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PM Trudeau and Amazon officials have announced the future of Vancouver’s old Post Office today. With thanks to CTV News.
Amazon to build 416,000 sq. ft. office space for another 3,000 corporate hi-tech jobs. Completion in 2022. This will eventually bring the Amazon work force to 5,000 in Vancouver. Detail HERE from QuadReal Property Group.
Amazon will occupy 35 per cent of The Post’s 1.13 million square feet. This new arrangement extends the deep relationship the two companies enjoy in Toronto, Calgary and greater Vancouver. Upon completion in mid-2023, 7,000 people will make The Post their home for working, collaborating and creating.
Background HERE and HERE from earlier Price Tags posts, including former plans that may now be defunct, modified or otherwise in flux.
With commentary from Frances Bula.
Great news! I also prefer this design to the previous, awkward residential renders.
Woo- hoo! Amazon comes to Vancouver to take advantage of the lowest tech wages in North America.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/city-of-vancouver-criticized-for-boasting-about-low-pay-of-its-tech-workers-in-amazon-hq-bid
To be fair, we do have a 22% lower dollar and employer paid health costs are way lower than in US. Also, downtown office is easily accessible by walk/bike/transit so no car required.
And at 12x median income, the highest home prices in the English speaking world. Yeah, welcome tech workers! Low wages – bat sh*t crazy prices.
Ever been to London? The walkable city and a great public transport system allows one to ditch the notion of wasteful car ownership and free up more family resources for a home, which truly is the most expensive in the English-speaking world. Somehow nine million people get by there in spite of that.
And you have also compared median income to the most expensive form of home known to the Metro: The detached house sitting on a big hunk of land. Do you have any conception this obsolete housing form on an open lot would cost in London?
Unaffordability is relative in these terms.
3,000 tech jobs in the 100K range …. That is what a 21st Century economy should aspire to. This move will add yet more employment to the 110,000 existing BC tech employment roll, which contains thousands more than oil & gas, forestry and mining combined.
This makes all the fuss about the so-called economic benefits of a bitumen pipeline seem like distant echos from the ancient fur trading days.
Amazon also expanding in Boston area. Here’s an article in the Boston Globe. Vancouver also gets a mention.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/05/01/amazon-announces-major-expansion-boston/E0cJY8W0uIednMLlVZF9cK/story.html?camp=breakingnews:newsletter
Great news? Maybe. Amazon is actually changing retail profoundly. Shops on Robson and 4th may not be super pleased at the explosive growth of Amazon. Nevertheless, progress will continue and Amazon is leading the on-line sector.
“Alexa. Find me a home priced around three hundred thousand dollars within walking distance from Georgia and Hamilton Street in Vancouver”.
“I’ve found you a town home in the town of Langley for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. If you walk it will take you six hours and thirty minutes. If you are taking transit there is one train to take and two buses and this will take you two hours to get there. If you want to drive it will take you fifty five minutes if you go now before the rush hour starts, later it will take you much more time. Do you want me to send the map directions to your phone?”
All the more reason to build those thousands of rental apartments for lower and middle incomes in walkable communities and near transit espoused by several levels of government.
I think we all know that under the current regulations and the tax structure very few rental properties will be built by the private sector. The city and the province might provide some land and commission some but those will be operated by societies like the Portland Hotel and Atira and only be available for subsidized tenants, meaning that gainfully employed workers go to the bottom of the list and will consequently have to wait for many years.
This is not Vienna or Singapore.
All three levels of government own hundreds if not thousands of hectares of land in the Metro, and in Vancouver. Land, which is the most valuable component, is a sunk cost. One or all of them could build and rent at cost with a mark-up designed to maintain a replacement reserve fund, private management fees, financing costs, maintenance and so on. The public sector needn’t make a profit on them. This can be done incrementally over a long period, with perhaps a bigger initial construction effort to put a significant number of units online faster. Some of the units would of course be subsidized (1/3?), but at least half could be rented in the mid-market range. One or two public rental buildings wouldn’t make a difference on the overheated condo market or rental rates, but thousands of them would have enough critical mass to dampen speculative rental increases. Moreover, the buildings could be of exemplary (but not luxurious) design and built to last.
“… thousands of apartments …”