Amazon HQ2 RFP

Status
Not open for further replies.
bigpicture7 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I understand that and the high-rise residential towers can be built elsewhere. It needs not to be built at Suffolk Down at the same location as the Amazon campus.

I just believe making an assumption that a location is bad or the proposal is bad because the area can't support a signature skyscraper is dumb.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
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.
Click to expand...
I think any long-term owner (like a REIT) or whole-site tenant (like Amazon) is going to ask for 10' of fill, whereas any build-then-sell developer wouldn't care. Where does HYM fall on that spectrum?

Wynn added something like 10 feet, and I'm sure you could have never told either way from the early concepts, and then only talked about it after they'd broken ground (and is really only publicizing it now, like this WBUR pieceHow Wynn Is Building Its Casino To Protect Against Climate Change)
 
KentXie said:
I just believe making an assumption that a location is bad or the proposal is bad because the area can't support a signature skyscraper is dumb.
Click to expand...

No disagreement there. First: gotta meet their needs. Second: how can we maximize mutual benefit.
 
Ruairi said:
Here's Somerville
https://www.somervillema.gov/departments/ospcd-economic-development/amazon-t-tapping-vitality-greater-boston
Click to expand...

Ugh, I wish they hadn't put the old rendering of Hub on Causeway in their official report. Otherwise, pushing Assembly and the other sites in their bid is a good counter plan/option.

I'm incredibly impressed by the HYM site plan/City of Boston submission, albeit not surprised. Despite how conservative some of those 'landscraper' renderings appear, the FAA allowance for much of Suffolk Downs is comparable density-wise to what's been built throughout the Seaport. On the housing front, this leaves potential room for HYM to negotiate density bonuses by including additional affordable units on site, perhaps.
 
Would love to Boston win this. A better proposal in my mind is for the SST to be used as trophy tower for those desiring an urban lifestyle and the rest go to Waltham, Needham, Lexington or some other train + car commutable place. Much as Suffolk downs might have some mass transit upside (the blue line really needs a lot of work), I see the folks working at Amazon as wanting to drive to work so they can drop off kids at daycare & school, do shopping and errands for a family with kids, and live in towns with high scoring public schools. Getting to Suffolk Downs at rush hour is a nightmare at best with current infrastructure unless you are young and single and like riding on packed trains. Based on the Green line extension, new subway stations will take many years to be built. If instead of the blue line, focus was on the NSRL and regional rail commuting from multiple burbs to either the city or other burbs it would be a better, more realistic proposal IMHO.
 
i'm still stunned by how far down the scale toward worst played, worst bid/s submitted type of scenario has actually played out.

nepotism, cronyism and general incompetence won't get you an 'Amazon.'

The proposal should have been _____________________ and ____________________ and _____________________ and ____________________
and (then and only then) also included, "oh, and by the way we've even got this other interesting spot over here if you ever want to expand out to an Apple style type of campus." ...It never should have been the main feature.

The actors apparently are either too dumb, or weren't warned with sufficient force by enough intelligent people who cared about winning. Even Mr. Mass Miracle/Tech Crash himself–Mike Dukakis would have done better. i hope we haven't been relegated back into the pack of Austin's and Pittsburgh's by the galactically clueless.
 
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......
Click to expand...

They said they need 8 million square feet.

.
 
odurandina said:
i'm still stunned by how far down the scale toward worst played, worst bid/s submitted type of scenario has actually played out.

nepotism, cronyism and general incompetence won't get you an 'Amazon.'

The proposal should have been _____________________ and ____________________ and _____________________ and ____________________
and (then and only then) also included, "oh, and by the way we've even got this other interesting spot over here if you ever want to expand out to an Apple style type of campus." ...It never should have been the main feature.

The actors apparently are either too dumb, or weren't warned with sufficient force by enough intelligent people who cared about winning. Even Mr. Mass Miracle/Tech Crash himself–Mike Dukakis would have done better. i hope we haven't been relegated back into the pack of Austin's and Pittsburgh's by the galactically clueless.
Click to expand...

This hyperbolic "sky is falling" schtick is getting a bit tiresome IMO. There are legitimate criticisms of the proposal but overall it's pretty solid and meets every single one of Amazon's requests. Just because it's not the Burj Khalifa doesn't mean the proposal is a failure.
 
FenwayResident said:
This hyperbolic "sky is falling" schtick is getting a bit tiresome IMO. There are legitimate criticisms of the proposal but overall it's pretty solid and meets every single one of Amazon's requests. Just because it's not the Burj Khalifa doesn't mean the proposal is a failure.
Click to expand...

Totally agree, Fenway...

The one-owner, you-can-build-8-million-square-feet-right-now aspect of this site made it critical to market to Amazon. We don't know what sort of "non-starter" thresholds they have for reviewing these bids.

