I don't think anyone can rank the cities with any certainty in the order that Amazon prefers as we only have a vague outline of what they are looking for and no one knows how they weigh the various factors that they are considering.
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This would be my preferred target area. Bleed over could be south into Chouteau Landing and Kosciusko, north into downtown or west into downtown west.
Many opportunities for developable land
Access to 4 highways
light rail current and proposed
Amtrak
Nearby connections to bike trails and bike lanes
Strong utility connections
Close to international airport
Nearby Residential and residential Possibilities
You could propose a separate modern streetcar line running or mini light car line running north to south as vision of connecting NGA/North St. Louis to downtown cut over & down Broadway in the heart of Moorlander proposed Amazon development area to Soulard/Lemp Brewerey. This would make area even more transit rich and essentially create an x configuration between proposed N-S alignment and a separate city street car/or new but shorter street running light rail route. .moorlander wrote: ↑Sep 08, 2017
This would be my preferred target area. Bleed over could be south into Chouteau Landing and Kosciusko, north into downtown or west into downtown west.
Many opportunities for developable land
Access to 4 highways
light rail current and proposed
Amtrak
Nearby connections to bike trails and bike lanes
Strong utility connections
Close to international airport
Nearby Residential and residential Possibilities
^ Moorlander,
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That is the area I initially thought of as well. The border for this site would be under 2 miles around the outside, with the majority of lots being on the south and eastern half. In a dream world, they would occupy all remaining space in BPV, and tear down both garages for towers (with parking built in possibly). Continue east and renovate the Millennium site and open lots to the south of 40. In this same dream world, the exits onto Clark at 10th/9th would be reworked also to fit future buildings on those lots.
Even walking from corner to corner would be less than 1 mile, and transportation to the site is very well connected, being centered around a metro stop serving both lines, and (hopefully) with connections to a third in the future. Add in access to every highway, the arch grounds next door, it looks good. AT&T could be too far away from this to work, not sure.
That is the area I initially thought of as well. The border for this site would be under 2 miles around the outside, with the majority of lots being on the south and eastern half. In a dream world, they would occupy all remaining space in BPV, and tear down both garages for towers (with parking built in possibly). Continue east and renovate the Millennium site and open lots to the south of 40. In this same dream world, the exits onto Clark at 10th/9th would be reworked also to fit future buildings on those lots.
Even walking from corner to corner would be less than 1 mile, and transportation to the site is very well connected, being centered around a metro stop serving both lines, and (hopefully) with connections to a third in the future. Add in access to every highway, the arch grounds next door, it looks good. AT&T could be too far away from this to work, not sure.
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One wild card in all this could be the idea that depending on where they go, they could immediately be the alpha dog in a business community. There could be appeal on their part in being able to play that role in a number of places that might not be the case if they are in too large a market. Also as mentioned the large metros has cost of living issues and space issues that could pose an issue and smaller places could have the airport service issues to the destinations mentioned and enough pool of talent issues. Here seems to fall in the middle where everything does tick off and no significant pitfall depending on what the criteria is.
+1, part of the reason I'm high on this. I think we have a much better shot than people almost want to believe.imperialmog wrote: ↑Sep 08, 2017One wild card in all this could be the idea that depending on where they go, they could immediately be the alpha dog in a business community. There could be appeal on their part in being able to play that role in a number of places that might not be the case if they are in too large a market. Also as mentioned the large metros has cost of living issues and space issues that could pose an issue and smaller places could have the airport service issues to the destinations mentioned and enough pool of talent issues. Here seems to fall in the middle where everything does tick off and no significant pitfall depending on what the criteria is.
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Before and after pics of Seattle's and Amazon's SLU area (South Lake Union).
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... his-place/It’s all happened so quickly.
You don’t have to be a lifelong Seattleite to remember the old, down-at-heel South Lake Union of the 1990s — less a neighborhood than a patchwork of parking lots, warehouses and low-slung industrial buildings. It felt like a ghost town, even at midday.
