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  #2641  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2018, 10:28 PM
C. C. is offline
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
Agree with everything you're saying but 'WhipperSnapper' is an old boys club type. He's stubbornly stuck in his ways and intolerant of things being done differently than how he's used to. There's his way and the wrong way. He roundly ridiculed the suggestion that highrises would one day line Yonge Street from the traditional CBD to Yorkville. It's now unfolding exactly that way but he'll never admit that he was wrong.

Btw, lots of people in Toronto have criticized this proposal for not having residential. I'd be shocked if it progressed without residential regardless of how loudly some insist that they're right. Mixed use has been standard practice for many years already.
Ah, that makes sense now.

The Bloomberg article describes the East Harbour development in Toronto as 12,000,000 sq ft of office/retail over 60 acres. But no residential space. Sixty acres!?! For perspective, 60 acres is about 55 football fields or about 15 or so NYC blocks. That's a sizable area for any city to be dedicated towards a single-use.

I can only think of lower Manhattan pre 9/11. It was a ghost town after all the office workers went home. There has since been a number of new residential developments, including some office conversions to residential. It's been nothing but good for the area and it's much more lively at all hours. This positive changes in the neighborhood has also made it more attractive to commercial landlords as they compete against other commercial hot spots in Hudson Yards and Midtown East.

I'm amazed how 12,000,000 sqft of office is seen as good, but throw in the potential for some residential units to compliment the 50,000 workers and that's seen as bad, risks becoming a bedroom community, and eats up "employment lands." Just because that's what zoning says it should be.
     
     
  #2642  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2018, 11:01 PM
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Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17 View Post
HQ2 team has now been spotted touring Denver...

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/0...-tours-denver/
Over a month ago too........
     
     
  #2643  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2018, 11:01 PM
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And in other news Bezos is the richest person on the planet besting Bill Gates.

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#5652d8e6251c

$ 112,000,000,000 with a B. That's a crazy number.

He made 39 Billion in one year alone.

Scroll down to the video.
     
     
  #2644  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 1:45 AM
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  #2645  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 2:13 AM
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I suspect everyone will get a visit. Chicago had one a while ago.

I'm sure they will be back again. Rahm has keep any recent news out of the news.



https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/11/2...ds-finkl-steel

Amazon reps reportedly spotted touring Chicago’s former Finkl Steel site


The North Branch property is a central part of developer Sterling Bay’s bid to lure Amazon’s coveted HQ2 to Chicago...
     
     
  #2646  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 2:17 AM
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Originally Posted by CIA View Post
Ah, that makes sense now.

The Bloomberg article describes the East Harbour development in Toronto as 12,000,000 sq ft of office/retail over 60 acres. But no residential space. Sixty acres!?! For perspective, 60 acres is about 55 football fields or about 15 or so NYC blocks. That's a sizable area for any city to be dedicated towards a single-use.

I can only think of lower Manhattan pre 9/11. It was a ghost town after all the office workers went home. There has since been a number of new residential developments, including some office conversions to residential. It's been nothing but good for the area and it's much more lively at all hours. This positive changes in the neighborhood has also made it more attractive to commercial landlords as they compete against other commercial hot spots in Hudson Yards and Midtown East.

I'm amazed how 12,000,000 sqft of office is seen as good, but throw in the potential for some residential units to compliment the 50,000 workers and that's seen as bad, risks becoming a bedroom community, and eats up "employment lands." Just because that's what zoning says it should be.
First Gulf's East Harbour proposal lacking residential uses has nothing to do with zoning, which right now is probably a combination of old industrial zones since it used to be an industrial complex. But the current zoning is irrelevant. For a proposal of this size it's almost guaranteed that amendments to the Official Plan and zoning will be needed. In fact, an Official Plan amendment application was submitted to the city in 2015, with a rezoning application following more recently. First Gulf would have been discussing variations of this proposal with the city for years.

In any case, count me into the camp that thinks there should be residential in in the plan. Developing this big an area as a purely commercial district is a mistake, Amazon or no Amazon.

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Originally Posted by bnk View Post
I suspect everyone will get a visit.
They sure will.

As we watch Amazon, its ‘HQ2’ decision-makers are watching us

Amazon officials are “visiting the cities, and they’re not doing it with a lot of fanfare,” Tory said. “They’re visiting the cities that are on the shortlist and they are asking for more details of the things that were contained in the bid books and they’re going about a very methodical process of making their selection.”

In other words, Amazon visiting any particular city isn't news.
     
     
  #2647  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 3:12 AM
chicubs111 chicubs111 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bnk View Post
I suspect everyone will get a visit. Chicago had one a while ago.

