City Of Philadelphia Offered 30th Street Station Office Space To Amazon In HQ2 Pitch
The City of Philadelphia has released some details of its bid to win Amazon HQ2.
The city's proposal offered 280K SF of available office space in the upper floors of 30th Street Station, as well as space in Cira Centre and the renovated One Drexel Plaza, as temporary space should Amazon choose Drexel University and Brandywine Realty Trust's Schuylkill Yards as the site of HQ2, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Though the focus of the request for proposals, and Philly's response to it, was the availability of land to develop a headquarters big enough to eventually house 50,000 employees, Amazon also requires 500K SF to be available much sooner than that. Philly's three proposed locations each came with ideas for the space.
In addition to Schuylkill Yards, Philly offered up uCity Square and the Navy Yard as potential locations. The city pointed to available space in existing buildings in and around University City Science Center, which is developing uCity Square, and two unoccupied historic buildings at the Navy Yard totaling 1.3M SF.
With expectations that Amazon's second headquarters will approach its first in size, at 8.1M SF, Philly's proposal stated that Schuylkill Yards is permitted for 8.6M SF, with a recommendation in front of city council that would increase that allowance to over 17M SF. The Navy Yard permits 10M SF and uCity Square permits 8.4M SF, though the latter number would rise to 11.9M SF if the zoning recommendation is followed.
