Amazon HQ2 RFP

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If Amazon were to occupy a tower, it would need to be highly customized for them with vertical neighborhoods & inter-building communication opportunities. Amazon does not want to be in a stodgy on-spec tower with 10' A.F.F. ACT grid ceilings & fluorescent lights.
 
JumboBuc said:
Saying that Chicago is a good fit for Amazon because "they're a logistics company" is like saying that Detroit would be a good fit for Tesla because they're an auto company.

Amazon is first and foremost a tech company. Their HQ location will have no relation to their logistics operations.

I'm also bullish on Chicago, but "logistics" has nothing to do with it.
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The NYT article gives a good reason to pump the brakes on Chicago - the State of Illinois is dysfunctional to an extreme. If you're going to base a decision on stability of benefits and policies, Chicago isn't the place, whatever the Mayor says.

Incidentally, also why they won't go to DC itself. Maybe to MD or VA, but not to DC. Not sure about this, but wouldn't any tax breaks there be at the consent of Congress?

I'm also curious how the NYT article squares Denver with the requirement that a top-notch tech university be local. Boulder is not Denver, and I'm not sure the University of Colorado is pumping out a strong pipeline of tech talent like MIT is.
 
bakgwailo said:
The MBTA is generally considered/ranked to be 3rd in the country. It might have its issues, but it is fairly far reaching and comprehensive combination of heavy and light rapid transit, commuter rail, and buses. In all the years I have taken it (currently high speed -> red -> green, previously orange and Needham Lines), it does get me to and from work reasonably most of the time.
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I have ridden it for 27 years now. It is shitty beyond belief and getting worse. If it gets you where you're going half the time you'd had a good week.

Back to the subject at hand, if DC's metro really has fallen that far that fast and I have no reason to doubt the people who are saying so, then another point in Boston's favor or at least the T won't be used against us as much.

Regarding Amazon getting Texas or Georgia to change their social policies, I really, really don't see that happening. I'm not sure even Exxon could get Texas to start turning socially liberal. That's why I think Austin/Dallas/etc are out when they'd otherwise have a strong case.

With Chicago, the problem is the gov and legislature can't even agree if rain is wet. I don't see the uniting to put forward a unified front and proposal even for this.

DC and Denver do sound like legit competition depending on Denver's pool of tech talent. I'm still leaning towards DC however although I'm not sure how taxes work there (no state tax as it isn't a state and just a city tax???)

EDIT- Damn Equilibria, you beat me to it.
 
Although from 2012, this article has good site plans and renderings for their Seattle headquarters: https://archpaper.com/2012/05/first-look-at-nbbjs-new-amazon-complex-in-seattle/

What Amazon went with was a 3 city block core "campus" with three large high rise buildings surrounded by multiple smaller buildings in the immediate area, but not necessarily adjacent.

Really it looks like HQ2 phase 1 and 2 could just a be few high rises with enough potential real estate in the vicinity to build/lease additional square footage when they need it.

Boston area has something like 150 million square feet of commercial real estate, so a need for an additional 5 to 10 million isn't a market buster.
 
On the politics side... don't forget that Massachusetts is already home to multiple Amazon competitors... TJX, Wayfair among many others. Competition actually plays both ways because it means a larger pool of talent with experience to draw on either way, but I can't see Amazon getting a deal that other employers don't get without those employers thinking about looking elsewhere for incentives.

Really, there is going to need to be a kind of standard type of retention incentive for employers like this that bring money into the state to employ more people and not just the shiny new company on the block getting the best deal mentality. Combined all the other companies probably bring in more jobs than Amazon is promising... so Mass will need to get the business climate right for everyone, not just an incentive package for one large company.
 
Rover said:
I have ridden it for 27 years now. It is shitty beyond belief and getting worse. If it gets you where you're going half the time you'd had a good week.
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Every other day you get on a train and it doesn't bring you to the correct destination? Sounds more like user error than an MBTA problem.
 
ParkerChris said:
Why not South Station Tower? Directly on train lines and 3.5 hours to NYC. Expansion space could be the USPS site (air rights over track expansion) and/or Fort Point lots across the channel.
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Pair it with the N-S rail Link so all that space isn't wasted for tracks for the backing up trains.

.
 