I'm sure they will be back again. Rahm has keep any recent news out of the news.



https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/11/2...ds-finkl-steel

Amazon reps reportedly spotted touring Chicago’s former Finkl Steel site


The North Branch property is a central part of developer Sterling Bay’s bid to lure Amazon’s coveted HQ2 to Chicago...
I actually was reading just recently that Amazon will be visiting Chicago for site visits in the Spring..so right around the corner
     
     
  #2648  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 4:21 PM
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Originally Posted by chicubs111 View Post
I actually was reading just recently that Amazon will be visiting Chicago for site visits in the Spring..so right around the corner
Hope they let us know specifics on when/where. I'll take them for a few beers.
     
     
  #2649  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 4:33 PM
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Originally Posted by bnk View Post
And in other news Bezos is the richest person on the planet besting Bill Gates.

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#5652d8e6251c

$ 112,000,000,000 with a B. That's a crazy number.

He made 39 Billion in one year alone.
You're off by about $15 billion. He's around $127,000,000,000--as of yesterday.

Bill Gates is about 91,000,000,000, or $36 billion more than 2nd place Bill Gates.
     
     
  #2650  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 4:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bnk View Post
And in other news Bezos is the richest person on the planet besting Bill Gates.

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#5652d8e6251c

$ 112,000,000,000 with a B. That's a crazy number.

He made 39 Billion in one year alone.

Scroll down to the video.
Old news. He surpassed Gates a while back. Gates is giving much of his MSFT holdings away and AMZN is skyrocketing in market cap (it also just surpassed MSFT as #3 most valuable company) so the gap between Bezos and Gates is widening and Gates will never regain the lead. Unless Mrs. Bezos runs away with the pool boy and divorces him.
     
     
  #2651  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 6:39 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CIA View Post
Ah, that makes sense now.

The Bloomberg article describes the East Harbour development in Toronto as 12,000,000 sq ft of office/retail over 60 acres. But no residential space. Sixty acres!?! For perspective, 60 acres is about 55 football fields or about 15 or so NYC blocks. That's a sizable area for any city to be dedicated towards a single-use.

I can only think of lower Manhattan pre 9/11. It was a ghost town after all the office workers went home. There has since been a number of new residential developments, including some office conversions to residential. It's been nothing but good for the area and it's much more lively at all hours. This positive changes in the neighborhood has also made it more attractive to commercial landlords as they compete against other commercial hot spots in Hudson Yards and Midtown East.

I'm amazed how 12,000,000 sqft of office is seen as good, but throw in the potential for some residential units to compliment the 50,000 workers and that's seen as bad, risks becoming a bedroom community, and eats up "employment lands." Just because that's what zoning says it should be.
Wow. Are you ever stuck in a tunnel. Once again, the residential has/is/will be built to compliment this proposal as part of other developments. Toronto has an insatiable market for condos. Most if not all employment lands would have already been sacrificed in this neighborhood if left to the market. The first plan here was residential but, was quickly shut down. This development's scale is entirely based on Amazon moving here which we know are not favourable odds. It will be time consuming and difficult to fill a million square feet of office space without them. That's what I mean by opening the door to residential here. First Gulf/Great Gulf will just revert back to building condo towers with some ground floor retail spaces as "mixed use towers"

I'm a proponent of mixed use communities and, ideally that should be attained by mixed developments but, it doesn't always work that way for dense, growing, prewar suburbs with only a sliver of land for larger scaled employment opportunities along Eastern Avenue.

Manhattan scaled to this community would be tipped in the opposite direction. It has by far more employment space than housing. It needs to encourage residential development as much as possible.
     
     
  #2652  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 6:49 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mister F View Post
First Gulf's East Harbour proposal lacking residential uses has nothing to do with zoning, which right now is probably a combination of old industrial zones since it used to be an industrial complex. But the current zoning is irrelevant. For a proposal of this size it's almost guaranteed that amendments to the Official Plan and zoning will be needed. In fact, an Official Plan amendment application was submitted to the city in 2015, with a rezoning application following more recently. First Gulf would have been discussing variations of this proposal with the city for years.

This area has been identified as employment lands. Several residential development including this site have been squashed because of it. Has nothing to do with the current site specific zoning.
     
     
  #2653  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 6:53 PM
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Yep, this was tightened up at the Provincial level too when the PPS was updated. At this point it would not be an easy process to convert from employment lands and there are specific OMB cases in the area that set a precedent. As mentioned though there's plenty of both existing residential and new proposals that are literally within a short walk of the site.
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  #2654  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2018, 8:28 PM
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I'm looking at this not just from a planning policy standpoint (which I agree with) but, also from a neighbourhood context. I'm not opposed to residential here should the stars align and the proposal gets built. It'll still be an office park. The residential (say 3 million sq ft vs 12 million sq ft office will have little impact of the development's vibrancy but, there's no real negative connotations to adding residential either. The site is surrounded on two sides by ugly ass highways and warehousing on the other. It's on the edge of the existing community which has an amazing commercial centre.

There's absolutely no demand for 12 million square feet of office here. There's a long history of developers proposing office as candy and coming back several years later seeking to build residential instead. It's the basis behind these protective employment land policies. It's similar to the 100% rental replacement policy from a time when vacancies hovered around 0% and the only ones building were government sponsored non market housing projects.
     
