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Perhaps missing in this mini-argument, is Seattle's light rail has been developing for more than 15 years and continues to expand. Busses are perhaps the best system in the country, but light rail is coming along. Also there is commuter heavy rail from Seattle to Tacoma.
Location: In a perfect world winter does not exist
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Have anyone been to Seattle lately? See the " vibrancy" Amazon created. The city has sometimes 730-830pm freeway jams now! Lovely! 700k for a house if you're lucky to get in at that bargain price. Mean spirited drivers and people everywhere all in a rush, not only on business weekdays but weekends and nights and mornings- its a enormous rat race now . Go ahead and beg your mayor to land them, many people in Seattle will only feel pity for what you bought. Its fools gold, for the quality of life loss.
Have anyone been to Seattle lately? See the " vibrancy" Amazon created. The city has sometimes 730-830pm freeway jams now! Lovely! 700k for a house if you're lucky to get in at that bargain price. Mean spirited drivers and people everywhere all in a rush, not only one weekdays but weekends and nights and mornings. Go ahead and beg your mayor to land them, many people in Seattle will only feel pity for what you bought. Its fools gold, for the quality of life loss.
While Seattle is changing, I think your description is a bit over the top. 730-830pm is generous. Actually it is 430am-830pm, but I digress. Seattle is still affordable compared to SF and LA. As for mean spirited drivers, actually they have always been there, but in different forms. Welcome to Seattle 2017.
Jeff Bezos has homes in Medina, NYC, Beverly Hills, and Washington DC.
From my experience, CEOs generally move their companies to where they like/want to live. I very highly doubt this matters a bit to Jeff, but just throwing it out there.
It won't be LA though.
Absolutely. And that is why I predicted DC or environs for the 2nd HQ way back in this thread. He friggin' owns The Washington Post!
I hate that the quote you quoted doesn't come show up- I wasn't thinking when I hit multi-quote. Anyway, it was about 500,000 of vacant office space. Detroit doesn't have that much class A office space in Detroit proper. Southfield or Troy might have some, I'm not really sure which buildings are Class A and which are not.
The Penobscot probably has that much space, but I'm not sure if it is currently ranked as Class B or C. It would likely be chopped up. I think the last advertisement I saw had around 240,000 square feet as the maximum, which is likely just the maximum continuous space.
But until Gilbert's rehabs finish up, there aren't many options right now without a large lengthy renovation. The Stott should be done next year, but it is supposed to be mixed use. I'm not sure when the Book Tower/Building will be done. And they haven't even started on the old Free Press Building yet.
Anyway, there is office space- but the only available usable is subpar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CentralCarmel
I would love this more than anything. But can Dan Gilbert share the spotlight?
He has actually been actively pursuing this. He has done a pretty good job at convincing people to come to the city so far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pnwguy2
Detroit, on further thought, might not be as crazy as I initially thought. Seriously, it would probably be able to offer great incentives, and it is centrally located with easy access to many major population centers. (Though, not sure how important that would be for a corporate center). It does offer a lot of land not only in suburban areas but near downtown. Delta offers not only direct but several nonstops to Seattle and could easily expand it.
However, and this is a BIG however, Detroit would be a major gamble for Amazon. One that, knowing this company, is not likely one they would take. Some of the criteria simply don't work. While there are high quality Universities nearby, the city itself is not exactly a tech center, atleast compared to others in consideration, (Boston, Philly, NY, Atlanta, Austin, SF, the list goes on). The Amazon culture would be another area that would likely not work, as attracting young tech types to Detroit could be challenging.
But it is an interesting thought...
Quicken has close to 15,000 employees downtown right now, the majority young Millenials. They have a large technology department, and he was building (maybe it is done) a large 'tech hub' for the company because they are so tech focused. My point- it won't be as hard as you think. These people already exist and I'm sure there are more where they came from.
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As Detroit area newspapers have been reporting (and someone posted the link earlier), Detroit's biggest hurdle will be the lack of mass transit. We have two bus systems that are a mess. A light rail line that is barely 3 miles long that does back and forth down a single road. A monorail system that circles downtown. Other than that, mass transit is non-existent.
Jeff Bezos has homes in Medina, NYC, Beverly Hills, and Washington DC.
From my experience, CEOs generally move their companies to where they like/want to live. I very highly doubt this matters a bit to Jeff, but just throwing it out there.
It won't be LA though.
I don't think it will be LA either but I think LA is by far the strongest candidate in the western US. It exceeds pretty much every requirement they put forth. People will make snarky comments about transit of course, but if we're using Seattle as a baseline LA is light years beyond that. Also, having their HQ offices right where they already film most of their Amazon Studios stuff (like every pilot from the first round was filmed and set in LA) has to be looking good to them.
BTW, for those who are not familiar, Medina is a wealthy neighborhood just east of Seattle across Lake Washington near suburban Bellevue. Bill Gates lives there.
Have anyone been to Seattle lately? See the " vibrancy" Amazon created. The city has sometimes 730-830pm freeway jams now! Lovely! 700k for a house if you're lucky to get in at that bargain price. Mean spirited drivers and people everywhere all in a rush, not only on business weekdays but weekends and nights and mornings- its a enormous rat race now . Go ahead and beg your mayor to land them, many people in Seattle will only feel pity for what you bought. Its fools gold, for the quality of life loss.
You say that as if Seattle was a small town just a couple years ago or something...
In its proposal, Amazon said it's looking for a city of more than 1 million people with an international airport, mass transit, quality higher education, an educated workforce and a solid business climate.
That rules out Atlanta immediately. Sorely lacking in mass transit and higher education comparatively speaking. I think it would come down to Philly, Chicago, Boston. New York and SF are too expensive and oversaturated. Solid business climate is negotiable with tax incentives.
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