Newark o.

cials detail four possible landing spots

for Amazon
Bus tour also shows details of city’s proposal for coveted e-commerce giant’s HQ2
project

By Tom Bergeron
Newark | December 7, ! " # $
2017 at 8:45 am

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Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was happy to take a half-dozen journalists

on a tour of Newark, detailing insights of the city’s proposal to
Amazon for its HQ2 headquarters, including the locations of four
spots it said could easily handle Amazon’s ultimate request of 8
million square feet of real estate.

From the area surrounding Mulberry Commons, to two spots on the

waterfront (one by Newark Penn Station and one near the Broad
Street Station) to one in the Halsey Street area oVcials called SoMa,
or South of Main, Newark felt it offered Amazon a number of options.

More than anything, Baraka said, the proposal showed Newark is a

legitimate contender for the massive project that is coveted by cities
across North America.

“Hopefully, we get them to the table and get them to see that we’re
serious about what we’re trying to do here,” he said. “That’s
important. We didn’t send a cactus over there, we didn’t build a big
Amazon billboard or do all the craziness (that others) have been
doing.

“What we’ve done is say that we’re serious about it, we’ve parceled
the land together, we put all the corporations together and we put our
money where our mouth is and said this is what we’re willing to do
for you to come to the table. If they come to the table, then we
negotiate all these things and cgure it out. But we have to show them
that we mean business, that this is not a joke, that Newark is not in
there for the circus just to say, ‘We’re vying for Amazon.’”

Baraka was joined on the tour by key leaders of his economic

development team: Deputy Mayor Carmelo Garcia, Newark
Community Economic Development Corp. CEO and President Aisha
Glover and CEDC Vice President Jorge Santos.

In its RFP, Amazon said it needed 500,000 square feet of space

available immediately (what is being called Phase I) and the ability to
add 8 million more square feet quickly (Phase II and Phase III).

Newark’s bid addressed both requirements.

For Phase I, the bid said three areas are available, citing nearly
700,000 square feet in Gateway Center, as well as 350,000 square
feet at 520 Broad St. and 250,000 square feet at 33 Washington St.

Glover said developers and building owners throughout the city were
eager to make space available to assist on the project.

“We really had a lot of existing property owners and developers

saying, ‘We’ll switch up our plans if we’re building new, and, if we’re
already in this site, we’d be willing to condense or relocate in order to
accommodate, because they see the value of having an Amazon as
an anchor,” she said. “I feel like we all casually throw around the term
game-changer, but everybody genuinely sees how this could be a
game-changer for the city of Newark.”

She noted 520 Broad St., currently used by IDT.

“They have pretty signiccant vacancy in the building,” she said. “In
addition to the fact that they have vacancy, they are ready, willing and
able to relocate and move out to allow Amazon to be able to move
in.”
Glover noted Newark is giving Amazon a lot of options to meet its
space needs.

The four proposed campus sites combine to be nearly 20 million

square feet, she said.

“What we wanted to do was pull together a menu of options for

Amazon, where they can pick one site or multiple sites,” she said. “It
can be spread out across a campus-like environment or be
connected with a community.

“It really depends upon the vibe they want to create, quite frankly, for
their workforce.”

Amazon obviously would change the skyline of the city. In what way,
Glover said, is up to the company.

“There are some renderings that may look like a skyscraper or may
look spread out,” she said, noting city regulations allow buildings to
be up to 20 stories in the city, but up to 40 by the waterfront.

Those regulations, Newark oVcials added, could change with

Amazon.

They view Amazon as a way to change the geographic face of the

city.

“For us to be the largest city in the state and you don’t see … the
residential density, but the building height that you would expect to
see from a major city, is something that we are trying to address
because that’s going to increase the economic impact, increase the
number of residents in the city,” she said.

“This is very much part of what we are trying to do more broadly.

We’re increasing the density down here and trying to work toward
something that looks like a more active downtown.”

Newark oVcials said their proposal to Amazon addressed a number

of key issues:

Tech talent: “(It is) one of the things that Audible has been touting in
trying to lure Amazon and others here long before the RFP came out,”
Glover said. “They’ve been really promoting and touting the high
concentration of SDEs, software design engineers, that they’ve been
able to tap into while they’ve been in here.”

