Amazon HQ2 RFP

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Suffolk Downs eye-candy and the alternative sites:

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DZH22 said:
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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It's the best site in the whole city in terms of transit access and excess capacity, as well as airport access. It also has one owner, with full zoning permissions, ready to break ground six months from today. Its local rep is the Speaker of the House and he's already promised to fast-track infrastructure improvements. I have issues with it because of displacement of local residents and the aesthetics of the tank farm, but there's a lot going for it.

If they desperately want a signature tower on the Blue Line, I'm sure Chiofaro would be happy to talk to them.
 
DZH22 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Maybe, just maybe, Amazon doesn't need/want to have skyscrapers for their second HQ. Ever thought of that? Remember, they build new headquarters to cater to their and their employees' needs, not to you or other skyscraper aficionados.
 
If they don't care if it is right on the blue line I would actually suggest the office tower at Bulfinch Crossing as the option they should take if they really feel the need for a signature tower. It is already approved and ready to start plus the design is unique and eye catching enough to work as a flagship headquarters building.

I also second what Kentie is saying I don't think a skyscraper headquarters building is something they care about that much or it would have been in the RFP.
 
Overall, looks good. Good to see One Congress and downtown at least mentioned along with the seaport/fort point. I think downtown/seaport/fort point would be the best bet, but yes it involves negotiating with more landowners.

Surprised that Harvard/Boston didn't put forward Beacon Yards at all or at least not that I saw. I guess that means Beacon Yards isn't expected to happen in the time frame of the proposal. I suppose with relocating the Mass Pike the timing is too speculative.
 
citylover94 said:
If they don't care if it is right on the blue line I would actually suggest the office tower at Bulfinch Crossing as the option they should take if they really feel the need for a signature tower. It is already approved and ready to start plus the design is unique and eye catching enough to work as a flagship headquarters building.

I also second what Kentie is saying I don't think a skyscraper headquarters building is something they care about that much or it would have been in the RFP.
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It also has the appeal of being owned by HYM, the same landlord as Suffolk Downs. I'm kind of surprised they don't mention that in the document itself.
 
KentXie said:
Maybe, just maybe, Amazon doesn't need/want to have skyscrapers for their second HQ. Ever thought of that? Remember, they build new headquarters to cater to their and their employees' needs, not to you or other skyscraper aficionados.
Click to expand...

It's just flat-out difficult to collaborate in a tower.
 
It might be worthwhile to have the financial and legal departments located in a tower downtown to be close to the numerous accounting and legal firms there.
 
KentXie said:
Maybe, just maybe, Amazon doesn't need/want to have skyscrapers for their second HQ. Ever thought of that? Remember, they build new headquarters to cater to their and their employees' needs, not to you or other skyscraper aficionados.
Click to expand...

Agree, but I also want to point out that there's nothing wrong with trying to establish symbiosis between "their and their employees' needs" and complimentary/associated needs of the city.

For example: red line/blue line connector or BLX would be a fantastic compliment to Suffolk downs...presumably they will have employees that will want/need to live somewhere other than Eastie...and the BL could be much better connected to accommodate that.

Likewise, some of the highrise residential towers on the transit grid will be a great way to house 50,000 people. This could spur that, promoting density within the transit network rather than trying to accommodate more people in cars getting to work.

I agree with your point not to force skyscraper fetishes on this situation, but it's also not right to view Suffolk Downs as a self-sustaining island. We should celebrate the positive ripple effect that could come of it.
 
datadyne007 said:
It's just flat-out difficult to collaborate in a tower.
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I never really under how how walking 200 yards from Department Y to Department X is that much easier than taking the elevator 4 flights.
 
DZH22 said:
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.
Click to expand...

The proposal is at best a first step. At its worst, a very bad joke.

Dream scenario? Amazon dumps all the non-starter cities, calls and says, "thank you..." Calls the finalists with shitty proposals, and announces, "We're opening a new period to allow a few cities to come up with better proposals."

Gets Boston on the phone and asks incredulously, "this is the best you can do?"
 
