Amazon planning second headquarters with 50,000 jobs

[The Yen Man]

I would think it would make way more sense for them to have it near the airport, especially with how much land they want to use.

[rotten42]

Originally Posted by surferguy

My guess would be a DT campus eventually in the west village

Not a chance in hell. Not enough room for the size of campus they need in Quarry park and downtown doesn't fit what they asked for. I'm thinking up by the airport if it happened...but it won't.

[Ozy_Flame]

Why does it have to be near the airport? Is this confirmed to be a manufacturing and shipping facility? Is their current headquarters not basically in downtown Seattle to begin with?

It's 15 miles to the airport from that location.

[The Yen Man]

I just can't see anywhere downtown that has the space Amazon wants. Near the airport, it's cheap land, they can expand however big they want, and its still easy to get downtown if needed. Why does it need to be downtown?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Why does it have to be near the airport? Is this confirmed to be a manufacturing and shipping facility? Is their current headquarters not basically in downtown Seattle to begin with?

It's 15 miles to the airport from that location.

Land availability and costs would be major factors, not to mention the close proximity to the purolator depot.(assuming purolator still has their contract with Amazon)

[Ozy_Flame]

A football field is 57,600 sq ft. Amazon needs 8,000,000 sq ft on the new campus.

West village is 6 million square feet.

They would basically have to level half of sunalta to fit it in, in addition to all of the west village. Assuming the campus needs to be all in one place.

Growing vertical though, that's a different story.

[DiracSpike]

I'd love Calgary to get this, but

1: Being in Canada hurts our chances, and being relatively to close to Seattle really hurts our chances.

2: I don't see how we could compete with big metro US centers. Just taking one, Atlanta, the advantages are numerous. Cheaper cost of living than here, more nightlife and restaurants, the busiest airport in the world with direct flights to every major US cities and way more international destinations, a sprawling suburbia with lots of freeway capacity and land for Amazon to build the campus it wants, and existing companies in the area with lots of experience with logistics like UPS and Coca Cola.

Calgary gets beat on most of those counts, especially the airport. I believe the only US city on the east cost we get direct service to is NYC, and the only SE destinations are Florida vacation spots.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

A football field is 57,600 sq ft. Amazon needs 8,000,000 sq ft on the new campus.

West village is 6 million square feet.

They would basically have to level half of sunalta to fit it in, in addition to all of the west village. Assuming the campus needs to be all in one place.

Growing vertical though, that's a different story.

Campuses can definitely be vertical. I think there's a misnomer of what a 'campus' is based on the physical manifestation of universities and colleges that didn't have a need to build vertically past 5-6 floors, max. This, however, is a increasingly outdated design principle.

Here's an article from HOK, a world-renowned design firm, that explains the trend towards vertical campuses:

http://www.hok.com/about/news/2017/0...porate-campus/

On the flip side, several well-known Silicon Valley brands (Salesforce, LinkedIn, Twitter and Airbnb) recently have bucked the suburban-campus trend and done the “once unthinkable” for tech giants. They’ve moved their headquarters into vertical downtown offices or converted industrial buildings centrally located near public transit. Unlike suburban campuses that reinforce an insular and secretive workplace culture, these more accessible urban campuses support the principles of agglomeration, the theory that innovation occurs faster in dense environments in which workers, suppliers, funders and partners are co-located for collaboration.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

A football field is 57,600 sq ft. Amazon needs 8,000,000 sq ft on the new campus.

West village is 6 million square feet.

They would basically have to level half of sunalta to fit it in, in addition to all of the west village. Assuming the campus needs to be all in one place.

Growing vertical though, that's a different story.

Maybe it's a silly question but could they use a combo of "west village" and brookfield place or do they want everyone in one spot?

[getbak]

My understanding is that their current headquarters is in 33 different (low to mid-rise) buildings throughout downtown Seattle, and the plan is to replicate that with their second HQ.

[Joborule]

If they need 8M in sq ft, and the firepark area doesn't work, how about Aurora business park?



It's right beside the airport, and will be a TOD area for the northern portion of the greenline (which could help spur quicker development for that phase of the line).

[getbak]

I think that's likely too far away from downtown for them. It's pretty isolated from much of anything. They'd pretty much have to build everything to support themselves in the area.

Too many people are thinking about this like they're building a new shipping centre. That's not what this is. They don't need to be super-close to the airport, they just need to be close to an airport where people can easily fly to the places they need to get to.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

A football field is 57,600 sq ft. Amazon needs 8,000,000 sq ft on the new campus.

West village is 6 million square feet.

They would basically have to level half of sunalta to fit it in, in addition to all of the west village. Assuming the campus needs to be all in one place.

Growing vertical though, that's a different story.

Elevator technology has enabled multi storey buildings - like some sort of magic.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I just can't see anywhere downtown that has the space Amazon wants. Near the airport, it's cheap land, they can expand however big they want, and its still easy to get downtown if needed. Why does it need to be downtown?

It doesn't have to be - it could be a greenfield site, but if you read the RFP (and understand heir current urban headquarters) the quality of the place is clearly a priority for employee recruitment. There is not only existing buildings, but a lot of land in either the east end of downtown or west village for new buildings to meet their needs could be built.

For greenfield, it'd have to be a pretty incredible plan to invent such a dynamic environment from scratch, but it can be done.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Bunk

For greenfield, it'd have to be a pretty incredible plan to invent such a dynamic environment from scratch, but it can be done.

Yeah it would have to be some sort of dream scenario.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by getbak

I think that's likely too far away from downtown for them. It's pretty isolated from much of anything. They'd pretty much have to build everything to support themselves in the area.

Too many people are thinking about this like they're building a new shipping centre. That's not what this is. They don't need to be super-close to the airport, they just need to be close to an airport where people can easily fly to the places they need to get to.

Its fair speculation if they want to go green field, or have the campus like culture that many tech companies have built.

and at the end of the day is 10 minutes to downtown non-rush hour, 20 minutes rush hour, and has the potential to have its own LRT station within 4-5 years given the right investment, proximity and transportation are not a problem from 96th and Deerfoot.

To me the best Calgary example of what I think a company like Amazon would want, is the Shaw Campus on Barlow north. And Shaw / Purolator are exactly the type of companies they would need a relationship with and possibly proximity to which are not downtown.

If they are considering Canada I don't see why Calgary wouldn't be a good choice probably second only to Southern Ontario for a wide variety of reasons. But I would be surprised if they are considering Canada, and if on the off chance Calgary wins I would be even more surprised if they pack this into two existing high rise buildings downtown.

[morgin]

Originally Posted by #-3

And Shaw / Purolator are exactly the type of companies they would need a relationship with and possibly proximity to which are not downtown.

Why Shaw and Puralator? This HQ may or may not have anything to do with their retail business, and it certainly isn't going to be responsible for actually doing shipping. I'd expect majority of it will relate to web services.

[afc wimbledon]

I think you guys are missing the point, where ever this goes it becomes its own 'downtown', everyone else sets up to be near them, not visa versa.

[Northendzone]

They should just go underground - closer to the salt that way.....

[Ozy_Flame]

The current Calgary vacancy rate would suggest that a downtown campus - much like their current setup in Seattle - could be feasible. Setting up a campus could be simply assembling a number of buildings in proximity to each other, and branded as such.

It may also help existing tenants of underused buildings get out of long-term leases for more favorable rates in other locations, including downsizing if they have to, assuming Amazon would want the campus in one collective area.

However, we still don't really know what the campus would be used for. Manufacturing? Web Services? Shipping? Logistics? Servers? etc . . . That would have to be the biggest question to answer.