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Page 2 — Office Properties Quarterly — September 2017
Contents Letter from the Editor
A s we prepared to go into pro-
duction on this issue, news of
Amazon’s plan to search for a
location for its second head-
quarters, Amazon HQ2, was
just emerging as the company opened
the request for proposals.The impact
this new development will have on
its selected city is hard to dispute.The
company said it plans to invest over $5
billion in construc-
tion and aims to
employ as many as
50,000 high-paying
positions at the new
headquarters. In
addition, the project
is expected to create
“tens of thousands
of additional jobs
and tens of billions
of dollars in additional investment in
the surrounding community,” accord-
ing to the company’s press release.
The plan is for the new facility to be
a “full equal” to the company’s cur-
rent headquarters in Seattle.This idea
would get just about any city’s eco-
nomic development team salivating.
From 2010 to 2016, Amazon estimates
its investment in Seattle resulted in
an additional $38 billion to the city’s
economy as “Every dollar invested by
Amazon is Seattle generated an addi-
tional 1.4 dollars to the city’s economy
overall,” the company stated.The Seat-
tle Amazon campus encompasses 33
building for a total of 8.1 million square
feet and employs over 40,000 people.
It’s hard to read the HQ2 real estate
requirements and not feel confident
about Denver’s prospects. According
to the release, the company prefers
to locate in a metropolitan area with
more than 1 million people (check), in
a stable and business-friendly environ-
ment (check), in either an urban or
suburban locations with the potential
to attract and retain strong technical
talent (check), and in a community that
thinks big and creatively when consid-
ering locations and real estate options
(check).
Almost monthly I receive reports in
my inbox highlighting the technol-
ogy industry’s impact on Colorado.
Our booming tech industry helped us
navigate the market’s recent oil and
gas challenges. Further, I would wager
that every issue of Office Properties
Quarterly has made mention of the
importance of the tech industry as well
as how Colorado’s work-life balance
continues to attract highly educated,
young professionals. In this issue alone,
Andrew Blaustein and Matt Davidson
with Newmark Knight Frank outline
how the River North district is readying
to take the helm as the city’s techno-
logical hub and the world’s capital for
AgTech.
To put the impact of a project creat-
ing 50,000 jobs in perspective, employ-
ment in all of metro Denver is forecast-
ed to increase by 2.3 percent in 2017,
representing the addition of about
37,000 jobs, according to an article writ-
ten by Patricia Silverstein on Page 4.
Granted, all of these newAmazon jobs
wouldn’t come in overnight, but the
possibilities are staggering.
We’re a long way out and the com-
petition undoubtedly will be fierce as
cities across the country try to court
the online behemoth, but it seems a
safe bet that Denver will be right there
in the mix.
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