Amazon New HQ (50k jobs), MA? (Boston, Springfield: insurance, house, colleges)

[No2Monsanto]

Just an FYI..https://www.geekwire.com/2017/six-ci...-headquarters/

[Broknrekord3]

Union Point in South Weymouth is already making a pitch for it. They've got the commuter rail, and if they were willing to bring the red line 1 stop further, they'd offer light rail transit as well. Add space for growth, planning for nearly 20,000 new residents, and proximity to Boston, and it seems to be a possibility. Weymouth would change literally overnight.

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/n...-amazon-s.html

[Dm84]

Originally Posted by Broknrekord3

Union Point in South Weymouth is already making a pitch for it. They've got the commuter rail, and if they were willing to bring the red line 1 stop further, they'd offer light rail transit as well. Add space for growth, planning for nearly 20,000 new residents, and proximity to Boston, and it seems to be a possibility. Weymouth would change literally overnight.

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/n...-amazon-s.html

Commuter rail won't cut it and what could go wrong with adding another 50,000 riders to the Red Line every day? Lol.

[Broknrekord3]

Originally Posted by Dm84

Commuter rail won't cut it and what could go wrong with adding another 50,000 riders to the Red Line every day? Lol.

Lol, not disagreeing at all, but if Boston metro wants this HQ --for better or worse-- I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a location better that checks off all the boxes. Particularly the cost of living/accessibility one. Being south of the city also opens up opportunities for people in the Providence Metro area (particularly, say, Brown students).

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by Broknrekord3

Lol, not disagreeing at all, but if Boston metro wants this HQ --for better or worse-- I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a location better that checks off all the boxes. Particularly the cost of living/accessibility one. Being south of the city also opens up opportunities for people in the Providence Metro area (particularly, say, Brown students).

I was thinking maybe near the 128 station, where there still seems to be a lot of land available and a relative high frequency of trains. That would also open them up to the RI employment pool.

But let's be serious here. Amazon is NOT coming to Boston.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by yellowstatus

Boston is definitely a strong contender with a unique mix of talented workforce and strong academic institutions. Real estate is also relatively affordable, only slightly more than Seattle and substantially cheaper than San Francisco.

A big complication with Boston is that building out commercial space for 50k headcount would be exceptionally difficult. It would be a comparable in scale to re-developing Kendall Square. Relocating from SF to Boston recently, I was struck by Boston's relatively low urban population density. I don't know if there's the political will to radically re-zone to allow higher density development.

Gotta be smokin' dope.

Its more 'affordable' than all of 1 place in the US. Nice.

Boston is not even mentioned in the article...Detroit St. Louis, Kentucky, Toronto, Ohio, Miami, Texas and Atlanta all all mentioned before Boston. The transit will not be attractive (Amazon is no dummy and wont be wooed simply because the transit exists, it has to function as well), all we have is size and education.

Dallas, Atlanta, Detroit and Toronto would make the most sense.

Texas has given the most in subsidies to Amazon since 2000, its size, chea land cost and fast tracked development process make it attractive.

Atlanta has many of the same advantages and attracts many young people and is in a region with many under tapped talent in universities. (the North Carolina Schools, Gerogia Tech, UGA, Emory UMiami, Vandy). It also has MARTA

Detroit could essentially become AmazonTown. They'd be likely to gift Amazon the city, they have a re energized downtown core o young artist and could fill up tons of space with young techies. Safety and education would be an issue, but im confident the state would provide additional resources to facilitate Amazon's demands.

Toronto, simply because it makes it a North American giant. Toronto has the educate population, international talent pool, and is on the other side of the continent. I'm assuming its slightly cheaper than Seattle...

Actually why not Providence?. 1.6 million people. Reasonable housing costs, no major need for transit because of the compact nature, but RIPTA could be expanded with relative ease. And they're giving out corporate tax breaks like Halloween Candy. Prov Metro is relatively educated compared to the rest of the nation. It'd shift some of the economic development form Middlesex county down to Bristol County where it is MUCH needed. Providence itself is already very highly regarded amongst young people.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by robr2

Whidett Circle is one of the few places in Boston that could meets Amazon's requirements. It would require the building of Red line and commuter rail station(s) and might generate more interest in construction of the north-south rail link. It would also spur gentrification of Roxbury and Old Colony which may not be a great thing but it could bring entry level jobs to those areas.

There may be some suburban areas with the space but without public transportation, I don't think Amazon would consider them.

The odds of this happening are slim to none. Thy already pushed back the new red and orange line trains from 2019 to 2023.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by massnative71

The issue is that right now the Boston area is already suffocating from a lack of housing with horrible roads and transit infrastructure. 50k MORE jobs??? Not gonna happen. Not without major upgrades at least underway.

But I don't understand people saying that they have to be on mass transit, and then in the same paragraph suggest they will probably end up in Raleigh or someplace. What mass transit do they have there?

A place with land, lower labor costs and a coordinated regional/county government(s) can just create a BRT system or series of shuttles and light rails. Especially if they are desperate (for the record, Raleigh is not desperate).

The Boston areas fragmented governance forces like minded municipalities to cluster all of the development (Cambridge Boston and Somerville). The needier cities usually acquiesce (Everett, Chelsea, Malden, Lynn, Revere) to the gentrification but the actual benefits just cluster in the same areas. I fear that as far as the infrastructure we are absolutely incapable of this type of project. This idea that we should wait for some good to befall us and then try to hastily build the necessary transit and housing...seems backwards to me and like a recipe for shoddy construction cost overruns, congestion and headache.

If Boston had more affordable and more modern, welcoming, semi-suburban areas this would be more feasible.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by Broknrekord3

Lol, not disagreeing at all, but if Boston metro wants this HQ --for better or worse-- I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a location better that checks off all the boxes. Particularly the cost of living/accessibility one. Being south of the city also opens up opportunities for people in the Providence Metro area (particularly, say, Brown students).

Except that it precludes just about everyone living north of Boston even with an additional Red Line stop. And as for accessibility, image Route 18 and Route 3 during rush hour with another 20-25K cars on them.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by yellowstatus

I agree that Boston needs foresight to upgrade housing and infrastructure to meet growing demand. This is a really good problem to have, all things considered. It is possible for Boston to accept many more companies without commensurate residential housing, but then you get Bay Area prices where single family homes are 1.5-2.5 million.

For those complaining about current housing costs, Boston is pretty affordable when compared against other top tier tech/research cities such as SF, NYC, DC, and LA. The affordability can get much worse than the current situation, I assure you. All the more reason to develop aggressively.

Its more expensive to rent in Boston than either of these places. The outerlying neighborhoods of Boston are more expensive than south Brooklyn, most of Queens and the Bronx. Rents are also cheaper in northern NJ.