Amazon HQ2 RFP

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tangent said:
I think it is just a question of presentation. Sounds like the usual state/local/neighborhood/agency turf battles played out in the last few weeks from what disagreements have filtered out and I am hoping it isn't reflected in the physical proposals being incomplete on the one hand or confusingly redundant on the other hand.

And it is disheartening to hear that Curtatone's proposal was probably left to a separate proposal just because a lot of the supporting buildings might have crossed city lines.

Boston, Cambridge and the Boston area have a lot to offer together, but Boston alone doesn't work. It really takes Cambridge, Somerville and the entire metropolitan area along with Boston to make the case for Boston to be compelling.
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I agree. I'm of the mindset that Amazon already knows the 2 or 3 cities it wants to be in. Obviously they'd entertain another one with a real good offer or presentation, but for the few places already on their radar I'd assume they'd take a look at the offers and get back to those places with suggestions, such as what can you do for us if we combine proposal x and proposal y or if we're going to locate in proposal z that's gonna cost a lot more in incentives/infrastructure improvements, etc than you have on the table now.

The point being I don't think we're in "Final Decision" mode yet. More like weeding out the non-starters.
 
This Is What Really Happens When Amazon Comes to Your Town

This is geared, I think, more towards smaller cities hoping to strike it rich with HQ2 rather than more established cites like Boston, but an interesting read.

What was once a quirkily mellow, solidly middle-class city now feels like a stressed-out, two-tier town with a thin layer of wealthy young techies atop a base of anxious wage workers.
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I think the inverse has been true of places like San Fran and Boston for a few years now.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Indeed. It would have an totally eclipsing, overwhelming effect there. Meanwhile there are plenty of other places where this could plug right in, and have minimal negative ripple effect.
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It's going to have an overwhelming effect no matter where it goes because the lack of housing is everywhere. An additional 50k people? Anyone renting within walking distance or subway stop would be pushed out.
 
jklo said:
It's going to have an overwhelming effect no matter where it goes because the lack of housing is everywhere. An additional 50k people? Anyone renting within walking distance or subway stop would be pushed out.
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I would argue anyone within ~30 minutes (i.e. a reasonable commute) of the campus would see significant rent and property price increases, unless some significant measures were taken.

The majority Eastie would need to be densified to the FAA limit of ~170 feet just to make a dent in the supply. There would also have to be significant developments in Chelsea and Revere with some sort of BRT to both the Blue Line and Downtown. I would imagine a lot of the land along the Chelsea River could get converted into mid-rise housing with some sort of pedestrian bridge to Suffolk Downs if the water and gas plants there were relocated.

Ideally we would also get significant buildup in Downtown, East Cambridge, and Charlestown to take advantage of the 1000' FAA zoning there.

Right now it doesn't seem like there's the political will to get all (or any) of those things done. However, if the region is faced with significant rent and property price increases, we might see more political will for significant developments to happen.
 
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FenwayResident said:
I would argue anyone within ~30 minutes (i.e. a reasonable commute) of the campus would see significant rent and property price increases, unless some significant measures were taken.

The majority Eastie would need to be densified to the FAA limit of ~170 feet just to make a dent in the supply. There would also have to be significant developments in Chelsea and Revere with some sort of BRT to both the Blue Line and Downtown. I would imagine a lot of the land along the Chelsea River could get converted into mid-rise housing with some sort of pedestrian bridge to Suffolk Downs if the water and gas plants there were relocated.

Ideally we would also get significant buildup in Downtown, East Cambridge, and Charlestown to take advantage of the 1000' FAA zoning there.

Right now it doesn't seem like there's the political will to get all (or any) of those things done. However, if the region is faced with significant rent and property price increases, we might see more political will for significant developments to happen.
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Is it actually in the realm of possibility for the gas tanks to be relocated?
 
Shepard said:
Is it actually in the realm of possibility for the gas tanks to be relocated?
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I have no idea what the costs or logistics would be, but with Amazon less than a mile away there would be significant monetary incentive to relocate and sell the land to a developer. I'm the sure state and city could kick in to make it even more appealing.
 
If Amazon moves to Suffolk downs Lynn will gentrify rapidly.

Of course any Suffolk downs location should include a blue line extension
 
Boston (Walsh) is not going to have Somerville (Curtatone) be the tail that wags the dog.

Amazon will run away from any multi-jurisdictional proposal as expansive as this. Amazon is simply not interested in refereeing inter-municipal disagreements over who offers what in incentives.
 
FenwayResident said:
I have no idea what the costs or logistics would be, but with Amazon less than a mile away there would be significant monetary incentive to relocate and sell the land to a developer. I'm the sure state and city could kick in to make it even more appealing.
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What's the mix of fuels in the tanks?

Jet Fuel is probably still a growing business, despite fuel economy of airplanes, just because Logan is growing so well.

But any tanks devoted to home heating oil or gasoline have likely seen a relentless decline in transaction volume, as home heat switches to natural gas and cars use less fuel to drive the same miles.
 
The terminal by Suffolk Downs is owner by Irving; it handles gasoline and heating oil. Aviation fuel for Logan is apparently handled by the terminal on Chelsea St to the south of Suffolk Downs.
 
tangent said:
Boston, Cambridge and the Boston area have a lot to offer together, but Boston alone doesn't work. It really takes Cambridge, Somerville and the entire metropolitan area along with Boston to make the case for Boston to be compelling.
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That was my point entirely in my posts in the Globe during the past several weeks. Despite not getting much support likes/dislikes (something i should probably not be too upset about), i thought the effort i made in laying out some good ideas in the Globe yesterday morning (minus any impression of self-service) was praiseworthy.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...ty/EcnqhK2W7veJBfOILrZeEI/story.html#comments

My plan's A or B are both are starting points and no-brainers.... they work with current planning, permitting and transit capacity, occupy some but not too many prestigious Downtown parcels, and stretch into a highly desirable, activated urban zone.

