Amazon HQ2: Vancouver as a candidate?

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

If Vancouver really gets the ~1000 jobs promised a few weeks back, we made out better than 62 other cities on that list.

We'll get much more than that. Not 50,000, but Amazon will still be the largest occupier of office space in downtown Vancouver within a decade.

[Sheba]

Amazon May Have Dropped a Clue About a Likely HQ2 Location

Amazon announced in September that it was searching North America for a site for a second major headquarters, dubbed HQ2, in addition to its massive Seattle base. But the e-commerce giant may have given a clue about a region it likes in recently uncovered plans to expand in one city.

Amazon is in talks to lease 500,000 square feet of offices in Boston’s Fort Point Channel neighborhood, a hot destination for tech companies, with an option to double the amount of space also being discussed, the Boston Globe reported on Thursday. The search started before Amazon publicly disclosed its HQ2 search, the paper said.

That sounds a lot like the first stage of the plan Amazon laid out for HQ2. Though the second headquarters is ultimately projected to house 50,000 workers in a $5 billion, 8-million square foot campus by 2027, Amazon said the first phase of the project would be to open about 500,000 square feet of space in 2019 in the new city.

[WarrenC12]

East coast? Home of MIT and Cambridge? Shocking!

[Klazu]

Sounds like they had made their mind way before the competition, which was only put up for additional tax rebates. Big companies doing what they do best...

I am not sure if the presense of MIT and Harvard really factored in it, as most Silicon Valley hiring is these days based diversity. Or is it just Google?

[jollyburger]

Anyone read the article?

Amazon’s Seaport search reportedly began months before the company announced in September that it wants to build a second headquarters — envisioned as a vast campus big enough for 50,000 workers — and before Boston emerged as a top contender for that project. And it is being conducted separately from the headquarters competition, sources say.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Sounds like they had made their mind way before the competition, which was only put up for additional tax rebates. Big companies doing what they do best...

I am not sure if the presense of MIT and Harvard really factored in it, as most Silicon Valley hiring is these days based diversity. Or is it just Google?

Yes, all of the government officials seemed to fall for the trap too.

As for MIT, no, it could be totally unrelated. It all depends what they are doing at this 2nd HQ.

[LeftCoaster]

It's not really a trap for the other governments though. You take your best shot at getting it with a rebate you think is beneficial to your region. Two outcomes occur.

1. You win! Horray, jobs and growth for all!
2. You lose. A competing city dropped their drawers and is going to be less competitive on other inducements in the future. Also a win!

[Sheba]

Amazon names 20 “finalist” cities in its new headquarters beauty pageant

This morning, Amazon posted its list of candidates under serious consideration for the company's second headquarters—a campus that the company expects to invest over $5 billion to build and will eventually house as many as 50,000 Amazon employees.

"It will be a full equal to our current campus in Seattle," a company spokesperson wrote in the announcement. "In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community."

...

Of the finalists, only Toronto is outside the continental US. Only one finalist, Los Angeles, is on the west coast; Denver, Dallas and Austin round out the field west of the Mississippi. And most of the finalists are clustered along the Atlantic coast, with the greater Washington DC area accounting for three of them (Washington DC itself, Montgomery County in Maryland, and Northern Virginia).

...

Many of the other cities on the list already are technology centers (Boston, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, and the DC area). Others are major commerce, shipping and transportation hubs—New York, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Nashville (home of a major FedEx facility). But there are a few surprises in the list. Columbus, Ohio is on the list, as well as Indianapolis and Miami.

[Pinion]

But... best place on earth™..

[s211]

Originally Posted by Pinion

But... best place on earth™..

With luck, that pretense will leave the room with Gregor.

[Pinion]

I think the BC Liberals are responsible for that one. Gregor is the Greenest City/ended homelessness in 2015 guy.

[Aroundtheworld]

Vancouver didn't really have a chance to begin with and that comes down to geography. Notice how few west coast cities there are.

[SpongeG]

they are opening a second vancouver office and adding 1000 workers here though

It presently has an office in downtown Vancouver as well as a distribution centre in Delta. In November the company announced it would open a second office in downtown Vancouver and add about 1,000 new workers to its current workforce of 1,800 in B.C.

https://www.biv.com/article/2018/1/a...vancouver-hq2/

[red-paladin]

Let's end this thread now that the decision has been made.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

they are opening a second vancouver office and adding 1000 workers here though



https://www.biv.com/article/2018/1/a...vancouver-hq2/

The new building at 401 Georgia is not the only space Amazon is adding.

They are taking a portion of a new Downtown tower as well.

Not sure if its public yet, so I wont mention details.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld

Vancouver didn't really have a chance to begin with and that comes down to geography. Notice how few west coast cities there are.

Nah, they wouldn't have stood a chance no matter where they were located. When you compare business climates, we fall painfully low.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Nah, they wouldn't have stood a chance no matter where they were located. When you compare business climates, we fall painfully low.

Plus, with our view cones and other height restrictions, where can they put their office towers should they choose to have them tall, just like those in Seattle? Vancouver will never stand a chance.

Seattle's Amazon towers:
https://skyrisecities.com/database/p.../amazon-towers

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Vin

Plus, with our view cones and other height restrictions, where can they put their office towers should they choose to have them tall, just like those in Seattle? Vancouver will never stand a chance.

Seattle's Amazon towers:
https://skyrisecities.com/database/p.../amazon-towers

159M to 163M... plenty of room to put those in under the viewcones.

Amazon didn't exclude Vancouver because of viewcones. I'd bet good money they have no idea what they are and couldn't care less when they found out what they were.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Amazon didn't exclude Vancouver because of viewcones. I'd bet good money they have no idea what they are and couldn't care less when they found out what they were.

That sounds very likely. They obviously rejected Vancouver because we haven't got a HUGE mall Downtown.

[northendMK]

I'm from Seattle, and there are many reasons why Vancouver didn't get it, but if you focus purely on the square footage requirements, Amazon currently occupies over 12 million square feet of office space in South Lake Union and downtown. They're planning on increasing their workforce here to 45,000, and are planning to occupy about 20 million square feet total when they get to that number. I've been looking around and it seems like the whole of Metro Vancouver has around 50 million square feet or so, and downtown Vancouver seems to cover a little more than half of that space.
This new HQ is supposed to have 50,000 employees, and if you use the same employee-to-square footage ratio then you're looking at half of the current supply of all office square footage in your metro area.
We were able to do this because South Lake Union was a total no man's land filled with parking lots, old warehouses, and teardowns, while still providing excellent freeway access. There's just no equivalent in Vancouver, unless you pave over Stanley Park lol