Amazon HQ2

[Mr.Clean19]

2 hours ago, jgriff said:

What amenities are within walking distance of the KBR site?  A Yelp search for restaurants in the area pulls up a big fat 0.  I don't see this as a realistic option for Amazon. 

The New Potato is right across the street. You didnt search very well. Also, with a pedestrian bridge (future plan) you would have immediate access to navigation.

[Fortune]

4 hours ago, jgriff said:

What amenities are within walking distance of the KBR site?  A Yelp search for restaurants in the area pulls up a big fat 0.  I don't see this as a realistic option for Amazon. 

 

If the KBR site is chosen amenities would not be a issue. They would come to the area in no time. As a matter of fact the Seattle campus has its own 27 cafes/restaraunts in the Amazon buildings. If the KBR site is chosen it would be no time before that entire area bordered by Buffalo Bayou, Hirsch Rd, I-10, and 59 is redeveloped. It has already begun with all the new housing going up in area. Just look at Exxon and the affect it had on its surrounding area, and the Exxon campus is not anywhere close to the magnitude of the HQ2 campus.

[HOUTEX]

I would wager a majority of people dissing the KBR site have never actually seen it. It’s worth a trip to The New Potato folks.

 

That area was one of the first settled when Houston was founded for a reason. 

[jgriff]

I worked for KBR for several years and have been to the site many times. It’s a dump. 

[jgriff]

14 hours ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

The New Potato is right across the street. You didnt search very well. Also, with a pedestrian bridge (future plan) you would have immediate access to navigation.

 I didn’t say there wasn’t anything there. I said a yelp search returns 0 results. Work on your reading comprehension. 

[Houston19514]

6 minutes ago, jgriff said:

I worked for KBR for several years and have been to the site many times. It’s a dump. 

 

So was Amazon's neighborhood in Seattle, pre-Amazon. 

[HOUTEX]

1 hour ago, jgriff said:

I worked for KBR for several years and have been to the site many times. It’s a dump. 

 

How so?

[Mr.Clean19]

7 hours ago, jgriff said:

 I didn’t say there wasn’t anything there. I said a yelp search returns 0 results. Work on your reading comprehension. 

The New Potato has a 5 star review with 39 reviews on yelp

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

The New Potato is a great bar.

Amazon moving in to the KBR site would spur major amounts of growth in the area- it would cause a renaissance to the area like the Fourth Ward and Midtown areas are seeing

[102IAHexpress]

On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 0:15 PM, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

The New Potato is a great bar.

Amazon moving in to the KBR site would spur major amounts of growth in the area- it would cause a renaissance to the area like the Fourth Ward and Midtown areas are seeing

 

That would be the hope anyways. That area lacked major amounts of growth, as you call it, even when KBR was there. Remember, KBR in the 2000's wasn't exactly a mom and pop operation. They were one of the largest companies in the city and had a market cap of several billion. However, growth around Clinton drive wasn't exactly spurred by KBR. You would think that area had all the ingredients for growth, you had a major employer, new baseball stadium and new basketball arena close by, supposedly easy highway access, and everything else that has been mentioned in this thread yet the area failed to have a renaissance. 

The typical HAIF response will be, but it will be different when "xyz" company moves in. "ABC" company that was previously there was, horrible, incompetent, etc. 

[Fortune]

2 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

That would be the hope anyways. That area lacked major amounts of growth, as you call it, even when KBR was there. Remember, KBR in the 2000's wasn't exactly a mom and pop operation. They were one of the largest companies in the city and had a market cap of several billion. However, growth around Clinton drive wasn't exactly spurred by KBR. You would think that area had all the ingredients for growth, you had a major employer, new baseball stadium and new basketball arena close by, supposedly easy highway access, and everything else that has been mentioned in this thread yet the area failed to have a renaissance. 

The typical HAIF response will be, but it will be different when "xyz" company moves in. "ABC" company that was previously there was, horrible, incompetent, etc. 

 

KBR has 27K employees worldwide, 5.2K employees in the houston area. HQ2 will have 50K employees on site in one location. KBR only used the portion of the site with the office buildings on it because their employees were spread out through Houston. They had no need to hold on to the site because they did not need all of the space. At one point in time they were planning to build a new much smaller campus totaling 900,000 sqft in Katy to consolidate their 5.2k local employees. They ended up consolidating into their downtown tower which is 1.25 SQFT. HQ2 will be 8 million sqft.

 

That site was owned for decades by KBR there was no new infusion of employees or office space so why would their be a renaissance of the area at that time? Amazon would be bringing in thousands of jobs and millions of square feet of office space those are the things that would trigger a renaissance. 

 

KBR and Amazon do not compare, so I don't know why you would think their affects on the surrounding area would compare.

