286 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

This is what I read:

The employees will be working in a new 38,000-square-metre office tower the company plans to build on the site of the city's old post office.

[VicHockeyFan]

The irony is that all these employees come together in one location to work on cloud computing technology.

[Mike K.]

So they are just going to pay lease on 40% a building and not staff it?

 

Much to the chagrin of the CRA, yes!

[spanky123]

So they are just going to pay lease on 40% a building and not staff it?

 

As an incentive for opening an office, they are probably not paying property taxes for the next decade or two anyways.

Edited by spanky123, 01 May 2018 - 05:48 AM.

[Jackerbie]

Amazon is one of the tenants, and will occupy about 35% of the office space. QuadReal is the real estate manager for this project.

 

What I am unclear on is how this impacts the other Amazon offices - current and future - in Vancouver. They just opened one in 2015 with ~1000 employees, and announced a second one in November. ~1000 additional jobs were proposed in a new development, with occupancy by 2020. I wonder if this project has been axed in favour of the Tech Hub announced yesterday, which is in a much more high profile building and location.

 

New office proposed in November, for reference:

 

[Jackerbie]

So, still no news on Amazon HQ2, but they are rapidly expanding in Vancouver. They have leases or construction agreements in place for 650,000 sf of office space across four different buildings in downtown Vancouver, and a new 450,000 sf fulfillment centre on Tsawwassen FN land. The Vancouver HQ2 bid clearly proved that it was an ideal HQ1 satellite location.

[AllseeingEye]

Rumor making the rounds currently is that Crystal City VA will be the successful bidder; makes sense if so - its a beltway community of Washington DC, well served by major highways and mass public transit (both prerequisite's cited by the company during the early days after the announcement of "HQ2"); not to mention its proximity to the political heart of 'Murrica. Also Jeff Bezos already owns the Washington Post and has a home in the DC area. Either way sounds like a final decision is close.....

[nagel]

Who the F named these threads.

[todd]

Who the F named these threads.

“Started by Mike K., Sep 22 2017 01:46 PM“

[On the Level]

Who the F named these threads.

Living the dream in Langford?

[tjv]

You mean Langford wasn't a serious contender???  I'm shocked

[AllseeingEye]

/\.......as discussed and mentioned much earlier in the thread obviously there was zero expectation that Langford - or anywhere in Canada for that matter including Toronto - was ever seriously considered; what it did do however - what it was intended to do - was get Langford's name out there beyond the CRD and south island. It was mentioned by name in both hard copy and online publications which would otherwise never have a reason to which was the end game. Pretty clearly there was no way this region could take on and absorb up to 50,000 workers all in one fell swoop but it did signal to other smaller and much more realistic employers that the muni exists and that it was/is open for business....

 

Stew Young is nothing if not smart and whether you agree with it or not, which is completely beside the point, the guy has a vision for his municipality unlike too many of the "Balkans mayors" here, who apparently prefer to stick their heads in the sand, close their eyes, click their heels, wish we were still a sad, pale and pathetic imitation of 'Olde Blighty', and that it was still 1960....

Edited by AllseeingEye, 04 November 2018 - 08:09 AM.

[todd]

 

2 dead after Amazon building partially collapses

 

..."I was standing inside the building and me and one of the facilities dudes were talking, and I went to the left side of the building and he went to the right, and all of a sudden, we just heard these loud noises. The power shut off. It was just crazy inside," McBride told the station. "It just sounded like bombs were dropping everywhere. The whole side (of the building) was just dropping."...

 

..."There was stuff falling everywhere, you could see the walls were caving in," McBride told WBAL. "Rain was pouring everywhere; all the packages were soaked. It's unreal."

 

https://www.cnn.com/...apse/index.html

 

[tjv]

/\.......as discussed and mentioned much earlier in the thread obviously there was zero expectation that Langford - or anywhere in Canada for that matter including Toronto - was ever seriously considered; what it did do however - what it was intended to do - was get Langford's name out there beyond the CRD and south island. It was mentioned by name in both hard copy and online publications which would otherwise never have a reason to which was the end game. Pretty clearly there was no way this region could take on and absorb up to 50,000 workers all in one fell swoop but it did signal to other smaller and much more realistic employers that the muni exists and that it was/is open for business....

