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Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

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Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#191

Post by magic_beans »

tashoecraft wrote: post #73
SippinLean wrote: post #12

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…

This could be what LIC actually needs. It has all this new housing, but it feels like a ghost town. So now there will be all this demand for local amenities that could transform the area. Still unsure if this will be beneficial in the long term or not, but will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'm still waiting for some decent restaurants. There are precious, precious few.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#192

Post by felipemnoa »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #44
SippinLean wrote: post #12

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…

I spend a lot of time passing through in this neighborhood, and can mostly confirm this. In fact, about those luxury condos and housing projects… they're _very_ new, popping up within the past two years and more coming all the time. I’ve been wondering for years what kind of people make the sort of money to afford these places and would also _want_ to live in that area… now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long…

>>now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long ago, and word was carefully leaked to various developers to get the housing ready

I don't know about this but for years now (around ten years now) I've heard about developers trying to transform locations that used to be all factories into residential neighborhoods. Slowly but surely this has been happening all along Brooklyn's riverside, which used to be dominated by factories.

[1] https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/brooklyn-skyline...

[2] https://ny.curbed.com/2018/8/9/17667488/new-york-domino-park...

[3]https://www.wnyc.org/story/after-years-delays-sunset-park-re...

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#194

Post by magic_beans »

justtopost wrote: post #141
gayandproud wrote: post #110

Hope all you want, but a good half+ of the HQ2 hires will be minorities. Not a lot of minorities want to live in a deep south or Texas region due to racism, stand-your-ground, etc. Same thing for gays. If you want to hope for diverse knowledge businesses opening in Dallas, perhaps start with pushing for equality. I can think of a thousand examples, but here is the latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/dallas-…

Preach all you want, but the south is no more homophobic than any other region. Your own hefty bias only muddies the waters.

Ouch. This is not true at all.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#195

Post by alexhutcheson »

itsameta4 wrote: post #120
SippinLean wrote: post #12

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…

It's the 7, G, E, M, R, N, and W. Queens and Queensboro Plazas are only a couple blocks from the Citi building. I agree though - this happening during the L train shutdown will absolutely nuke the G. The E and 7 are already at capacity. The M and R have a good bit of room, though. As for the N and W, they also still have a good bit of capacity, it's just a shame, because rents in Astoria were just starting to go down…

The G is nowhere close to its maximum capacity: It currently only runs 1/2 length trains, and the frequency is much less than what could be supported if there were more demand. Even during the L train shutdown the G should be fine as long as the MTA increases service appropriately, which they have stated they will do.

The real chokepoints for the G will be the transfers to Manhattan-bound trains: to the E at Court Square and to the A/C at Hoyt-Schermerhorn. Those stations will be way overloaded, and the MTA hasn't announced anything that would mitigate this significantly.

However, Amazon-bound commuters shouldn't contribute significantly to this, since they will be exiting the station at Court Square, not transferring. Workers commuting in on the E/M from deeper in Queens might have some issues getting off the train in a very crowded station, but at least they won't be contributing to the capacity problem on the way to Manhattan.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#196

Post by ghaff »

magic_beans wrote: post #191
tashoecraft wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be what LIC actually needs. It has all this new housing, but it feels like a ghost town. So now there will be all this demand for local amenities that could transform the area. Still unsure if this will be beneficial in the long term or not, but will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'm still waiting for some decent restaurants. There are precious, precious few.

That's sort of the norm in an area like this I think. When the Seaport in Boston started to be redeveloped amenities were pretty sparse for a while. (To be sure a lot of development was initially around the convention center and adjoining hotels.) These days the restaurant situation is decent but it probably took a good 10 years.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#197

Post by TulliusCicero »

justtopost wrote: post #141
gayandproud wrote: post #110

Hope all you want, but a good half+ of the HQ2 hires will be minorities. Not a lot of minorities want to live in a deep south or Texas region due to racism, stand-your-ground, etc. Same thing for gays. If you want to hope for diverse knowledge businesses opening in Dallas, perhaps start with pushing for equality. I can think of a thousand examples, but here is the latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/dallas-…

Preach all you want, but the south is no more homophobic than any other region. Your own hefty bias only muddies the waters.

> the south is no more homophobic than any other region.

You can't possibly believe this is actually true. You think the South isn't any more homophobic than, say, the west coast? Really?

Here's some data, the first % is "Homosexuality should be accepted", the second is "Homosexuality should be discouraged": http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/vi...

First, a few states from the deep South:

Alabama - 41% :: 52%

Arkansas - 45% :: 47%

Georgia - 55% :: 38%

Mississippi - 40% :: 54%

South Carolina - 51% :: 42%

Now the west coast:

California - 69% :: 24%

Oregon - 66% :: 25%

Washington - 69% :: 27%

I lived in Alabama for a couple years. People are definitely more socially conservative there, and that does lend itself to homophobia. Not everyone who's a social conservative, of course, but it's definitely much more common than with social liberals.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#198

Post by epc »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #44
SippinLean wrote: post #12

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…

I spend a lot of time passing through in this neighborhood, and can mostly confirm this. In fact, about those luxury condos and housing projects… they're _very_ new, popping up within the past two years and more coming all the time. I’ve been wondering for years what kind of people make the sort of money to afford these places and would also _want_ to live in that area… now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long…

The groundwork for the redevelopment of LIC was laid in the City's failed bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. While the bid failed, Bloomberg continued to push for redevelopment and IIRC lead some rezoning. Would not surprise me if developers started buying up land or ground leases around 2004–2005 and held onto them for a few years.

The Olympic Village was to be on Hunter's Point.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#199

Post by epc »

schnevets wrote: post #38

As a New Yorker, I am super disappointed that they chose Long Island City. There were contenders where this stimulus could have been a paradigm shift. Instead, it's just a drop in the bucket for a city that is already growing recklessly. My vote was for Newark, personally. Plenty of office space; access to NJIT, Rutgers, and Princeton; and good public transit that connects directly into NYC. Bezos and co. could have…

I suspect the utter inability of the region to solve the Portal Bridge and Hudson River Tunnels problem doomed Newark.

Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters

#200

Post by ryanwaggoner »

justtopost wrote: post #141
gayandproud wrote: post #110

Hope all you want, but a good half+ of the HQ2 hires will be minorities. Not a lot of minorities want to live in a deep south or Texas region due to racism, stand-your-ground, etc. Same thing for gays. If you want to hope for diverse knowledge businesses opening in Dallas, perhaps start with pushing for equality. I can think of a thousand examples, but here is the latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/dallas-…

Preach all you want, but the south is no more homophobic than any other region. Your own hefty bias only muddies the waters.

This is laughably untrue. I've lived all over the country, including several years in Nashville, which is pretty "liberal" for the south. And while homophobia and other forms of bias are trending down for the south, it's definitely still the most regressive part of the country.

Do me a favor, go through this list and tell me what every single state with an acceptance rate below 50% has in common: http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/vi...

Meanwhile, the numbers for the NE and the western states are dramatically higher...

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