Hacker News Reader

Comment by tinyhouse | Hacker News Reader

> "The company may be having similar discussions with other finalists."

The article sounds very speculative. I don't know anything about this place, but if it's expensive like people here say it is, then I don't see the point of Amazon moving there. I think a place like downtown Chicago would make more sense. (if only the winter was not as cold and better public schools...)

View on HN

I used to live in Crystal city until 2011. Back then it was $1700 a month for one bedroom. Now it’s around $2200 a month for one bedroom. Putting their headquarters there will turn Crystal city into a very, very expensive parking lot.

Denver still makes the most sense to me. Single hop to Beijing & Shanghai, real estate and wages aren't at DC, Seattle, Bay Area rates quite. Lots of amenities (open space, good beer, close to skiing) that Amazon doesn't actually have to pay for. Decent tech scene (Google, Facebook, Uber campuses, as well as an ever growing Amazon dev presence). Large downtown property looking for a buyer and is probably underrated (Elitch Gardens). Decent public transit that's trending really well (new light rail within the past couple of years, and more coming out soon).

DC never made sense to me. The other defense contractors manage to not have HQs in DC.

I think this story is exactly what they'd leak if they were trying to buy real estate somewhere else.

Denver still makes the most sense to me. Single hop to Beijing & Shanghai

Why would Amazon need a single (longer) hop to Asia, when it can already get there from Seattle?

Going to DC/VA gives it better access to EMEA.

Because they explicitly don't want the HQs to specialize.

And the thought is that at some point there's going to be two Internets, US and China. There's a pretty good chance that China is going to run Africa's Internet access. Europe has been a also ran against the US as far as the Internet is concerned, and the Middle East is projected to lose their economic momentum in the coming decades.

https://nypost.com/2018/09/20/former-google-ceo-predicts-two...

That's a pretty piss-poor reason for Denver to be considered geographically favorable.

The main advantage you get from geographical proximity is the fact that you can build closer networking opportunities to other businesses and entities in the area. (A secondary advantage is timezone alignment). Denver's not exactly close to any other major cities; by contrast, it's only a half day of travel between Chicago and the Northeast, and it's even possible to commute between NYC and Boston or DC for a day.

For siting a second major HQ, Denver is just too close to Seattle. You don't get the benefits of having people 3 hours ahead (and more aligned with Europe, for example). The marginal costs of extra travel time to Asia from the east coast versus the west coast just aren't going to be a major factor in determining whether or not travel can happen--your employees have already lost a day or two of travel. Move the site to the east coast, and now you can open up more travel opportunities because it's only a half-day (or less!) of travel.

Not that I think it matters, but Dulles has direct flights to Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul.

But not to Shanghai.

Denver has some great things going for it, like easy access to mountains and outdoor space. But I must say its downtown is pretty unappealing. Many weirdos (similar to Seattle...) and chain restaurants. I enjoyed my trip to Colorado, but Denver was the most boring part of it.

The tourist part is always weirdos and chain restaurants. That's like saying there's nothing in New York because you went to Times Square and it was just a tourist trap.

That was my first thought as well, that they would have a hard time finding a more expensive place for every metric, from real estate* to salaries.

However I don't see Amazon and Chicago being a good match, culturally, if that makes sense, nor do I think there are compelling strategic reasons for basing this location there.

*edit: Based on snowwrestler's comment it sounds like Crystal City has seem some large occupants move out, so real estate prices may be trending down. However it's still a fair premium to pay to be next to the airport, compared to farther out (where you also have a high concentration of software developers.)

Chicago has a lot of "natural" advantages, but the governments of Chicago and Illinois are too dysfunctional to put together a competitive bid.

Not too familiar with that, but from what I read they took it pretty seriously and offered some nice tax benefits. They also offered a location in south loop, which is a really nice area of downtown Chicago and still very affordable. It's also a short ride on the train to Midway airpot (not an international airpot like O'hare but much nicer to travel from and to). It's also very close to 3 universities.

Chicago's preferred Amazon location is Goose Island, part of the newly expanded downtown skyscraper district.[1]

The city recently approved 18 new skyscrapers for downtown, including 12 for the proposed Amazon site, with an included professional soccer stadium.[2]

[1] https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/03/26/river-distric...

[2] https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/10/18/you-get-a-sky...

Interesting. I see it's near Lincoln Park, also a very nice location with easy access to O'hare via the blue line. Maybe even better than south loop. I assume it's a bit safer (unfortunately crime rates are still very high in many places across Chicago).

Why not Detroit?

They could remodernize Detroit in a massively good way.

Same weather, even worse schools, way less infrastructure, almost no public transportation, the Chicago area has over twice the population to draw employees from

the Chicago area has over twice the population to draw employees from

Leave us alone, the blue line is still broken.

Amazon is not interested in altruistically revitalizing a once great city. They want to make money and will make their choice solely based on that factor (although there is certainly some nuance that goes into that decision - talent aquisition, politics, etc).

That said,the current HQ is a revitalized community of what used to be Auto industry warehouses

Reply on news.ycombinator.com