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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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Fun historical note, IBM generated cash in its early days as Google and Apple do today, it bought a lot of real estate all around the world. In the 90's when it seemed liked it was doomed, it "saved itself" by selling off big chunks of that real estate. That gave the company operating capital without having to go to the equity markets or debt markets. Given the ups and downs of tech, it seems like a…

"Land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it's the only thing that lasts".

Not if you're one of the Pacific islands, which are being slowly swamped by the rising ocean.

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

#222
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…

> Bringing thousands of highly paid employees into a smaller city

When you have to twist figures so that 1.5 thousand becomes "thousands" (thereby making it sound much bigger), then it means you have no argument at all.

Boulder's population is 108,000. Adding an additional 1500 employees adds 1.5% to that population; not a huge amount.

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

#223

Google has largely ruined Boulder, CO after building a huge new sprawling thing and effectively dictating to locals and politicians exactly how they want the neighborhood and city to be structured going forward. Everyone who isn't a googler hates them and wishes we hadn't allowed that, much less given them massive amounts of corporate welfare. Resist googlers if you can, they destroy communities.

What? Googles new office on 30th and pearl is hardly 'sprawling' - the target and wholefoods that are right next to it each take up a much bigger footprint than the office, and that is just the buildings themselves - Target and WF have surface parking which takes up huge amounts of real estate for almost zero value - whereas the Google building has 3 or 4 levels of parking underneath it, reducing their overall footpr…

> the target and wholefoods that are right next to it each take up a much bigger footprint than the office, and that is just the buildings themselves

That's the problem: WF and Target pay minimum wages, and that seems to be OK with the OP. Paying more than minimum wages is the problem. S/he wants everyone to be poor.

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

#224
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…

... until the bubble pops, which seems like it might be happening now. I just sold most of my shares.

I’m sorry you did this. Someday, you’ll be sorry you did this. Historically speaking, there is a correction every year. Corrections last on average no more than 54 days. After a correction, the stock market will go back to rising. Timing the market is near impossible, but leaving the market is just asking to lose money. With some reading and some fear management, you could be extremely successful in the stock market. But you have to learn to buy and hold.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google already occupies the majority of the space above the market - at least 3 full floors (As of a couple years ago). It's not much of a change for any New Yorkers except that they tend not to renew leases for other office space tenants.

New York Googler here. Chelsea Market is actually 19 different buildings on the same block that have merged together over time. The floor layout is truly crazy. Some floors are staggered by a full half height at the interface between buildings, there are exterior courtyards on the inside of the block that are roofed over, and buildings are of differing height. You can see it all on Google Maps; contrast with 111 8th…

> The floor layout is truly crazy. Some floors are staggered by a full half height at the interface between buildings, there are exterior courtyards on the inside of the block that are roofed over, and buildings are of differing height.

complexity should be no problem for Google engineers

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely a way to preserve everyone's ability to live in the place that they were living before for the same price. The solution is to pick a small, 1 mile square area, and make THAT the high density, 40 story, skyscraper area. A single high density zone could double the size of many cities, while still leaving hundreds of square miles of area for the low density people to live in the surrounding area. Sur…

That absolutely does not work. The prices of all of the homes anywhere near the high density area would sky rocket. Do you realize how much a single story house with a yard within a block of Chelsea Market in NYC would be worth? High rise costs to build are several hundred per square foot, so the cost to the tenants would be higher. Why would anyone pay several times the cost of a house a block away for a spot in the…

> The prices of all of the homes anywhere near the high density area would sky rocket.

Why? I want you to genuinely think about this question.

Why is it that, non-high density areas, that are near high density areas, increase in price?

Is it perhaps because, high density areas, with tall buildings, are so amazing, so wonderful, so in demand, so useful, and so great to live in, that people WANT to live near them?

The NIMBY argument against high density areas, is that people don't like living there. But it is literally the opposite. High density areas are so great, that low density areas NEAR the high density areas, increase in price because EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE THERE!

Thats why the price goes up. Not because of the increase in cost to live in the places, but because they places are amazing, and there aren't enough of them, and people are willing to pay a premium amount of money to live there.

So if everyone wants to live in these areas, then why aren't we building more of them?

These areas literally make everything more desireable!

And, because of supply and demand, if we build a whole bunch of these super great, amazing areas that everyone is willing to pay lost of money to live in, then the price will go down, and everyone will benefit.

Your argument is literally that we shouldn't make cities and place to live better, because if the places to live are better, then more people will want to live there.

I am of the opposite. I think we should make the world a better place, and we should make everywhere in the world better to live in.

But even so, the people who want to live in places that suck should absolutely have the freedom to do that. 99% of the land in the US is low density, and people who like those areas should keep it. But the OTHER people, who actually want to live in nice, high density areas, that are good to live in, should get at least 1% of the land to do with as we please. I am all in favor of freedom of choice for the low density people. Why can't they give the same freedom of choice to those who disagree with them?

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... until the bubble pops, which seems like it might be happening now. I just sold most of my shares.

I’m sorry you did this. Someday, you’ll be sorry you did this. Historically speaking, there is a correction every year. Corrections last on average no more than 54 days. After a correction, the stock market will go back to rising. Timing the market is near impossible, but leaving the market is just asking to lose money. With some reading and some fear management, you could be extremely successful in the stock market.…

I personally think that all stock advice is bullshit; if anyone had a working strategy, they'd use it and it would get priced into the market, making it worthless for the next guy.

but my favorite investment method is 're-balancing' between non-correlated asset classes. Set X percent of your money in equities and the rest in bond funds, for example, then if stock rises vs bonds, sell stock and buy bond funds until you are back to the same percentage.

The idea here is to force yourself to (slowly) sell into bull markets, and (slowly) buy into bear markets. I think that's the closest you can come to "buy low, sell high"

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus you can get around all day just taking the stairs, which frequently saves time.

There are not enough elevators in that building, especially on the 9th avenue side.

Maybe better for employee's health. >95% of people shouldn't require an elevator working in that building. Being forced to walk 5 floors instead of taking the elevator can have positive effects

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The layout is like none other. You'll walk down a spiral stairway, through some cubes, turn the corner to a ramp, more cubes, more narrow hallways and ramps.

And a lot of the space has these beautiful antique wooden floors and the ceilings are held up gigantic wooden columns and beams. Most of the buildings on the site are over a century old and predate the modern construction methods that use reinforced concrete and steel I-beams. Contrast with 111 8th Ave, which was built contemporaneously with the Empire State Building (and in the same aesthetic). It uses reinforced co…

> ...and there's two skybridges -- one that goes nowhere, and one that goes across 10th Ave to our space in that building.

This sounds like a pretty awesome, yet harsh, way to handle internal performance reviews...

Top performers get to walk over to 10th ave for cake and coffee. Low performers get to walk the plank, taking a skybridge to "nowhere", and are never heard from again.

... Need to get a subordinate to shape up? Take her up by the skybridge to nowhere and then tell her how important your TPS reports are. She'll get the hint.

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