Count me in the chorus of if Amazon wanted a downtown skyscraper they would have said so. Seems they're looking for an urban campus and on that note how many cities have the ability to offer that? I wouldn't consider a place like Austin to be "urban" FWIW but I'll leave that up to Bezos to determine. Don't know how many of the competitor cities can offer a quick turnaround without resorting to eminent domain to build a funky office park in the middle of their downtowns. On that note I suppose Suffolk Downs is about the best the city can do although I personally would have preferred the South Station idea given its location as both a transit hub and being close to existing Amazon seaport operations.
 
statler said:
I never really under how how walking 200 yards from Department Y to Department X is that much easier than taking the elevator 4 flights.
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The open floor plan con is not about better collaboration. It's about making it easier/cheaper for companies to re-org, onboard/offboard people. It's easier to jerk someone around when they aren't settled into an office, and when you have a repeating pattern of 400 identical pods, and when a promotion doesn't mean getting a better office. Some of these companies don't even let you have any papers or belongings at your desk. It's under the guise of "its better for collaboration"...but its a total sham. They just want it to be easier to say "you're reassigned starting tomorrow".

Collaboration is a real thing:
- Being able to locate you next to your 10-20 "nearest neighbor collaborators" is important
- Face time / "water cooler talk" / sketching ideas in person....all good!
- You don't realistically collaborate with 400 people over a 150 yardlong floor plate. 100' x 100' teamwork areas are all that's needed. Take the elevator/stairs a flight or two when you need to talk to your secondary and tertiary colleagues.
- I could run any engineering team out of the floor plates of 1 Congress or the lower levels of SST.

I am NOT downplaying the benefits of proximity collaboration. I AM harshly critical of the specific open floorplan implementations currently en vogue. My wife's workplace has an absolutely enormous floorplan: they all just sit there at their own pods messaging each other over Slack. She says no one is going to get up to walk several hundred feet. I managed in an almost-as-large floorplan about 4 years ago, and it was the same deal.

Also: I forgot one of the hugest issues. Avoiding talking about important personal issues, avoiding tackling elephant-in-the-room coordination problems, etc, becomes rampant...because there's no privacy, and everyone is scared-shitless paranoid. Everyone is constantly looking over their shoulder. Resorting to messaging rather than hashing out real personal problems. I don't know how to manage without earning the trust of my employees through an occasional closed-door session to hash out differences...the younger generation of managers now just avoid anything hard like that...ME, what do I do?, I now need to walk 500 yards to sit on a park bench to have a "coffee chat" with the person. Real efficiency! But I still do it because that's how you manage effectively. I am blown away by the types of personal issues young managers try to tackle over messaging!
 
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This is not a competition for a true HQ2. No organization survives being run by a two-headed hydra. The only rationale for a true HQ2 is that Bezos intends to split the company.

And the more that Amazon becomes an ever-expanding conglomerate, the more fractured will be its business focus, and the greater the risk that it will implode.

What has not been reveled, at least publicly, is the array of Amazon's current and future (anticipated) business lines, and which HQ will oversee which lines. Will HQ2 oversee Amazon's space ventures, or will Seattle? What about Amazon pharmaceuticals? Amazon restaurant delivery?
 
statler said:
I never really under how how walking 200 yards from Department Y to Department X is that much easier than taking the elevator 4 flights.
Click to expand...
Or using internal stairs!

It is really that collaboration goes with large floor plates, and the tension is vs natural light (too much interior), not height.
 
I've been thinking about how to get Silver Line up there, and made this:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ikMpI4CtxUBHmoejYDlhiipF8Dk&usp=sharing

Extend a busway from the where the current haul road splits toward Chelsea along the other ROW. Around the Courtyard Inn, build a flyover or underpass to take the busway across 1A and allow for stops that serve the neighborhood. Continue through Suffolk Downs on new roads (likely following the parkside arc in the renders) and back to 1A. Build another underpass for Railroad St. to link the busway back to a Revere commuter rail station.

Lots of new development opportunities along there.
 
That is the lamest office park Boston has come up with yet. It makes the Seaport look downright cosmopolitan. Squat towers in the park.

Furthermore with sealevel rise this is probably the worst place to spend that much money. Unless of course I missed the part where they fill in the land and raise it 10 feet.
 
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