No more.
Today, 36,000 people work in the neighborhood, almost a 50 percent jump just since 2009, the year before Amazon relocated its headquarters here from Beacon Hill. At the corner of Westlake and Denny — where Whole Foods opened in 2006 — the number of pedestrians nearly quadrupled in just five years, according to counts conducted by the Downtown Seattle Association. At peak time, 1,711 people cross there every hour — their faces buried in their phones, no doubt.
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The alpha dog theory and if they want to be that, it could work in this areas favor due to the churn in such role around here lately along with a new crop of startup companies that could provide the talent pool and would swim along with them. A place like Chicago they would just be a player but not the player. (also Illinois budget issues could be another hinderance) A place like Detroit they would be a second fiddle to the Auto industry who plays such a role and could be a big negative on that location.
Another factor could be weather due to the nature of what they do. They may factor in weather or not weather conditions could exist that shut down operations in an area in things like blizzards or hurricanes. Any place north or on east coast blizzards would have a degree of regularity while here they are rare (and places south lesser snow could have same effect) and coastal areas have hurricane threats.
If they want to be transformative for an area and also to not have a perception of being coastal elites that are sucking the wealth from middle America, then here could very well be a good candidate. Especially since its large enough area to have the air service requirements already present and the talent pool. Another thought could be if they want to be politically influential they could here in terms of having a large stick in state politics as a result.
Another factor could be weather due to the nature of what they do. They may factor in weather or not weather conditions could exist that shut down operations in an area in things like blizzards or hurricanes. Any place north or on east coast blizzards would have a degree of regularity while here they are rare (and places south lesser snow could have same effect) and coastal areas have hurricane threats.
If they want to be transformative for an area and also to not have a perception of being coastal elites that are sucking the wealth from middle America, then here could very well be a good candidate. Especially since its large enough area to have the air service requirements already present and the talent pool. Another thought could be if they want to be politically influential they could here in terms of having a large stick in state politics as a result.
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Would choosing to relocate St. Louis (or the midwest) offer any strategic role in Amazon continuing to take the fight to Walmart, HQ'd in Bentonville, AR?
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I enjoyed this piece by Tony Messenger
Messenger: An open letter to Amazon owner Jeff Bezos: St. Louis has a paywall
Dear Mr. Bezos,
In coming weeks, all the best and brightest economic development professionals in every major city except for Seattle will be offering you a ransom in gold. Already, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, and St. Clair County Chairman Mark Kern have announced their intention to put together a passel of goodies to lure Amazon to bring HQ2 and its promised 50,000 employees to the St. Louis region. Kansas City will get in the game. So will nearly every metropolitan area with at least 1 million people in the country, from Chicago to Atlanta, Dallas to Boston.
Experts are saying the offers will resemble the packages offered Boeing a few years back when it sought a new manufacturing base for its 777X commercial airline. Missouri offered nearly $2 billion.
read more
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/colu ... user-share
Messenger: An open letter to Amazon owner Jeff Bezos: St. Louis has a paywall
Dear Mr. Bezos,
In coming weeks, all the best and brightest economic development professionals in every major city except for Seattle will be offering you a ransom in gold. Already, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, and St. Clair County Chairman Mark Kern have announced their intention to put together a passel of goodies to lure Amazon to bring HQ2 and its promised 50,000 employees to the St. Louis region. Kansas City will get in the game. So will nearly every metropolitan area with at least 1 million people in the country, from Chicago to Atlanta, Dallas to Boston.
