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Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

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Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#121

Post by oh_sigh »

blackguardx wrote: post #78
geofft wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real answer is for cities to be built up so much that even a Google-sized company is a drop in the bucket. Google NYC right now is about one city block (111 8th), expanding to two. That's a tiny part of Manhattan, which isn't even all of NYC. My old church is located under the old Citigroup Center skyscraper at 601 Lexington, which is also an entire block; Citigroup used to have both that building and the block a…

Boulder has a population of ~100,000. I don't oppose the Google office, but their workforce will grow to represent 1-2% of the city's populace. That isn't a "drop in the bucket."

Boulder doesn't exist on an island. Many people commute to Boulder from Denver, the L-towns(Longmont, Lousiville, Lafayette), and even Fort Collins. So the population of the region is more like 700k

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#122

Post by huehehue »

yakitori wrote: post #101
CodeSheikh wrote: post #4

Google NYC is literally right across the block from Chelsea Market. This transaction would mean that Google will occupy the real estate above the actual market. Chelsea Market is an amazing place with great offerings of food etc. As long as this transaction does not ruin the ecosystem of CM then New Yorkers are OK with this transaction. Lets face it who would not want to sell their real estate to The Google?

> Chelsea Market is an amazing place with great offerings of food etc. It really isn't. It's a tourist trap, especially with the completion of the High Line. The food isn't good and it's overpriced to take advantage of the tourists. > As long as this transaction does not ruin the ecosystem of CM then New Yorkers are OK with this transaction. Like new yorkers' opinions matters in manhattan. The only thing that matters…

Oh stop the gatekeeping.

I don't think anyone really believes Chelsea Market is a culinary wonder, or that it's catering to the True(tm) New Yorker. It's pretty, it's in a fairly nice area, there's no entry fee, and it's easy to have fun there if you take it for what it is.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#123

Post by oh_sigh »

hueving wrote: post #118
Xorlev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived and worked in Colorado my whole life, joined Google Boulder about 8 months ago. Spent a ton of time in Boulder before that; my wife is from Boulder proper. Honestly? Google is barely a speck in the whirlwind of changes that Boulder is undergoing. Tech is a huge part of it, but you can't throw that entirely at Google's feet. There's been Silicon Valley expats and tons of other folks moving to Boulder for ye…

>I'd like to know what we're doing to destroy communities and how we can prevent that. Stop moving into small cities with workers paid significantly above the average of the existing residents. Restaurants open that they can't afford, the limited housing stock gets bid up quickly, good schools get overcrowded, etc. It's not a pleasant answer, but realistically that's ultimately what upsets a good chunk of the people…

Over half a million people live within commuting distance of Boulder. It may 'only' have 100k people in it, but you aren't forced to live in the city limits if you want to work at Google Boulder

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#124

Post by toomuchtodo »

sumeno wrote: post #110
toomuchtodo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General population voters > Tech voters making $100k/year+. Easy win when people who can't make tech salaries are barely scraping by, unable to afford food or meds sometimes because they have to make rent.

How do you improve the quality of life for the current residents without bringing in modern jobs? Many of these cities were built around industries that just aren't relevant any more, how does a city continue to thrive without new industries to replace the ones they have lost?

Attracting diverse employers from multiple industries who pay above median (but not too far above) wages. That is how you drag quality of life up for your citizens.

You don't throw gasoline on a fire. You slow stoke it while continually adding fuel.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#125

Post by lallysingh »

hueving wrote: post #100
finkin1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Boulder and don't share this sentiment whatsoever. Google already has a large campus here and they're expanding into an area that frankly needed to be renovated anyway. Their entire new + old complex is supposed to house ~2,000 employees. If adding 1.5k employees and a new building is "largely ruining Boulder" in your eyes you should see a doctor.

>If adding 1.5k employees and a new building is "largely ruining Boulder" in your eyes you should see a doctor. Put some effort into understanding perspectives before resorting to derision. Bringing thousands of highly paid employees into a smaller city is often not good for many who already lives there unless they own property. The majority of the new jobs will not go to existing residents, rents will increase, rest…

Note 1: This is interestingly isomorphic to the immigration debate. I'm not taking sides on this point, I just find the parallels interesting.