The document CLEARLY makes it apparent that boston has several sites downtown, along with pre-approved tower designs. Those were very much brought to the surface in the bid.

It was critical amazon be made aware of the fact that they could build 8 million square feet RIGHT ON A SUBWAY, RIGHT NOW. That might be the key discriminator for Boston.

I think it is strategically effective, and not evidence of anything odura is hysteric about above.
 
bigpicture and fenway, I agree.

Amazon specs clearly favor sites that are bird in hand, and of the Greater Boston proposals, only Suffolk Downs provides that. Everything else is birds in the bush, and the birds may never be caught. Did the owner of the planned office tower at North Station sign on to the Somerville bid? If he didn't, then Somerville's bid is pie-in-the sky, from an Amazon standpoint.
 
shmessy said:
They said they need 8 million square feet.

.
Click to expand...

eventually... maybe.. I believe "up to" was the phrasing. The hard requirement is that they need 500,000 square feet to start... everything after that will come in phases when and if they need it.

Sure dealing with one landowner for the additional space is preferable, but it wasn't a hard requirement.
 
stellarfun said:
bigpicture and fenway, I agree.

Amazon specs clearly favor sites that are bird in hand, and of the Greater Boston proposals, only Suffolk Downs provides that. Everything else is birds in the bush, and the birds may never be caught. Did the owner of the planned office tower at North Station sign on to the Somerville bid? If he didn't, then Somerville's bid is pie-in-the sky, from an Amazon standpoint.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with that and it is good that Suffolk Downs was included in the proposal because it does tick off all the requirements and the stated preferences, but also you have to look beyond ticking off boxes at want kind of real estate they actually have sought in Seattle for HQ1 and that doesn't look as much like a suburban office park as Suffolk Downs would be.
 
tangent said:
eventually... maybe.. I believe "up to" was the phrasing. The hard requirement is that they need 500,000 square feet to start... everything after that will come in phases when and if they need it.

Sure dealing with one landowner for the additional space is preferable, but it wasn't a hard requirement.
Click to expand...

Sure, if you really want the proposal to be thrown directly into the recycling bin, try winning with that 500,000 sf "for now" idea to a company that actually has an aggressive long-term vision.

While the rest of the country is falling over themselves to cater to what Amazon wants, Boston ain't going to win anything with that Durgin Park Waitress "You'll take what we give you" attitude.

Boston saying "We'll talk about the rest later" will ensure Amazon says Howdy to Austin or Hey Hon to Baltimore.

Again, I'm not particularly rueing that possibility. If it does the N-S raillink and the Blue-Red Connection, Boston will still get the 100,000 new tech jobs anyway - - it will come from a larger variety of new companies instead of the one behemoth plus satellite ancillaries. I'm just pointing out the obvious when it comes to this particular Amazon competition, however.
 
tangent said:
eventually... maybe.. I believe "up to" was the phrasing. The hard requirement is that they need 500,000 square feet to start... everything after that will come in phases when and if they need it.

Sure dealing with one landowner for the additional space is preferable, but it wasn't a hard requirement.
Click to expand...

One owner for the total square footage may not be a hard requirement, but a clear path from the 500,000 to 8 million square feet is a clear, hard requirement.

One owner with a master plan is a much clearer path to 8 million square feet than multiple owners who are not even on board. The last thing Amazon wants is an initial site that ends up locked out of the future expansion needs.
 
JeffDowntown said:
One owner for the total square footage may not be a hard requirement, but a clear path from the 500,000 to 8 million square feet is a clear, hard requirement.

One owner with a master plan is a much clearer path to 8 million square feet than multiple owners who are not even on board. The last thing Amazon wants is an initial site that ends up locked out of the future expansion needs.
Click to expand...

Agreed. A clear path up to 8 million additional square feet was required. And obviously dealing with one landowner is better than dealing with 5 or 6 to cobble together properties. But that is a trade-off for Amazon to consider. Because the trade is that any contiguous property like that in or around a major city is going to have some downsides for it not to have already been developed. Versus cobbling together a few million square feet downtown/Seaport and/or in Kendall with the 13 year down the road property being literally down the road.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for posting this. For all of the flaws of the Suffolk Downs proposal, I was curious what other cities are throwing out there. People keep posting that Philly is all that, but I drove by the Navy Yard last week and if that's the best they can do, I'm not sure a sane person can say they've trumped Boston. That site has no transit and is completely cut off by an elevated interstate, I-95. I would be like Boston pitching a site next to the old 93 before the Big Dig.

Tough in a developed city to find a huge parcel with one owner near transit. I would imagine New York and DC are going to have similar issues, while places like Atlanta or Charlotte have no transit to speak of
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top