Experts are saying the offers will resemble the packages offered Boeing a few years back when it sought a new manufacturing base for its 777X commercial airline. Missouri offered nearly $2 billion.
read more
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/colu ... user-share
Apparently the whole Chouteau landing area went on sale today. I find that to be interesting timing.dredger wrote: ↑Sep 08, 2017You could propose a separate modern streetcar line running or mini light car line running north to south as vision of connecting NGA/North St. Louis to downtown cut over & down Broadway in the heart of Moorlander proposed Amazon development area to Soulard/Lemp Brewerey. This would make area even more transit rich and essentially create an x configuration between proposed N-S alignment and a separate city street car/or new but shorter street running light rail route. .moorlander wrote: ↑Sep 08, 2017
This would be my preferred target area. Bleed over could be south into Chouteau Landing and Kosciusko, north into downtown or west into downtown west.
Many opportunities for developable land
Access to 4 highways
light rail current and proposed
Amtrak
Nearby connections to bike trails and bike lanes
Strong utility connections
Close to international airport
Nearby Residential and residential Possibilities
^ Either way, it's nice and hopefully it changes hands for the better. I know they had planned a redevelopment about a decade ago, but it stalled when the recession hit and I believe they were only able to rehab a couple of the buildings on Broadway (Imo's, etc.).
Edit: Do you have a link with the sale?
http://www.rejournals.com/Articles/2017 ... erty-redevbwcrow1s wrote: ↑Sep 08, 2017^ Either way, it's nice and hopefully it changes hands for the better. I know they had planned a redevelopment about a decade ago, but it stalled when the recession hit and I believe they were only able to rehab a couple of the buildings on Broadway (Imo's, etc.).
Edit: Do you have a link with the sale?
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looks like that UMSL report is looking at all people while the Market Watch report was looking at percentage of adults, which I believe is more appropriate for labor/workforce data.This is 5 years old but no county in the area was over 24% in 2012
16.7% for the region.... woof...
https://pprc.umsl.edu/pprc.umsl.edu/dat ... -Nov14.pdf
I don't know what the metro average is but STL City is rapidly gaining on that front (32% 2011-2015 ACS data; County at 42%) and I believe has a higher percentage of adults over 25 with a B.A. or higher than Indianapolis. Still a ways to catch up with the likes of Pittsburgh and Minneapolis but there's definitely an increase. (Unfortunately part of that I think is the decimation of North City, which continues to hemorrhage people.)
As for the Marketwatch report, I think it has some fault with not taking into account the size of Metros... e.g. if Saint Louis metro at 2.8M people is just a few percentage points below a smaller region of say 2.1M people, (i.e.Kansas City), you very well may have a more talented and deeper worker pool with B.A.s than Kansas City, Perhaps a better way to look at things is the number of college educated workers within an hour commute or something similar.
A gutted out and modernized, soon-to-be-vacated SBC/ATT Building would be perfect for a single-tenant like Amazon.
Underground MetroLink station across the street and three interstates (44, 70 and 55) just blocks away.
Three commercial airports - including Downtown St. Louis Airport - 30 minutes or less away.
The exterior could use some work too - like nighttime LED lighting to reflect Amazon's logo and colors.
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Underground MetroLink station across the street and three interstates (44, 70 and 55) just blocks away.
Three commercial airports - including Downtown St. Louis Airport - 30 minutes or less away.
The exterior could use some work too - like nighttime LED lighting to reflect Amazon's logo and colors.
The older I've gotten, the more cynical I've gotten, so it's now easy for me to look at it this way....but
This is perhaps the most cynical play by a large American company in my lifetime.
Amazon already knows what 2-3 cities it wants to (and can) build this new HQ in. It’s known for years. This RFP stunt is just a way to 1) extract more tax payer subsidy from those 2-3 cities truly in the running and 2) get people to talk about Amazon.
Worst of all? Cities like STL will waste resources, brainpower and creativity to try to lure something that was never – EVER – going to happen.
Brookings offers my take better than I can. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-aven ... d-herring/
In many ways, this is similar to all the time, effort and money ($30MM?) STL spent trying to keep the Rams here. We never had a real shot at the Rams staying, pretty much knew it, yet chased them anyway.
