Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Where could Amazon build?
South Florida real estate experts pick some likely sites
With South Florida as a finalist to be the home of a second Amazon headquarters, real estate experts have identified potential candidates for a site, which would bring 50,000 new jobs and a $5 billion investment.
The sites are all conjecture, however, as the eight locations proposed to Amazon — scattered throughout Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties — are confidential under Florida law to protect negotiations for such competitive projects. South Florida has stiff competition from 18 other U.S. cities and Toronto to become the winning entrant.
What Amazon chooses depends on the type of headquarters site it wants — multiple spaces in the heart of a city or a large suburban campus of its own. The company told the competing cities and regions that it will initially require 500,000 square feet of space, graduating to 8 million square feet after 2027.
The new site also depends, in part, on whether Amazon wants to go “urban or suburban,” said Neil Merin, principal of NAI/ Merin Hunter Codman, a commercial brokerage and construction management company in West Palm Beach.
He said Miami-Dade has the capacity to develop 50-story buildings, while Broward would have to be “creative” with developed space, as vacant land is scarce.
Palm Beach County offers land for an entire campus, with possibilities that might appeal to Amazon in northern and western parts of the county, he said.
The planned development Avenir is off Northlake Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens. “They have 200 acres that they could build 1.5 million feet on,” Merin said.
But the key to that parcel is that, if approved, Amazon would get 50 acres for free, donated to the county as an incentive. Getting some free land at the site is one preference in the company’s request for proposals, experts say.
Another parcel is where United Technologies Corp. built its UTC Center for Intelligent Buildings, a showplace for UTC technologies, off Donald Ross Road just east of Interstate-95 in Palm Beach Gardens. The land just behind the UTC Center is available and ready for building, Merin said.
If Amazon’s desire is “to be interactive with Latin America,” Miami is the likely spot for the headquarters, Merin said. “But one thing that’s good about Palm Beach County is we have a lot of housing coming online,” he added. “We have approved some 15,000
new units.”
Some brokers think MiamiDade will end up snatching the main prize, with Broward or Palm Beach counties entering the picture whenever Amazon chooses to expand.
“Miami could amass most of the concentration of space,” said Ken Krasnow, executive managing director for South Florida at Colliers International. “I think it would be the lead from the headquarters perspective.
“You definitely have some sites in downtown and Overtown where the Worldcenter is, and at Midtown in Wynwood,” he said. “Nothing is like one big, massive site. They’re all relatively in close proximity to each other.”
Krasnow also named downtown Fort Lauderdale, near the Flagler Village neighborhood, and pointed to an area in general proximity to the Brightline rail station as a “smaller scale” possibility.
With Amazon’s known criteria in mind — including easy transportation, quick access to an international airport, skilled talent and some free space — Miami-based real estate software company Gridics, has identified six “ideal sites” in Miami-Dade for Amazon’s second headquarters.
All six sites are in downtown Miami and include government buildings, said Felipe Azenha, cofounder of Gridics, a startup that did the study to demonstrate its zoning software.
The six parcels include buildings or land that is owned by the state, city or school board and could potentially be offered for free as part of such a deal, he said.
Azenha thinks Amazon is more likely to pick an urban location like downtown Miami because the e-commerce company said it wanted to be near transportation hubs, including rail and airports. Those areas also tend to attract young talent who prefer to live in cities, he said.
“Being out in Seattle and looking at the talent they’re looking to attract, I find it difficult that Amazon would want to move to a suburban area,” Azenha said.
No matter what site or sites are chosen, it will likely involve new construction, said Brian Gale, an office space expert for Cushman & Wakefield in Miami.
“There is no building that can accommodate them today,” he said. “Clearly, it would have to be built to suit. In the 20 cities they picked ... they’re going to want something new and nice.”