urbanSTL

addxb2 wrote:Transit might be the only definitive criteria they provided, but that isn't stopping a lot of cities from applying. I might be a little biased, but I dont think any rail less than 10 miles technically qualifies as mass transit. Streetcars are great for moving people around downtown and surrounding neighborhoods, but they're not ideal when dispersing large populations in multiple directions. IMO that alone eliminates: Nashville, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Raleigh, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Kansas City.

Charlotte has the LYNX Light Rail. It’s very well used.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here is an article about another new highrise Amazon is leasing in Seattle. There are some renderings of the nice new skyscraper (I'm a bit jealous) and also a map showing how vast their downtown Seattle campus is. take a look here: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/r ... kyscraper/

Less than a month after opening up a hunt for a second headquarters, Amazon has agreed to expand in Seattle in a big way.

The company confirmed Tuesday it has signed a lease for the entire office portion of a planned downtown skyscraper called Rainier Square that will become the second-tallest building in the Pacific Northwest.


Even by Amazon’s standards, the expansion is substantial: Rainier Square will be among the company’s biggest office buildings when it opens in three years, with room for more than 3,500 additional employees. It’s one of the biggest leases in Seattle history.

Amazon will occupy about 722,000 square feet in the development, which is in the early stages of construction. No other company in the city has a space that large in a single Class A office building.

Gallagher and Nicklaus on Amazon/STL: http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... c9ed3.html

It's amazing to me how much pure office space Amazon uses. I would have thought most of their space needs would be warehouses etc.

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2017

It's amazing to me how much pure office space Amazon uses. I would have thought most of their space needs would be warehouses etc.

I don't have any numbers but the massive amount of warehouse space outside of Seattle would probably dwarf its office space in terms of square footage. I believe Amazon is up to 1.5 to 2.0 millions square feet between Edwardsville/Gateway Center & Hazelwood alone. I think the argument is how centralized Amazon has become.

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2017

It's amazing to me how much pure office space Amazon uses. I would have thought most of their space needs would be warehouses etc.

I believe it is by far with their vast distribution warehouses all across the country. I had to laugh when I saw Sweeney from Eco Devo say we had an advantage with their warehouses here; those things are in metros all across the country.

STLrainbow wrote:

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2017

It's amazing to me how much pure office space Amazon uses. I would have thought most of their space needs would be warehouses etc.

I believe it is by far with their vast distribution warehouses all across the country. I had to laugh when I saw Sweeney from Eco Devo say we had an advantage with their warehouses here; those things are in metros all across the country.

I agree but I took it that they built relationships during the process of building the 3 warehouses and learned a lot about how Amazon operates. At least I hope that's what she meant.

^ right; but my point was so has every other region. Detroit, for example, has three distribution warehouses in the metro instead of our 2 and also has 300 office workers currently toiling away in a downtown office tower... it's these peers that have a current Amazon office presence that I think have a leg up in terms of relationships in terms of Amazon feeling comfortable with the biz community & office environment for potential second HQ. iirc Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Chicago were other Midwest cities with an Amazon office presence already established..

STLrainbow wrote:^ right; but my point was so has every other region. Detroit, for example, has three distribution warehouses in the metro instead of our 2 and also has 300 office workers currently toiling away in a downtown office tower... it's these peers that have a current Amazon office presence that I think have a leg up in terms of relationships in terms of Amazon feeling comfortable with the biz community & office environment for potential second HQ. iirc Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Chicago were other Midwest cities with an Amazon office presence already established..

I agree. Btw we also have 3... or is it 4?

STLrainbow wrote:

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2017

It's amazing to me how much pure office space Amazon uses. I would have thought most of their space needs would be warehouses etc.

I believe it is by far with their vast distribution warehouses all across the country. I had to laugh when I saw Sweeney from Eco Devo say we had an advantage with their warehouses here; those things are in metros all across the country.

Fair, but there are still several metros that do not have them. STL has three, which is more than most metros our size. I believe KCK, Nashville and Indy only have one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

STLrainbow wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2017

^ right; but my point was so has every other region. Detroit, for example, has three distribution warehouses in the metro instead of our 2 and also has 300 office workers currently toiling away in a downtown office tower... it's these peers that have a current Amazon office presence that I think have a leg up in terms of relationships in terms of Amazon feeling comfortable with the biz community & office environment for potential second HQ. iirc Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Chicago were other Midwest cities with an Amazon office presence already established..

Didn't realize the existing office presence in various cities. The fact that their is several might be better as one metro area really doesn't have an in at this point.

Also, I can also see this as a reason to push for another centralized location rather than growing multiple smaller offices in several cities. To take an example from brick and mortar retail, it didn't take Macy's long to start closing regional officers and consolidating when acquiring other department stores like what happened to Famous Barr/Downtown St. Lous. So Amazon going all on another centralized office to house more employees instead and start closing the other smaller offices that popped up but not as efficient to their operations.

Still believe the one and the only St. Louis advantage is ATT one center & the extremely cheap large amount space to be had/developed with the fiber/electrical infrastructure already in place

https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/12/ingre ... -st-louis/

Better than the Forbes article. Focuses more on the positives rather than “throw them a bone” angle.

Great article!

I think this one is a good one too. Written by James Carrington - President, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... anies.html

I heard that HOK has commissioned renderings for Amazon2STL. Any chance we ever get a glimpse of them?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

Oct 16, 2017

chaifetz10 wrote: ↑

Oct 16, 2017

What are the agencies that would have paid for such renderings? If someone can provide me with a list of the top 3-5 I'll put in a few FOIA requests.

Wasn't HOK going to do some pro bono stuff for the Amazon effort?

I believe HOK and Clayco came up with renderings, entirely pro bono. They also had numerous local film studios involved also. Considering Sheila Sweeney declined to make the bid public until submission a few days ago, a FOIA request will probably go unanswered, but it's worth a shot.

Chalupas54 wrote: ↑

Oct 16, 2017

ynot wrote: ↑

Oct 16, 2017

some very interesting proposals out there. the frenzy in competition is amazing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-h ... q2-2017-10

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/dear-jeff ... ty-better/

http://www.npr.org/2017/10/16/557567180 ... ths-to-sho

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/of ... tion-80273

Agreed, it's outrageous. Even tiny towns like Sioux Falls, SD and Fargo, ND are submitting proposals. It would not surprise me if Amazon doesn't announce until late 2018.

How about the $5B in tax incentives from NJ? It would take that much for anybody to move that state. haha.

ynot wrote: ↑

Oct 16, 2017

no surprise here - the location must have a strong pool of computer science majors to draw from and also have the ability to attract other talent to the region. be curious to hear what locals have to say about these two factors. like the exec in the article said - not everybody wants to move to the northwest, so they need a 2nd location that can open up the talent pool to choose from.


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/money/s ... hq2-search

My opinion remains the same on this. We DO have a strong pool of Computer Science majors to draw from. People get bogged down in thinking that our pool is limited to students attending college in St. Louis. It isn't.

The University of Illinois is 3 hours away and has a top 5 computer science program in the country. Many of those students are from St. Louis or southern Illinois (and identify with STL as their big city). Many others are from Chicago or other parts of the region and not averse to moving to St. Louis if the right job opportunity (such as a big company like Amazon) came calling. And still others are from elsewhere, but now familiar with the midwest and would consider a job with Amazon in St. Louis.

And that's just U of I which I harp on because it's my alma mater. There are other schools outside of say a 50 mile radius that surely increase our strong talent pool as well.

If that requirement eliminates us it's because Amazon didn't do their research or just because someone else has way more. But in no way are we lacking for good computer science majors.