[Vy65]

Submitted without comment: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/A-Houston-headquarters-could-rank-low-on-Amazon-s-12282807.php

[H-Town Man]

3 hours ago, Vy65 said:

Submitted without comment: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/A-Houston-headquarters-could-rank-low-on-Amazon-s-12282807.php

 

The article makes a big point of saying that Houston has a low share of people taking public transit, then goes into a long comparison with Austin, without mentioning that Austin has worse public transit than Houston does.

 

Also, I am puzzled over this:

 

"Houston has a greater number of workers than Austin with engineering, computer and math degrees – nearly 350,000 in Houston compared to Austin's almost 125,000 – but as a percentage of the broader workforce, Austin's concentration of skilled workers is higher."

 

If Houston has more skilled workers than Austin, why would the percentage matter?

 

[H-Town Man]

On ‎10‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 8:33 AM, 102IAHexpress said:

 

That would be the hope anyways. That area lacked major amounts of growth, as you call it, even when KBR was there. Remember, KBR in the 2000's wasn't exactly a mom and pop operation. They were one of the largest companies in the city and had a market cap of several billion. However, growth around Clinton drive wasn't exactly spurred by KBR. You would think that area had all the ingredients for growth, you had a major employer, new baseball stadium and new basketball arena close by, supposedly easy highway access, and everything else that has been mentioned in this thread yet the area failed to have a renaissance. 

The typical HAIF response will be, but it will be different when "xyz" company moves in. "ABC" company that was previously there was, horrible, incompetent, etc. 

 

KBR in the mid 2000's is not Amazon in 2017. Your typical KBR worker's mindset, circa 2005, was, "Leave house in suburbs, make sure to have full gas tank before entering city, park at KBR, work at KBR, leave KBR early before rush hour, try to beat rush hour home." This is not the mindset of the typical Amazon worker in 2017. I am not dissing this mindset; it is kind of hard to avoid once you have kids, but Amazon wants to appeal to a different group.

 

[Mr.Clean19]

The adjacent area also was not developing with homes and businesses (East End and Lower 5th Ward) while KBR was on the lot. 

[Houston19514]

4 hours ago, Vy65 said:

Submitted without comment: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/A-Houston-headquarters-could-rank-low-on-Amazon-s-12282807.php

 

1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

 

The article makes a big point of saying that Houston has a low share of people taking public transit, then goes into a long comparison with Austin, without mentioning that Austin has worse public transit than Houston does.

 

Also, I am puzzled over this:

 

"Houston has a greater number of workers than Austin with engineering, computer and math degrees – nearly 350,000 in Houston compared to Austin's almost 125,000 – but as a percentage of the broader workforce, Austin's concentration of skilled workers is higher."

 

If Houston has more skilled workers than Austin, why would the percentage matter?

 

 

 

Maybe Jeff Bezos could buy the Chronicle.  If we don't get HQ2, he could buy it as a consolation prize for us. I'm not sure what he's done with the Washington Post, but it's seriously hard to imagine his making the Chronicle worse than it already is.

[Vy65]

5 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Maybe Jeff Bezos could buy the Chronicle.  If we don't get HQ2, he could buy it as a consolation prize for us. I'm not sure what he's done with the Washington Post, but it's seriously hard to imagine his making the Chronicle worse than it already is.

 

He's not the only one expressing defeatism ... 

 

http://realtynewsreport.com/2017/10/17/amazon-hurricane-harvey-and-a-fairy-tale-that-probably-wont-come-true/

[Houston19514]

 

Regarding the non-development of the KBR site and neighborhood, if the prior non-development of a site or neighborhood is a disqualifying factor, it's a little hard to imagine what site (either greenfield or urban) they will find to house 50,000 employees.  (And they would also not have moved into their current Seattle HQ neighborhood.)

[Houston19514]

16 minutes ago, Vy65 said:

 

He's not the only one expressing defeatism ... 

 

http://realtynewsreport.com/2017/10/17/amazon-hurricane-harvey-and-a-fairy-tale-that-probably-wont-come-true/

 

What a surprise, former Chronicle reporter and defeatist-in-chief Ralph Bivins. (For him, that actually wasn't even that defeatist of an article.  It did little more than say the obvious... that more than likely Houston will not be chosen.  That is true of every city submitting proposals.)

 

And, back to the Chronicle's story... it's more than just expressing defeatism, it's the constant emphasis by that so-called newspaper of the negative aspects of Houston, to the exclusion of the positive.  It's sloppy and dishonest.

[Twitter1]

3 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

 

 

Maybe Jeff Bezos could buy the Chronicle.  If we don't get HQ2, he could buy it as a consolation prize for us. I'm not sure what he's done with the Washington Post, but it's seriously hard to imagine his making the Chronicle worse than it already is.

