Amazon Gobbles Downtown Seattle, Builds Biospheres (bloomberg.com)

Amazon has grabbed more than 15% of Seattle's office space inventory, which a local book author is describing as "the Amazocalypse". And now Amazon is building three "gigantic spheres resembling melted-together Milk Duds in the shadow of their new 500-foot-tall office tower," according to Bloomberg: The 100-foot-tall orbs -- Amazon calls them Biospheres -- will host more than 300 plant species from around the world, creating what the company sees as the workplace of the future. Amazonians will be able to break from their daily labors to walk amid the greenery along suspension bridges and climb into meeting spaces resembling bird nests perched in mature trees... Many of the plants are endangered species, meaning that the spheres double as a conservation project.
Bloomberg talks about the desire of Amazon and other tech companies to stay -- and grow -- in the popular cities "where millennials prefer to live". While the owners of Seattle's Space Needle complain that all the new office towers are blocking views of their tourist attraction, the article also describes how Amazon leased the ground floors of its office buildings to "hand-picked bars, restaurants and coffee shops," transforming it from "a hodgepodge of car dealerships and second-hand stores."

Comments

Balls

[HornWumpus]

I've always thought high rise structures should have balls.

I applaud Amazon for choosing an unconventional number.

Megacorps

[JanneM]

One one hand, revitalizing city centers is not necessarily a bad thing. On the other, this starts to smell a little of Shadowrun-style megacorporations (or of industrial-era company towns).

Live and work your entire life within the protective confines of your employer. Go to the company school, work at the company office, live in company housing paid for with a company-bank supplied mortgage, dine at your choice of company restaurants, vacation at the company resort, get a company funeral...

Re:Space Needle economics

[cusco]

We got to the Space Needle for dinner for our anniversary every summer, and we're of the opinion that the South Lake Union building boom has dramatically improved the view. That used to be a run-down neighborhood of warehouses, abandoned buildings, and parking lots, now it's actually something interesting and attractive to look at. Yeah, the view of the Space Needle is obstructed from some places in that area, but since the only people there much of the time before the new buildings were hookers and crack dealers I don't see it as much of an issue.