This is perhaps the most cynical play by a large American company in my lifetime.
Amazon already knows what 2-3 cities it wants to (and can) build this new HQ in. It’s known for years. This RFP stunt is just a way to 1) extract more tax payer subsidy from those 2-3 cities truly in the running and 2) get people to talk about Amazon.
Worst of all? Cities like STL will waste resources, brainpower and creativity to try to lure something that was never – EVER – going to happen.
Brookings offers my take better than I can. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-aven ... d-herring/
In many ways, this is similar to all the time, effort and money ($30MM?) STL spent trying to keep the Rams here. We never had a real shot at the Rams staying, pretty much knew it, yet chased them anyway.
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Would our lack of a JFK flight hurt in this regard? LGA and EWR are pretty well served from here, but one would think that a nonstop JFK flight would be even better.
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^^^ Assuming Amazon found the building suitable for its initial needs, I wonder what it would be willing to pay and the receivership group willing to accept.
Anyway, the first 1M -2M sq. ft. of space for the first phases probably is the easy part for us; the more challenging is being able to provide the top-notch overall urban environment for the build out of 8M sq. ft. I guess in a way it would be nice if instead of one massive second HQ, Amazon broke that up into a number of large regional offices which could definitely boost places like Saint Louis and Detroit but be more manageable. Kinda like when the big lottery payout is split between a couple players with the winning numbers.
Anyway, the first 1M -2M sq. ft. of space for the first phases probably is the easy part for us; the more challenging is being able to provide the top-notch overall urban environment for the build out of 8M sq. ft. I guess in a way it would be nice if instead of one massive second HQ, Amazon broke that up into a number of large regional offices which could definitely boost places like Saint Louis and Detroit but be more manageable. Kinda like when the big lottery payout is split between a couple players with the winning numbers.
I believe NJ PATH trains are going to be extended to Newark, EWR, which essentially make a one trip ride from the airport into lower Manhattan/world trade center. All three airports getting major retrofits but the PATH extension from my take & travels in and out of the city will be huge for EWRTrololzilla wrote: ↑Sep 09, 2017Would our lack of a JFK flight hurt in this regard? LGA and EWR are pretty well served from here, but one would think that a nonstop JFK flight would be even better.
I don't think JFK matters. From what I have heard by NYC travelers it is the worst of the bunch to travel domestically through and they prefer LGA (not counting current construction headaches). JFK is better for a gateway to international flights. While it would be good to have that option, going through DTW, ATL, EWR, ORD is just as good in that respect.Trololzilla wrote: ↑Sep 09, 2017Would our lack of a JFK flight hurt in this regard? LGA and EWR are pretty well served from here, but one would think that a nonstop JFK flight would be even better.
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Email I received back from Terry Beach, economic director of St. Clair County. Very reassuring.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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^ that makes sense.... I guess it would be like if NGA wasn't already in STL and was soliciting proposals from a variety of cities and STL region saying here are three decent options for you.
Somewhat similarly I was reading about Detroit's effort which looks like they'll be looking at selling various spots as part of an attractive overall package... e.g. main HQ downtown but also having a place for them in Oakland County's Automotive Alley where a lot or research/testing is going on with autonomous vehicles and could be attractive for any Amazon artificial intelligence initiatives.
Bringing it to Saint Louis, I could envision a main campus in downtown but also Amazon being interested in taking up a decent amount of space in Cortex (easily connected by Metrolink) and potentially the county or Metro East for other needs.
Somewhat similarly I was reading about Detroit's effort which looks like they'll be looking at selling various spots as part of an attractive overall package... e.g. main HQ downtown but also having a place for them in Oakland County's Automotive Alley where a lot or research/testing is going on with autonomous vehicles and could be attractive for any Amazon artificial intelligence initiatives.
Bringing it to Saint Louis, I could envision a main campus in downtown but also Amazon being interested in taking up a decent amount of space in Cortex (easily connected by Metrolink) and potentially the county or Metro East for other needs.
