Houston19514

Sites that meet the requirements, including 500,000 square feet that can be ready by 2019. And cultural elements are also on Amazon's list. So tangible cultural differences are important.

I guess your definition of area, and whether it's the area or the site that is the problem, is all flexible as needed for whatever point you want to make at the moment. (Not long ago you commented about the fact that the KBR site had failed to develop despite being near MinuteMaid Park and Toyota Center.)

Please show us sites being proposed in any city about which the same cannot be said. By definition, Amazon will be going to a site that has not been previously chosen by a relocating company.

Let's take the "Kick me" sign off our back already. Dallas does not have everything Houston has. And it's way past time for us to stop telling the world it does.

If hipness is defined by the mere presence of one "hip" industry, I doubt Amazon will give it much consideration.

and yet you claim Dallas is more hip than Houston.

This the typical frustrating Houston attitude. Focus on the fact that one city has a more vibrant music industry, while ignoring the fact that Houston beats that city in pretty much every other category -- restaurants, museums, performing arts, etc etc. Another city has a larger fashion industry, again ignoring that Houston has better restaurants, museums, performing arts, etc etc. What is it about Houstonians that makes us so afraid of touting what we have instead of focusing on the items we lack?

What do Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville and Pittsburgh have that makes them more hip than Houston? Here's a fun article from the Huffington Post about Houston being one of the country's coolest cities. I guess maybe cool is different than hip. ;-)

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.

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.

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.)

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.

More because it really isn't very big relative to the Houston skyline (it's about the 31st tallest building downtown, for now). 34 story buildings are just not likely to stand out in a skyline as big as Houston's.

According to Australia's embassy website, it's still on Post Oak Blvd (3009) and it's still a Consulate General. http://usa.embassy.gov.au/whwh/HoustonCG0315HoustonCG0315.html

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

Here's the Seattle Times' description of Amazon's Seattle neighborhood, pre-Amazon: "Less a neighborhood than a patchwork of parking lots, warehouses and low-slung industrial buildings. It felt like a ghost town, even at midday." If Amazon chooses that site (or whatever site Amazon chooses), amenities will spring up in no time.

I believe the roof gardens at 609 Main and BG Group PLace are comparably accessible and usable.

Nice projects. But it should be noted that these awards were from Dallas's local chapter of the ULI, not from the national organization.

I saw that quote too. I think he must have been using that phrase (in the way people often do) to mean TMC and downtown combined, not physically between..

LOL 105 million doesn't go as far as you seem to think it does.

I can't recall a post I've ever made about which I feel as confident as this one: The Astrodome will not become Amazon's headquarters. Will. Not. Happen. Rodeo Texans Offshore Technology Conference Future Super Bowls Future NCAA Final Fours and Regional tournaments Future World Cups Texas Bowl Other events at NRG Stadium and NRG Center All the above make the idea of plopping thousands of Amazon employees in the Astrodome unworkable. When you talk about plopping additional buildings on the grounds to house all 50,000 employees it becomes a complete laugh-fest. It will not happen. (Or even be seriously proposed by anyone with the least bit of real knowledge about the Astrodome, NRG Park and their operations.) The Astroworld property could be a possibility and I hope it is included in Houston's proposals. If they want to go for a greenfield site, the Astroworld site would check a lot of boxes.

And another... Theodore Rex opens tomorrow.

Cool. So, are you saying all of this shown in the renderings is Phase I?

With respect, anyone who thinks the Astrodome is a legitimate candidate for the Amazon site does not have a clue into how Houston actually works.

It does not strike me as something a developer is likely to put on their website (unless and until they are chosen). And as much as I would love to see all of the Houston proposals and possible proposals, I doubt if a proposal is likely to benefit from publicity in the local paper. I'm surprised at how much "information" is pouring out in Dallas about the different possible proposals, but that's kind of the way Dallas is. If I were working on a proposal for a project such as this, I would want to keep my proposal as confidential as possible. We know a LOT about various Dallas proposals, and they, it would seem, know very little about our proposals. That is to our benefit.