Blackdog said:
Every other day you get on a train and it doesn't bring you to the correct destination? Sounds more like user error than an MBTA problem.
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No wise guy, :D it doesn't get me where I'm going without either breaking down (a regular occurrence) or stopping 15 times between stations because of "traffic up ahead" or "switching problems" which is code for "its Monday/Friday and half our operators called in sick". The bus isn't much better. Mind you, its also perfect weather right now. Wait until winter comes.
 
we don't need their hq2. Boston should pitch ideas to Amazon to expand and possibly consolidate their current presence in the area. We can't handle the hq2 proposal, but we can accommodate a good deal of their growth.
 
Rover said:
The T is arguably the worst transit system in the country.
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Have you ever been outside of New England?

90 degree summer day:

"Boston is seriously the hottest city in the country!"

"Dude, it's been 108 in Texas all week."

"But I'm sweating! Nowhere is hotter than this!"
 
bigpicture7 said:
^ but what if you add in the Veolia steam plant / MassDOT redevelopment opportunity a couple blocks from SS to gain more square footage?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/V...202f70844d95856!8m2!3d42.349526!4d-71.0582261

Also, Hines' SS tower development, IIRC, is not just the main/tall tower, but involves later phases of decking over all the train bays w/ some smaller buildings too.
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That's what I was getting at with the 2.5M SF max build-out. The tower itself is only 862,000 SF, with 640k-700k (depending on the source) of office. When I first linked the image of the USPS buildout, I thought it included the building above the bus terminal, but now I see it doesn't. Even still, that's 860,000 SF for the office tower + 2,500,000 max build out of the USPS site, plus the tower over the bus terminal, which can't be more than 500,000 totaling 3,860,000 SF mixed use, so not all office.

The Veolia & Mass DOT are certainly viable options as well, from feasibility point of view. The whole footprint of that site is 159,000 SF. Both existing buildings have a floor plate of ~13,000 SF. So let's say you built a single building with an average floor plate of ~30,000 SF. Per the Logan Airspace Map, the allowable height is 325'. Figuring 13' per floor, that's 25 floors, or another 750,000 SF. Getting there, but still not quite getting to the potential 8MSF required.
 
Meanwhile in DC....
The Washington, D.C., subway system is a mess — chronic delays, malfunctioning air conditioning and, earlier this year, it was shut down for a whole day because it was not safe to ride. The secretary of transportation has considered shutting down the whole system because of safety lapses, and the Metro system’s proposed solution involves shutting down five stretches of track entirely for at least a week (and single-tracking others for up to 42 days).
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Bostonians* always want superlatives when it comes to their city. We have to have either the best or the worst of anything. The worst possible thing you could say about Boston is that it is in any way 'average'.

*Ironically this may equally true in other cities as well.
 
Justin7 said:
Have you ever been outside of New England?

90 degree summer day:

"Boston is seriously the hottest city in the country!"

"Dude, it's been 108 in Texas all week."

"But I'm sweating! Nowhere is hotter than this!"
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Quite a bit actually.
 
tysmith95 said:
The T has its problems, but so does the NYC subway, EL in Chicago, and the Metro in DC. Boston's system isin't any less reliable then those cities. If you're looking at transit i'd say that Toronto probably has the most reliable system.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...-did-new-york-citys-subway-get-so-bad/533502/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...0921721165d_story.html?utm_term=.1395e89e1ff1
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All those systems have reliability issues, but they all do the job for the most part.

Also, as someone who was born and raised in Toronto, I wouldn't exactly say they have a system worth bragging about either. It is a bit more reliable than Boston's though.
 
Rover said:
Says who?
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Says our lack of housing and just barely managing to stabilize rents. Jobs are great, paired with housing. Jobs without housing gets you San Francisco.

In other words before we try enticing gigantic corporate expansions, we need to do better at building housing. Otherwise no one within a 100 mile radius of boston could afford their rents anymore. It's bad enough as it is.
 
Jouhou said:
Says our lack of housing and just barely managing to stabilize rents. Jobs are great, paired with housing. Jobs without housing gets you San Francisco.

In other words before we try enticing gigantic corporate expansions, we need to do better at building housing. Otherwise no one within a 100 mile radius of boston could afford their rents anymore. It's bad enough as it is.
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This is a problem of any city anybody wants to be in. SF, NY, etc etc. All attractive cities go through this. Blowing off jobs until everybody is adequately housed at a low price will result in stagnation as jobs and tax revenue migrate elsewhere. We don't like in a planned economy like China.

If cost of housing was the end all be all of job location, everybody would be flocking to Detroit, Cleveland, West Virginia and Mississippi. If they are, I must have missed that. Amazon HQ is a huge opportunity. Not saying housing considerations don't matter because they do, but its complete folly IMHO to try to close up the city to any increased business development under the guise of we need to solve the all these problems first.
 
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