 

Amazon/Beezos is a sensitive subject for some, but I've read that the Washington Post is now in troubles with employee benefits.

 

Beezo's is only matching 1% of the employee 401k's at the Washington Post.

 

Another article:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/washington-post-jeff-bezos_us_59df9245e4b00abf3646fff9?hgc

 

Quote

According to the memo, management wants to end the paper’s long-standing practice of across-the-board percentage annual pay raises to create an “unprecedented” merit pay system and cut severance benefits. It also refuses to increase the 401(k) match from 1 percent.

 

The merit system would potentially freeze even inflation adjusted increases in pay for some employees for up to 30 months while others could get up to a 4 percent increase. Management has also proposed to cut severance pay and require any employee who accepts severance to waive their legal rights. When you do away with routine raises only the superstar reporters will wind up getting them.

 

[H-Town Man]

I will just say this: the only real argument I hear for why Houston can't get this is that we don't have a high percentage of skilled workers. Not that we don't swamp most of the supposed frontrunner cities in sheer volume of skilled workers, but we don't have a high percentage.

 

I don't consider the flood scaring them away to be a serious argument. They are looking for economic advantages.

 

What scares me is that we have the attitude that it's hardly even worth trying to land a New Economy company. At some point, whether it's Amazon or somebody else, we're going to have to broaden our range. We had Compaq. We won NASA. We need to make something work.

[Vy65]

1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

I will just say this: the only real argument I hear for why Houston can't get this is that we don't have a high percentage of skilled workers. Not that we don't swamp most of the supposed frontrunner cities in sheer volume of skilled workers, but we don't have a high percentage.

 

I don't consider the flood scaring them away to be a serious argument. They are looking for economic advantages.

 

What scares me is that we have the attitude that it's hardly even worth trying to land a New Economy company. At some point, whether it's Amazon or somebody else, we're going to have to broaden our range. We had Compaq. We won NASA. We need to make something work.

 

First off, I would love nothing more than to land HQ2. Amazon could provide a much needed spur in helping this city become more urban, more fun, and more interesting. I know some people will disagree with this sentiment, but Houston doesn’t hold a candle to cities like NYC, Chicago, or even Portland because it’s more suburban. 

 

I think part of the issue issue is indirectly addressed in what I said. Houston doesn’t have the reputation (whether rightly or wrongly) of being a “hip” town. And that perception, mixed with the RFP’s request for entertainment creates a problem for Houston.

 

I think the bigger issue is a mix between the Hurricane, the perception of Houston still being a natural disaster zone, and the city’s inability to allocate enough money to create a financial package that would woo Amazon (that money going towards rebuilding efforts instead). The KBR site is intriguing, but privately owned — Midway isn’t just going to give the land to Amazon, is it?

 

Compounding that issue is the lack of a good public transit system and the absence of a pipeline producing tech-inclined professionals. 

 

Ultimately, I don’t see a unique package from Houston that beats others. I think cities like Dallas and Atlanta have everything this city offers but with none of the attendant hurricane risks. And they likely can offer a better subsidy.

 

That all being said, if this city is to have a future, I totally agree with your assertion that something has to give. I just don’t see that being HQ2 — as much as I want it to be.

[102IAHexpress]

On ‎10‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 11:44 AM, Fortune said:

 

KBR and Amazon do not compare, so I don't know why you would think their affects on the surrounding area would compare.

 

Previously there was a company with highly skilled, high wage earners in that area, yet the area failed to grow. The issue is not that the area failed to grow as if a 50k employee employer resided there, but instead the area failed to grow at all. 5k employees is still a lot of employees, but you seem to be discounting it. Bottom line is that area is a dump. If it were truly a diamond in the rough, another company would have swallowed it up already. The market has spoken, it's just a matter if you are willing to listen or ignore the market. 

[H-Town Man]

32 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

Previously there was a company with highly skilled, high wage earners in that area, yet the area failed to grow. The issue is not that the area failed to grow as if a 50k employee employer resided there, but instead the area failed to grow at all. 5k employees is still a lot of employees, but you seem to be discounting it. Bottom line is that area is a dump. If it were truly a diamond in the rough, another company would have swallowed it up already. The market has spoken, it's just a matter if you are willing to listen or ignore the market. 

 

I guess Midway is crazy then for seeing major potential there.

[H-Town Man]

1 hour ago, Vy65 said:

 

First off, I would love nothing more than to land HQ2. Amazon could provide a much needed spur in helping this city become more urban, more fun, and more interesting. I know some people will disagree with this sentiment, but Houston doesn’t hold a candle to cities like NYC, Chicago, or even Portland because it’s more suburban. 

