn't going to matter because they would have already dismissed them, and in this hypothetical case can narrow it down to location plus size of the kickback for the regions that they're considering.
 
Rover said:
I think all of this is a lot of blah blah blah. IMHO Amazon has already narrowed this down to a couple of cities, but they're throwing it out to the world in order to fatten the incentive package they got from the few places they actually want to be in. Mind you I don't know if Boston is one of them, but if it is a competing bid from Worcester or Springfield isn't going to matter because they would have already dismissed them, and in this hypothetical case can narrow it down to location plus size of the kickback for the regions that they're considering.
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It impacts Boston if Baker does not commit to state-backed incentives when he otherwise would have if Worcester were not in the running. The leaders of Worcester and Billrica (lol) are just scoring cheap political points at the expense of a unified proposal from Boston and Massachusetts.
 
How about the state has the same tax incentives if the proposal is in Boston, Springfield, Worcester, Billerica, etc.
 
tysmith95 said:
How about the state has the same tax incentives if the proposal is in Boston, Springfield, Worcester, Billerica, etc.
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Yup. If Boston, etc wants to sweeten the deal on top of that, they can. Only thing that would be different is if state land was involved but I'm not sure it really is with these proposals. Non-immediate Boston and vicinity proposals will most likely be dismissed anyway.
 
Rover said:
Yup. If Boston, etc wants to sweeten the deal on top of that, they can. Only thing that would be different is if state land was involved but I'm not sure it really is with these proposals. Non-immediate Boston and vicinity proposals will most likely be dismissed anyway.
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In Boston there are a few places where state land could be involved. BHCC parking lots, the Sullivan square mbta parking, and South Bay could all be included in a proposal.
 
FenwayResident said:
It impacts Boston if Baker does not commit to state-backed incentives when he otherwise would have if Worcester were not in the running. The leaders of Worcester and Billrica (lol) are just scoring cheap political points at the expense of a unified proposal from Boston and Massachusetts.
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I imagine there will be multiple rounds of bidding. The state will have to get involved eventually, but I don't think it matters right now.
 
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