     
  #2655  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2018, 2:13 AM
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About 3,000 housing units (guessing from 3 msf) in 60 acres would translate to a residential density of perhaps 45,000 per square mile. That's pretty good for an office district. Weekends would be much less activity than weekdays, but still good enough to keep most of the coffee shops open, support some good grocery options, etc. Lunch demand would be higher than dinner demand, but that could be offset by Amazon's cafeterias and a truck pod.
     
     
  #2656  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2018, 2:57 AM
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Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper View Post
This area has been identified as employment lands. Several residential development including this site have been squashed because of it. Has nothing to do with the current site specific zoning.
Yes, it has nothing to do with the current zoning. That's exactly what I said. You seem to be arguing that if you allow even one residential building in this district that floodgates will be opened to turn it into another Cityplace. That's not the case at all; the province has the power to keep that from happening. A plan with a healthy mix of commercial and residential could be approved.

Quote:
Originally Posted by niwell View Post
Yep, this was tightened up at the Provincial level too when the PPS was updated. At this point it would not be an easy process to convert from employment lands and there are specific OMB cases in the area that set a precedent. As mentioned though there's plenty of both existing residential and new proposals that are literally within a short walk of the site.
The Growth Plan policies prohibiting residential in employment areas aren't intended to be an iron clad ban on converting employment areas to non-employment uses. In fact, the Plan has specific criteria for employment land conversions. In certain situations employment lands can be and are being converted under those criteria. It could be argued that a plan with, say, a couple thousand units of residential mixed in with the office buildings would still protect the land for employment (office) uses.

The Growth Plan also has policies requiring complete communities and a mix of uses. While office uses do locate in business parks, they tend to concentrate in Urban Growth Centres (downtown, Yonge & Eglinton, Vaughan Centre, etc.), which are required to have a mix of uses including residential. East Harbour, despite being in an old industrial area, will more closely resemble the Urban Growth Centres than any office park, and will have more office and retail space than many of them. These Centres are required to have a mix of uses specifically because of the issues that have been brought up.

On a more general level, the fact that the East Harbour site is surrounded by residential and mixed neighbourhoods doesn't really help the vibrancy of the business district itself. Almost all business districts criticized for being lifeless are surrounded by residential uses. A mix of uses is required in the district, not nearby. Even the Financial District at King & Bay has some residential in it. Even more so in Southcore, which is much more central than East Harbour.
     
     
  #2657  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2018, 3:30 AM
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If the Growth Plan has policies requiring complete communities and a mix of uses, does that mean that all residential developments are also required to have a notable office component?
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  #2658  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2018, 11:08 PM
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Amazon Officials Hit Dallas-Fort Worth on tour of HQ2 finalist sites

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Amazon.com Inc. executives have visited North Texas in the search for a place to plant the company's $5 billion second headquarters and the 50,000 jobs it will bring.

The DFW mission was part of visits Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) plans or has conducted in the 20 metro areas the e-commerce titan listed in January as finalists for the megaproject.

Sources told the Dallas Business Journal privately that they have seen or met with Amazon representatives in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. An Amazon spokesman on Wednesday denied claims from local sources that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was part of the tour.

Officials at the Dallas Regional Chamber, the group heading up the North Texas bid, weren't talking about whether, where or when Amazon visited. Chamber spokesman Darren Grubb declined to comment on Amazon other than to reiterate what the company has stated publicly.

“They intend to dive deeper into the data and visit each of the finalist markets,” Grubb said in an email Tuesday.

The DFW-area proposal includes pitches from about a dozen cities and lays out more than 30 potential sites for HQ2. The official regional proposal has not been disclosed, but many city officials, developers, property owners and architects have spoken to the Dallas Business Journal about their proposals.

Sites in downtown Dallas seemed to be the frontrunners when Amazon visited in February, sources familiar with the search said.

In addition to Dallas, Fort Worth, Frisco, Allen, Plano, Irving, Richardson, Denton, Carrollton and Westlake are among the North Texas cities believed to be represented in the DFW packet sent to Amazon.

If it goes to downtown Dallas, Amazon’s HQ2 could anchor the proposed bullet train station, go into one or more of the city's existing skyscrapers, be part of Victory Park, or anchor a redevelopment planned for the area surrounding Fair Park, among other Big D choices.
https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/n...n-tour-of.html
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  #2659  
Old Posted Mar 9, 2018, 1:28 AM
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Quavo Pitches Atlanta for Amazon's HQ2 | TMZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4zhPLfHIVA

Last edited by James Bond Agent 007; Mar 9, 2018 at 2:52 AM.
     
     
  #2660  
Old Posted Mar 9, 2018, 1:43 AM
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I predict this thread will explode when the top 5 are release. Let the games begin!



The competition will heat up. It wouldn't suprise me if proposals are tweaked, possibly even grandiose in their nature. More-so than now.
     
     
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