 

I think part of the issue issue is indirectly addressed in what I said. Houston doesn’t have the reputation (whether rightly or wrongly) of being a “hip” town. And that perception, mixed with the RFP’s request for entertainment creates a problem for Houston.

 

I think the bigger issue is a mix between the Hurricane, the perception of Houston still being a natural disaster zone, and the city’s inability to allocate enough money to create a financial package that would woo Amazon (that money going towards rebuilding efforts instead). The KBR site is intriguing, but privately owned — Midway isn’t just going to give the land to Amazon, is it?

 

Compounding that issue is the lack of a good public transit system and the absence of a pipeline producing tech-inclined professionals. 

 

Ultimately, I don’t see a unique package from Houston that beats others. I think cities like Dallas and Atlanta have everything this city offers but with none of the attendant hurricane risks. And they likely can offer a better subsidy.

 

That all being said, if this city is to have a future, I totally agree with your assertion that something has to give. I just don’t see that being HQ2 — as much as I want it to be.

 

1. Houston is hipper than you and many people on here have convinced yourself it is. It certainly holds a candle to Portland. Our fine and performing arts, our cuisine, and our architecture are all in a different league than Portland, and nationally recognized as such. No, we aren't currently as much on the hip radar, but we certainly hold a candle.

 

2. Amazon is not looking for hipness. They don't want something as dull as Sacramento or Omaha, but hipness is not first priority. Their Seattle hq fulfills that for them. What they mainly want is meat and potatoes economics. Houston can provide that.

[102IAHexpress]

9 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I guess Midway is crazy then for seeing major potential there.

 

Yes.

But give them credit for getting free advertising out of this Amazon bid. They know their site is not a serious play for Amazon, but getting people talking about it for free is savvy marketing. 

 

[HOUTEX]

10 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

Previously there was a company with highly skilled, high wage earners in that area, yet the area failed to grow. The issue is not that the area failed to grow as if a 50k employee employer resided there, but instead the area failed to grow at all. 5k employees is still a lot of employees, but you seem to be discounting it. Bottom line is that area is a dump. If it were truly a diamond in the rough, another company would have swallowed it up already. The market has spoken, it's just a matter if you are willing to listen or ignore the market. 

 

While I might just be ready to worship at the shrine of the almighty "market forces" as any red blooded capitalist, the fact is it's been less than 5 years since the site changed hands after the previous owner sat there for some 9 decades...how have oil prices (and causally capital market lending in Houston) reacted for the last three or four years? We might let one full market cycle run it's course before blithely passing judgement. 

[H-Town Man]

1990 - Midtown is a dump

2000 - Downtown is a dump

2010 - The East End is a dump

2017 - The KBR area is a dump

 

[Vy65]

10 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

1. Houston is hipper than you and many people on here have convinced yourself it is. It certainly holds a candle to Portland. Our fine and performing arts, our cuisine, and our architecture are all in a different league than Portland, and nationally recognized as such. No, we aren't currently as much on the hip radar, but we certainly hold a candle.

 

2. Amazon is not looking for hipness. They don't want something as dull as Sacramento or Omaha, but hipness is not first priority. Their Seattle hq fulfills that for them. What they mainly want is meat and potatoes economics. Houston can provide that.

 

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on what constitutes "hip." You're right that there is an opera and ballet here, but those don't really cater to the younger crowd. Restaurants are fine and all, but I don't see how they're any better or worse than what's in Portland (or Atlanta, or Nashville for that matter). I also don't see what architecture has to do with anything. In fact, the only thing that's been suggested as to why Houston is good for millennials (and thus a hip city) is that it's cheap -- not that it has much of anything else going on. 

 

As for your second point, I agree insofar as we don't know what Amazon wants exactly. You're right they don't want a Sacramento or Omaha, but I don't see why Houston is a better choice than say Dallas, or Atlanta, or Nashville, or Pittsburgh. Those cities can exceed (or at the very least match) what financial incentives we offer ("meat and potatoes") while also offering better PR (no hurricanes) and more hipness. 

 

Again, I think your point about the need to infuse more new economy businesses into Houston is on point. I just don't see the path forward with what this city has to offer currently.

[Houston19514]

38 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

1990 - Midtown is a dump

2000 - Downtown is a dump

2010 - The East End is a dump

2017 - The KBR area is a dump

 

 

Exactly.  and perhaps more important:  pre-Amazon, the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle was a dump.

 

I'm genuinely curious about the logic that declares the KBR site non-viable because it has not previously been chosen and developed by a large company.  By definition, Amazon will be going to a site that has not been previously chosen and developed by any other large company.