For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live. — The New York Times

Officials lured Amazon to New York with an extensive pitch, complete with four suggested neighborhoods. In exchange for 25,000 new jobs, Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio are offering Amazon nearly $3 billion in incentives. And while Amazon selected the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City as its new home, officials had proposed bringing Amazon’s campus to the Farley Building, 3 World Trade Center, Brooklyn Height’s Watchtower building, Bjarke Ingels’ The Spiral, and even Governors Island. — 6sqft

One of ARO’s two concepts shows a huge white building emblazoned with the Amazon logo. [...] It’s a never-ending fulfillment center that the architects dub “Continuous Fulfillment.” According to ARO principals Adam Yarinsky and Stephen Cassell, the idea is an homage to a 1969 concept from the Italian radical architecture firm Superstudio called “The Continuous Monument.” The idea posits that technology will render the built environment uniform, turning buildings into white monoliths. — Fast Company

After conducting a yearlong search for a second home, Amazon has switched gears and is now finalizing plans to have a total of 50,000 employees in two locations, according to people familiar with the decision-making process.

The company is nearing a deal to move to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens [...]. Amazon is also close to a deal to move to the Crystal City area of Arlington, Va., a Washington suburb, one of the people said. — The New York Times

A hardscrabble half-mile stretch along the Chicago River's South Branch would become a vibrant neighborhood of cutting-edge architecture, parks and a riverwalk in the plans a developer unveiled Thursday for the last big piece of empty land near downtown.

Developer Related Midwest plans a transformation of the vacant, relatively isolated 62-acre site into a vibrant neighborhood of homes, restaurants, cultural institutions and businesses... — chicagobusiness.com

Now that it’s down to a final list, Amazon says that it plans to “dive deeper into their proposals” and evaluate whether these locations can actually support the company’s plan to add up to 50,000 jobs. The final list is full of mostly expected choices. Amazon is looking primarily at major metro areas with lots of people, transit options, and access to airports. — The Verge

Amazon.com Inc has received 238 proposals from cities and regions across North America vying to host the company’s second headquarters, it said on Monday.

The number of applicants underscores the interest in the contest, which Seattle-based Amazon announced last month. The world’s largest online retailer said it would invest more than $5 billion and create up to 50,000 jobs for “Amazon HQ2”. The deadline for submitting proposals was Thursday. — Reuters

It has also been remarkable to watch Amazon pursue a dramatically different strategy. Its plans for a second headquarters suggest that in terms of architecture and campus planning it wants to be everything Apple is not. It wants to lean into the city — and thorny questions about gentrification and housing prices, to the extent that they will be a natural byproduct of this process — rather than away from it. — Los Angeles Times

Amazon has set off a scrum among cities that are hoping to land the company’s second headquarters — with the winner getting the prize of a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs over the next two decades.
(Denver's) lifestyle and affordability, coupled with the supply of tech talent from nearby universities, has already helped build a thriving start-up scene in Denver and Boulder, 40 minutes away. — The New York Times