Amazon HQ2 RFP

[bobthebuilder]

And if Amazon decides that HQ2 is going to house its robotics team, or its drone team, or its autonomous vehicle team, or its medical devices team, or its space travel team, or any other future technology teams, these teams are going to fit well in a tower?.

Probably not. Buy you know what would be a perfect building (at least physically) for that? The Innovation and Design Building. I don't know if a large tenant like Amazon would fit into Jamestown's leasing strategy for the building, but the building would be perfect for Amazon. It's mostly been divided up into smaller showroom type spaces, but the building lends itself well to modifications, and there is at least one large scale space available.

And if that doesn't work, they could always build to suit on the MassDot/Veolia, USPS, of available Fort Point parcels.

 

[CSTH]

My argument is that we shouldn't get caught up on exactly where to put Amazon. They want 500,000 initial square feet of office space, which in an urban area will inevitably be tall. After that, it's all a decade away. Let them negotiate their own property.

Agreed, to an extent. The rub is that state-owned / city-owned land could be an significant chunk of the total incentive bundle that Boston proposes, so anticipating which parcels that might include is central to thinking through what our bid package could look like.

(The parcels in question include the south bay / south station parcels, and the State Services building, among others...)

 

[TallIsGood]

For SST can the tower construction be started quickly because the foundations were done previously and it just starts rising?

 

[stellarfun]

For SST can the tower construction be started quickly because the foundations were done previously and it just starts rising?

In theory, yes.

But Amazon is insisting that its buildings in HQ2 be green buildings, you might even say, very green.

Assuming that Amazon offices in the first 500,000 square foot building have a high energy demand (i.e., very computer intensive), the existing design for SST may not have factored that in, particularly with respect to cooling and redundancy.

 

[stellarfun]

equilibria, I agree.

If you look at the rankings, Boston and the Bay area are the only two potential sites with two or more universities listed.

Pittsburgh rises and falls on Carnegie Mellon. If you lump Princeton with University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia has two. And if you lump Yale and Cornell with Columbia, NYC has three. (Caveat: I do not know what programs Cornell has or will have at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island in NYC.)

Denver and the entire expanse of country between Austin and coastal California has none.

 

[HenryAlan]

I don't know if SST would be enough space for Amazon but anything near SS is likely going to mean you'd have to throw in doing the NSRL+Indigo Line as well. So that's another 10 billion on top of the multiple billion in incentives you'd have to give Amazon. Starting to get rather pricey.

No, that's completely the wrong way to think about this. That's $10 billion we need to spend anyway, but will look like an incentive to Amazon.

 

[bigpicture7]

No, that's completely the wrong way to think about this. That's $10 billion we need to spend anyway, but will look like an incentive to Amazon.

Precisely. And it's not even a con: it will benefit amazon too.

 

[JohnAKeith]

This probably won't imbed but Tim Logan of the Globe says he's hearing rumors about a buildout of the Dorchester Ave corridor, which went through rezoning last year.

"Highlights potential Amazon site I'm hearing more about lately: Dot Ave corridor in Southie. 144 acres, zoned for 5-7M sf of office/industry" (his words)

https://twitter.com/bytimlogan/status/910186239931879425

 

[fattony]

This probably won't imbed but Tim Logan of the Globe says he's hearing rumors about a buildout of the Dorchester Ave corridor, which went through rezoning last year.

Highlights potential Amazon site I'm hearing more about lately: Dot Ave corridor in Southie. 144 acres, zoned for 5-7M sf of office/industry

https://twitter.com/bytimlogan/status/910186239931879425

I think the Dot Ave redev is infinitely preferable to Suffolk Downs. It would allow Amazon to stay connected to Kendall, Downtown, and Ft.P/Seaport through the Red Line (with its 50% capacity expansion already underway) with loads of room to grow.

I think that is the recipe. Downtown towers as needed for executives, finance, legal, some engineering. Kendall Square expansion as desired for the address. Dot Ave for the bulk of their purpose-built, mid-rise engineering offices. Excellent transit access. SL to the airport or they run their own shuttle to Logan. Proximity to I-90 and I-93.

If/when widett circle ever happens, it is right there to accept continued tech-sector growth that will surely follow on Amazon's heels. Expo Center redev is just one more stop away. Post Office site is on Dot Ave too...

 

[Arlington]

Somewhere (probably here) I saw a master plan of the area between Andrew and Broadway along Dot Ave, or at least a plan for one of the two big parcel owners. Can anyone recall that and link to it?

 

[stellarfun]

Question is whether Jeff Bezos sees the future similarly to Mr. Son, the head of SoftBank. Mr. Son said today,

I predict 30 years from now, the number of smart robots, the smart robot population on this earth will be 10 billion. By that time, human population will be around 10 billion. So here on this earth we will have 10 billion population of mankind and 10 billion population of smart robots. This is the first time on this earth that we live together with 10 billion robots.

Every industry that mankind created will be redefined. The medical industry, automobile industry, the information industry of course. Every industry that mankind ever defined and created, even agriculture, will be redefined. Because the tools that we created were inferior to mankind’s brain in the past. Now the tools become smarter than mankind ourselves. The definition of whatever the industry, will be redefined.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/...shi-son-softbank-artificial-intelligence.html

Positioning Amazon for that sort of future would reduce the number of cities to perhaps three: the Bay area, Boston, and New York.

 

[Arlington]

If additional space near Andrew were needed to ensure space available for "Phase III" for Amazon, would some or all of South Bay Center work for its owners and abutters? It would take a better cross-93 Connection, but not much more than that to tie it to Dot Ave.

 

[odurandina]

You guys should be the ones preparing the proposals for Amazon.

Brilliant insight the last several days.