Most of all it encouraged Boston and Cambridge to work together to smash it out of the park.

The bid needs to be intelligent, logical, creative and possess a few elements of 'urban spectacular' imo. Do that, and you'll get a jump on the competition, and likely, advance to the final rounds.

Walsh didn't accomplish anything close to that. His proposal lacks a 'creative force,' is banal, mediocre, logistically challenged, (and that's putting it mildly) and lacking a greater, regional iconic vision.

His proposal not only lacks intelligence. It's flatly arrogant.

Additionally, not working with Cambridge +/- Somerville is Urban malpractice. These scatterbrained bids wreak of the parochialism Boston is famous for.

.
 
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The Globe has the full Boston bid on-line. 218 pages.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...-bid-amazon/gmlG1jBfH2aGTftHNcHq0M/story.html

To be able to read the small text, you will probably need to download it as a pdf. The Globe scanned two pages at a time, and the individual pages may be 11" x 14".

The three other clusters (besides Suffolk Downs) are sort of meh. For example, Harvard does not offer Beacon Yards, rather a 500,000 square feet building (not built) east of SEAS on Western Ave.
 
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Did I read that right, they aren't offering that much in the way of incentives? That's not going to get it done. Maybe that's for the second round.
 
Yes, If you watched the Mayor's interview yesterday, Incentives are based on what site Amazon chooses. Each site is different(Ex:public & Private Land) The incentive package will depend on what site they choose to go with. I think its a smart decision. Every city is already offering incentives, this will help Boston stand out and Amazon may give Boston a harder look because of it.
 
Direct link to the PDF:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4113557/Boston-Amazon-HQ2-Proposal.pdf

It's a very strong document - they've done a great job. A few interesting points:

- The portion that discusses Suffolk Downs reads like a PNF for the site whether Amazon is there or not. This is the first time we've seen renders of HYM's site plan, and it's very nice (daylighted creek and all). It's interesting that HYM doesn't seem to be proposing to sell any part of the site. It sounds more like Amazon would be a tenant, or would buy completed buildings from HYM. The 20-month timeframe for Phase I implies that the buildings are essentially already under design, and none of the renderings include an Amazon logo or sign, implying that they already existed. All of this is good news, as it suggests that HYM is going to build this with or without Amazon.

- Boston formally proposes Red/Blue connector, but not Blue-to-Lynn (though it appears on maps). Doesn't make the best case for it, honestly. For this document, RBX should be sold as connecting Suffolk Downs to Kendall via a two-seat ride. The proposal does a very good job of selling the excess capacity of the Blue Line.

- Revere proposes Silver Line to Suffolk Downs and a Chelsea Creek water taxi to North Station. Not sure about either. The water taxi would dock on the other side of 1A and the fuel farm, requiring a shuttle bus to the site (in addition to whatever train you took to get to North Station and the ferry itself, that's three seats and a lot of time). I'm also not sure how you get Silver Line service in there without doing long stretches as a normal bus or investing a lot in new ramps from the haul road to 1A.

- Revere proposes a new Commuter Rail station at Wonderland, though I'm not sure how that helps, especially as it seems to override Blue-to-Lynn.

- The ". YES." motif is really annoying and kind of childish. This should not impact the bid.

- There are no incentives in here. At all. The document mentions local sales and income taxes (but not property tax) without any suggestion of changing them. The site is privately-owned, and the City doesn't suggest that it would subsidize whatever Amazon would be paying HYM.
 
Equilibria said:
- Revere proposes a new Commuter Rail station at Wonderland, though I'm not sure how that helps, especially as it seems to override Blue-to-Lynn.
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Not sure how I feel about this one either. I don't think there would be many non-Amazon people taking CR --> Wonderland --> Blue Line instead of CR --> North Station --> Green/Orange. Maybe a few people going to the airport?

I think a stronger idea would be putting a station right where the tracks meet the Chelsea River then building foot paths to Suffolk Downs to the south and towards Revere to the north. From there it would be a little under a half mile walk to the edge of Suffolk Downs. That would enable Amazon employees to have a one-seat ride from the northern suburbs.
 
FenwayResident said:
Not sure how I feel about this one either. I don't think there would be many non-Amazon people taking CR --> Wonderland --> Blue Line instead of CR --> North Station --> Green/Orange. Maybe a few people going to the airport?

I think a stronger idea would be putting a station right where the tracks meet the Chelsea River then building foot paths to Suffolk Downs to the south and towards Revere to the north. From there it would be a little under a half mile walk to the edge of Suffolk Downs. That would enable Amazon employees to have a one-seat ride from the northern suburbs.
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Agreed. A station at Railroad St. would also serve as a de facto stop for downtown Revere. It's hard to find, but I think that's a historic station location on the B&M (and site of the deadliest passenger rail crash in MA history, it seems).
 
I still don't think Amazon is going to go for Suffolk Downs. What's the draw, besides a large site available? The airport means it will be nothing better than a bunch of suburban style landscrapers.

In Seattle, they are in the process of building 3 towers over 500' to consolidate in, all right downtown. There is no opportunity for a large, flagship building in Suffolk Downs, and it has accessibility issues (as well as sits next to a large industrial area). I still think they should have pushed the North Station Office Tower (which could literally keep rising right now), Congress Street Office Tower, then maybe even South Station Tower to form a corridor across downtown.

Well-done PNF aside, to me the Suffolk Downs proposal shows me that Boston really doesn't want to "win" the Amazon sweepstakes. It's all lip service. They literally picked the worst possible spot in the whole city.
 
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