Note 2: Thousands of highly paid employees will cause real estate prices to rise, certainly. But they'll spend on more than just real estate, so the economy as a whole will grow with a lot of incoming money to be spent. As these incoming people are already working for 1 company, their demand for products/services will fall onto the local economy. Which is good for existing residents who participate in that economy. It'll also be good for anyone else who lives (after surviving applicable rent hikes) in the same districts, as the influx of tax money will help local schools, law enforcement, libraries, etc.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#126

Post by jowiar »

saalweachter wrote: post #12
Touche wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other office occupants though, and it sounds like Google's going to squeeze them out. So the food offerings might stay, but it's going to begin to feel like a Google cafeteria.

Do the businesses in Chelsea Market rely heavily on traffic from the office-workers above? Store-fronts in NYC tend to be pretty disconnected from the office/residential spaces above, with a few notable exceptions.

Last time I went to Chelsea Market I got the feeling of "Nobody (local) goes here... there are too many tourists and the experience walking around here is miserable" Times Square-esque

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#127

Post by hueving »

ionforce wrote: post #109
danharaj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the tech scene in NYC to be a lot more tolerable than other places. It seems like many of us here understand that we're small fish compared to, say, the sharks on Wall Street.

An interesting thing to note about tech in NYC is that it's not at all like tech in the west coast where it's tech for tech's sake. In NYC it's always in support of some other industry. Definitely gives off a different vibe.

Yeah, unfortunately it puts you lower on the totem pole as a software engineer. This results in lower salaries in general for developers there compared to the bay.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#128

Post by SFLemonade »

ionforce wrote: post #102
SFLemonade wrote: post #77

Between this $2B deal and the $5B Apple Park deal, I start to wonder how companies are justifying these purchases as remote and distributed work becomes more feasible. They're probably focused on the fact that productivity is still higher in co-located settings and the best talent pools are in major metro areas. But what if, instead, they invested $500M in remote work research and $500M in building a remote work infr…

I don't think working remote has proven itself fully. Otherwise everyone would be doing it. > They're probably focused on the fact that productivity is still higher in co-located settings and the best talent pools are in major metro areas. Exactly this.

Definitely. But there's also been very little investment into remote work, both from a research and infrastructure perspective.

I just wonder, if they were to take some of this cash and invest it into proving out remote work, would it turn out to be a better long term investment?

In most of the cases that I've observed, companies enter into remote work literally by just letting their employees start working remotely. Maybe they get a nice contract with Zoom and hire a specialized lawyer or two. But what if we were to really try investing in it, in the same way (or even in a fraction of the way) that we're investing in real estate?

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#129

Post by stale2002 »

finkin1 wrote: post #106
hueving wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If adding 1.5k employees and a new building is "largely ruining Boulder" in your eyes you should see a doctor. Put some effort into understanding perspectives before resorting to derision. Bringing thousands of highly paid employees into a smaller city is often not good for many who already lives there unless they own property. The majority of the new jobs will not go to existing residents, rents will increase, rest…

I appreciate you trying to make OP's case, and I'm genuinely interested in changing my mind about this. What do you think should be done? Should growing companies be prevented from expanding because it might 'erode the character of the city'? I'm not in favor of the city subsidizing a company's growth, even if it does stimulate the economy in the long-run, but I just can't get behind any policy that would prevent a g…

What should be done is that cities should relax zoning laws, and allow more housing to be built in high demand areas.

That way the city can fit everyone, cheaply.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#130

Post by yueq »

aresant wrote: post #82

This is such a fascinating cycle. Large pensions & sovereign wealth funds are so desperate for yield vs. low treasuries that they have pushed income producing commercial real estate values to all time highs. As a result these fund managers are then forced to take on larger risks to cover their liabilities by making larger portfolio allocations into public techs like Google, and privates like AirBNB & Uber. And this d…

Economic Moat -> Global Monopoly -> Positive Cashflow -> Higher Pay -> More Talents -> Create more value -> Higher Moat
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