 

[Equilibria]

Somewhere (probably here) I saw a master plan of the area between Andrew and Broadway along Dot Ave, or at least a plan for one of the two big parcel owners. Can anyone recall that and link to it?

This?

http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/8eee6e07-ab07-4b94-9016-fe7ab4436102

We have a thread on it somewhere in there.

 

[bakgwailo]

I think the Dot Ave redev is infinitely preferable to Suffolk Downs. It would allow Amazon to stay connected to Kendall, Downtown, and Ft.P/Seaport through the Red Line (with its 50% capacity expansion already underway) with loads of room to grow.

I think that is the recipe. Downtown towers as needed for executives, finance, legal, some engineering. Kendall Square expansion as desired for the address. Dot Ave for the bulk of their purpose-built, mid-rise engineering offices. Excellent transit access. SL to the airport or they run their own shuttle to Logan. Proximity to I-90 and I-93.

If/when widett circle ever happens, it is right there to accept continued tech-sector growth that will surely follow on Amazon's heels. Expo Center redev is just one more stop away. Post Office site is on Dot Ave too...

Exactly right and what I have been envisioning - package the SST along with the USPS redevelopment/reopening of Dot Ave with the "Midtown" rezoning already done going down from Broadway to Andrew would be perfect and enough room. If they needed more, we could always throw in Widett (right there), and the Veolia/Reggie Wong Memorial Park plots. Out of the "midtown" idea, though, no idea what the land acquisition costs would be (which might be the killer). I would imagine in the end something like:

Kind of rough, but it flows nicely together (provided we do something in the green to give a better pedestrian connection), and it would allow us to throw in all the free air rights projects we want over the tracks - because simply, why not? Getting the land east of dot ave would probably be tough, though, especially from Middle St -> Dot Ave -> Preble St -> Old Colony as its residential. Might be able to make anything else up on the few remaining parcels across the channel.

 

[Arlington]

This?

http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/8eee6e07-ab07-4b94-9016-fe7ab4436102

We have a thread on it somewhere in there.

Thanks! I think I'm remembering the massing plans that they sprinkle throughout. If they really could bundle most of that neighborhood (is there a parcel-ownership map in there that I missed?) that'd be ideal for Amazon.

 

[tysmith95]

They should put some sort of a park along Fort Point channel. That would appease some of the people wining about water access. Do that while allowing air rights development over most of the tracks like Hudson Yards.

Also you could add the land near I93 that Baker was advertising (but got no bids). As part of the bid for Amazon give that land away for free (and then get money from property taxes down the line).

 

[stefal]

Exactly right and what I have been envisioning

Kind of rough, but it flows nicely together (provided we do something in the green to give a better pedestrian connection), and it would allow us to throw in all the free air rights projects we want over the tracks - because simply, why not? Getting the land east of dot ave would probably be tough, though, especially from Middle St -> Dot Ave -> Preble St -> Old Colony as its residential. Might be able to make anything else up on the few remaining parcels across the channel.

This would be our best physical chance at attracting Amazon.
A little note about your green triangle: F-Line noted shortly after we lost the 2024 bid that the section of tracks next to the green triangle has been built with the vision that it would be decked over eventually. The space between the tracks is at the optimal width to allow for support columns to go in. You could get a nice pedestrian connection via an elevated park along with a building or two.

This plan is also optimal for the phenomenon that was expected with GE moving to the area and other companies relocating so they'd be close to GE. Amazon being added to the mix would probably bring more cloud computing, e-commerce, and general tech companies into the area, so even if Amazon doesn't end up doing a full 8m Sq ft build out, they'll have plenty of possible tenants looking to fill new office space along Dot Ave.

I don't get the attraction toward Suffolk Downs, and I seriously hope it isn't the main parcel they go with in the bid. Suffolk Downs is good for dense residential development, not one of the biggest and fastest growing international firms employing the best of the best in their field.

 

[stellarfun]

The attraction of Suffolk Downs is that there is one owner. Amazon appears to be placing a premium on acquiring land that is, at most, one or two short steps from being shovel-ready. It is not interested in a city's proposal which gets it the 500,000 sq ft building right away, which is then followed by a protracted, multi-year process of land acquisition, zoning, permitting, etc. It is not interested in land which comes with a municipal promise to build, by an uncertain date, the infrastructure to support development of the land.

It may be that the city will offer Amazon several options as potential sites. And for a potential site along Dot Ave., indicate that the city will work, by year's end, with the current property owners to see whether they are interested in selling.

One weak point in Boston 2024 was that organizers/city didn't own/control all the land for some of the major proposed new sites, and it was an iffy timeline to secure the necessary property interest in that land by the time the final bid was to be submitted to the IOC.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Funny you should suggest that ... It's almost as if the mayor heard you.

Walsh proposes ‘landmark’ park space along waterfront

Boston could soon be getting to work on a signature park along Fort Point Channel.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh Wednesday outlined plans to put a “landmark new green space” along the downtown waterway, linking Fort Point, Chinatown, and South Boston with a string of islands, marshes and pedestrian bridges he said would be a “new jewel in our park system.”

The city will partner with the Trustees of the Reservations, which has been working for two years to design a signature new park on Boston’s waterfront. Together they plan to “reimagine” the old industrial channel — where General Electric is building a gleaming new headquarters, but which is also lined on one side by Gillette, and on the other by a huge US Postal Service distribution facility — turning it into a space that would draw visitors from across the city while sparking new development nearby.

Our mayor's learned his lessons: promote public benefits first, and any corporate goodies second.

They should put some sort of a park along Fort Point channel. That would appease some of the people wining about water access. Do that while allowing air rights development over most of the tracks like Hudson Yards.