Internet speed: “We’ve kind of glossed over this, but the data
infrastructure is unmatched in the world,” Glover said. “It’s the fastest
internet in the world. And for a tech company to be able to leverage
that, that’s really hard to match.”

Housing: The city said it has cve hotels on the way and has enough
residential housing to easily meet Amazon’s wish to have 10 percent
of its workforce live within walking distance of the company
headquarters. “With each site, we were able to demonstrate that,
based upon what is already in the pipeline, not what would be
included in the new development,” Glover said.

Higher ed: Newark’s bid detailed how there are more than 50,000
students and faculty in Newark each day and that the area produces
more than 100,000 graduates annually, many of whom have
computer science and technology-type degrees.

Quality of life: The city not only touted the Prudential Center and
New Jersey Performing Arts Center, but all of the other food,
entertainment and culture offerings it has. “We were able to take
about all the amenities in the city, both what’s here and what’s
planned,” Glover said.

Baraka, Garcia, Glover and Santos all expressed concdence in

Newark’s ability to land Amazon based on what they city can offer.

“It sounds self-serving, but for us, it felt very textbook,” Glover said.
“That, yes, we’re checking each and every box you want and more.
There’s essentially no reason for them not to come.”

Garcia said the city has matched its proposal with the RFP and likes
what is sees.

“We’ve narrowed it down, looking at predictive analytics with what it

is they’re looking at to really make a decision,” he said. “If you study
their model as to their site selection approach, I think we have a
really strong favorable approach.”

Here’s a quick look at the four proposed sites, all of which city
oVcials said would be available for a 2018 groundbreaking:

Mulberry Commons

The park that will connect the Prudential Center to Newark Penn
Station — one already anchored by the Ironside building that will
feature Mars Wrigley Confectionery as an anchor tenant — will get a
face lift with a number of tall buildings surrounding the 3-acre park.

“Part of the agreement to build Mulberry Commons was for the

developers, J&L (Properties) and Edison (Properties), to build out
their sites vertically, so we achieve critical mass so the downtown
can … (have) that mix of live, learn, work, play,” Garcia said. “That’s
what you’ll see around here. This will be our very own Central Park
and pretty much around it will be these vertical mixed-use
properties.”

In total, there are 15.5 acres available.

Matrix Riverfront

It’s the smallest parcel of land, just 5.6 acres, but it will be developed
along the waterfront by James Corner, who developed New York
City’s now famous High Line.

“It ties in beautifully, because this is where we are doing the major
riverfront project,” Garcia said. “It’s 17 acres and 3 miles long.”

The area, owned by Matrix Development, would be connected to

Mulberry Commons on the other end of the train station.

“Matrix was proposing a hotel, two residential buildings and one

commercial,” Garcia said. “They’ve changed that up and offered to
build out for Amazon’s purpose for Phase II.”

Lotus Waterfront

The 11.8-acre site would replace the existing baseball stadium. It

would connect Amazon to the Broad Street Station area, and has
potentially 2,000 residential units.

“There has been a lot of stimulus to this corridor,” Garcia said. “We
look at it as a tech corridor, because you have IDT, Audible,
Cablevision.”

The properties to be used are owned by Lotus Equity Group.

“They assembled the Lincoln Motel site … and they put that together
with Bears Stadium,” Garcia said.

SoMa

This would be the most city-centric of the four proposals, as the 8.9
acres available are tucked in with a lot of other recent activity,
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including Halsey Street redevelopment, the Hahne’s building and
Teachers Village.

It is owned by RBH Group.

“What has been signiccant about the corridor is that it’s been a really
good balance of small, locally owned businesses,” Glover said, noting
the renewed vibrancy and quality of life in the area.

(READ MORE from ROI-NJ on the bus tour.)

Will all of this be enough for Amazon to pick Newark?

Glover feels the city has made its case, not just in real estate but in
the ability to change the face of an area.

“No one has everything,” she said. “Everybody has a little bit of
something. And then the broader piece is kind of the social
imperative, that moral imperative. There are a few cities that can say
that, but they don’t have all the business and technical (offerings) in
the same way that Newark does.

“So, we generally do not feel like we have any competition. There are
some people who have done maybe a slightly better job at
marketing, but that’s all marketing.

“For a company of their size that’s really concerned about

reputational value, they can make a statement with a move to a city
like Newark.”

estrauss | estrauss@roi-nj.com | " acerimrat

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