 

Stew Young is nothing if not smart and whether you agree with it or not, which is completely beside the point, the guy has a vision for his municipality unlike too many of the "Balkans mayors" here, who apparently prefer to stick their heads in the sand, close their eyes, click their heels, wish we were still a sad, pale and pathetic imitation of 'Olde Blighty', and that it was still 1960....

I agree partly with what you are saying, but I heard a lot of laughter from US professionals about a "Victoria" bid so I think that was the general reaction more than someone googling where the heck Langford BC was.

 

In the meantime what has Langford actually gained?  are several large employers moving to Langford, BC?

 

I agree Stew Young is very smart, he took Langford from being the butt of jokes to a thriving municipality and for that he deserves high praise.  No one dares thinking of The Q Langford Man song much anymore

[AllseeingEye]

I agree partly with what you are saying, but I heard a lot of laughter from US professionals about a "Victoria" bid so I think that was the general reaction more than someone googling where the heck Langford BC was.

 

In the meantime what has Langford actually gained?  are several large employers moving to Langford, BC?

 

I agree Stew Young is very smart, he took Langford from being the butt of jokes to a thriving municipality and for that he deserves high praise.  No one dares thinking of The Q Langford Man song much anymore

Dunno, but its still early days yet. I think of course he'd be thrilled with (any) large employer(s) moving to Langford but as I recall his administration has really been targeting smaller subsets of the provincial government - pieces carved off core ministries like the BC ambulance service for example; the Provincial Health Services Agency has a significant presence in Central Saanich at Keating and I think he'd love to scoop an entity like that.

 

There are a lot of smaller broader public sector entities (BC Housing, Community Living BC, the Oil & Gas Commission etc.,) which are his desired (type of) targets: basically any public or private org currently (ideally) in the core and the downtown particularly, that might be squeezed for office and parking space for example, with presumably a significant percentage of staff that lives on the west shore. Time will tell of course whether the strategy works - but I'm not sure I'd bet against the guy.

[LeoVictoria]

A seldom addressed benefit of not amalgamating is that Langford is free to have radically different politics from the other munis. Would be a bit boring if it was all one center with a homogeneous approach

[G-Man]

No one wants the Westshore to amalgamate with the core. The idea is for three munis which would still allow stew to have his kingdom with Langford at its centre.

I am still not sure why there isn't like a four storey government building with mobile crash space like the Keating road space. It would be very popular.

[Mike K.]

But hold on. Maybe amalgamating the Westshore with Victoria and Esquimalt does make a lot of sense. Most of Saanich is rural farmland and low density housing. Langford is the true “uptown” in our region once we look past the mall’s branding.

[tjv]

^The real issue is no other municipality wants the CoV issues which were brought onto themselves.  While I would never live in Langford, I do admire what Stew Young has done to Langford in 20 or so years or leadership, and basically single handedly

 

What frustrates me most of all is candidates who say they want affordable housing but also don't want to change anything.  In my mind there is only one way to create affordable housing - either allow more condos or allow subdivision to create smaller lots.  Most of the Saanich Peninsula is multi acre lots, but the only thing they grow is a lot of lawns.  Not sure if amalgamating will change any of that

 

Personally I think we will only see a lot of change as the older generation die off.  Far too many 50+ people here still don't have a clue about affordability, after all they paid 100k for their house, whats the big deal?

 

Edit:  wait, how the heck did we start talking about this in the Amazon thread lol

Edited by tjv, 05 November 2018 - 08:02 AM.

[LJ]

Rumor making the rounds currently is that Crystal City VA will be the successful bidder; makes sense if so - its a beltway community of Washington DC, well served by major highways and mass public transit (both prerequisite's cited by the company during the early days after the announcement of "HQ2"); not to mention its proximity to the political heart of 'Murrica. Also Jeff Bezos already owns the Washington Post and has a home in the DC area. Either way sounds like a final decision is close.....

New rumour is that there are going to be two cities named, Crystal City is one, Houston and Long Island are the others named.