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Hmmm folks in Kansas City think St.Louis shouldn't even make a bid they believe Kansas City is the better city heres where i step in and say no you aren't! What does Kansas City have that St.Louis doesn't have. If your response is the same ole tacky tactics that the crimes horrible its too ghetto and its lost population for over half a century then go right ahead cause i can still say we may be that but we still have 8 fortunate 500s a light rail a better suited airport a better inland port a better interstate system. On top of that we have the best zoo the best urban park still well connected neighborhoods a appealing urban experience great universities the the most beautiful monument on the planet also Downtown is back on the upswing.
If i had an opinion St.Louis is probably the most underrated city in this country and amazon could make much more of a difference here than any of those cities that are on the list including Kansas City.
St.Louis doesn't take up over 300 sq miles in 3-4 different counties its a compact city.
All I'm saying if all folks in Kansas City have to say is how crime ridden St.Louis is sorry to tell you this! Kansas City isn't too far behind.
Just tired of people in Kansas City attacking St.Louis.
If i had an opinion St.Louis is probably the most underrated city in this country and amazon could make much more of a difference here than any of those cities that are on the list including Kansas City.
St.Louis doesn't take up over 300 sq miles in 3-4 different counties its a compact city.
All I'm saying if all folks in Kansas City have to say is how crime ridden St.Louis is sorry to tell you this! Kansas City isn't too far behind.
Just tired of people in Kansas City attacking St.Louis.
Let them attack. No one that matters in things like this is looking at their blogs. They can live in their fantasy world if it makes them happier.St.Louis1764 wrote: ↑Sep 09, 2017Hmmm folks in Kansas City think St.Louis shouldn't even make a bid they believe Kansas City is the better city heres where i step in and say no you aren't! What does Kansas City have that St.Louis doesn't have. If your response is the same ole tacky tactics that the crimes horrible its too ghetto and its lost population for over half a century then go right ahead cause i can still say we may be that but we still have 8 fortunate 500s a light rail a better suited airport a better inland port a better interstate system. On top of that we have the best zoo the best urban park still well connected neighborhoods a appealing urban experience great universities the the most beautiful monument on the planet also Downtown is back on the upswing.
If i had an opinion St.Louis is probably the most underrated city in this country and amazon could make much more of a difference here than any of those cities that are on the list including Kansas City.
St.Louis doesn't take up over 300 sq miles in 3-4 different counties its a compact city.
All I'm saying if all folks in Kansas City have to say is how crime ridden St.Louis is sorry to tell you this! Kansas City isn't too far behind.
Just tired of people in Kansas City attacking St.Louis.
The NYT runs through the criteria and finds Denver the best fit, no real surprise, Denver has an enviable balance of urban and outdoor life that has made it magnet for transplants, has good infrastructure, yet keeps COL low compared to the coastal cities it is often compared to.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... p=cur&_r=0
However if it was that simple, it would already be done, and the margins on some of the qualifications between candidates are razor thin.
The wild card will be the intangibles. Bezos thought the area where they built in Seattle had "soul" - whatever that means to him will factor into the final draw... and that is something that is already existing in one of the candidate cities, you are not going to create it in the next year. His definition of soul could be quite different from what we might think it is.
Like I said earlier, its like the lottery, its fun to dream and someone has to win, but buy the ticket without expectations.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... p=cur&_r=0
However if it was that simple, it would already be done, and the margins on some of the qualifications between candidates are razor thin.
The wild card will be the intangibles. Bezos thought the area where they built in Seattle had "soul" - whatever that means to him will factor into the final draw... and that is something that is already existing in one of the candidate cities, you are not going to create it in the next year. His definition of soul could be quite different from what we might think it is.
Like I said earlier, its like the lottery, its fun to dream and someone has to win, but buy the ticket without expectations.