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Old 08-25-2022, 10:10 AM
 
711 posts, read 687,450 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
True but HD tech hubs aren't in Atlanta.
Are you sure about that? I get recruiter calls for HD tech roles every three months, and the hubs they're always pushing are Atlanta and Austin. There are hubs in Portland and a couple of other places, but tech meetups I've attended at their HQ on Paces Ferry made it pretty clear that Atlanta is where a good portion of their tech teams are located. There's also an innovation center at Tech Square, and anytime they introduce new technology in the stores, for customers or internal use, there's a store in Kennesaw that is used for testing.

When Amazon was looking for its East Coast HQ a few years ago, all of Atlanta's top companies were all on board to help the city put together a pitch with Home Depot being a notable exception. At the time, HD was in major expansion mode of its product teams along with its user experience teams, and the last thing they wanted was Amazon sucking away all the talent. It looks like they'll lose out anyway with the arrival of Microsoft's East Coast HQ with 15,000 jobs on the west side.
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Old 08-26-2022, 01:32 PM
 
3,217 posts, read 2,373,727 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cparker73 View Post
Are you sure about that? I get recruiter calls for HD tech roles every three months, and the hubs they're always pushing are Atlanta and Austin. There are hubs in Portland and a couple of other places, but tech meetups I've attended at their HQ on Paces Ferry made it pretty clear that Atlanta is where a good portion of their tech teams are located. There's also an innovation center at Tech Square, and anytime they introduce new technology in the stores, for customers or internal use, there's a store in Kennesaw that is used for testing.

When Amazon was looking for its East Coast HQ a few years ago, all of Atlanta's top companies were all on board to help the city put together a pitch with Home Depot being a notable exception. At the time, HD was in major expansion mode of its product teams along with its user experience teams, and the last thing they wanted was Amazon sucking away all the talent. It looks like they'll lose out anyway with the arrival of Microsoft's East Coast HQ with 15,000 jobs on the west side.
I'm not sure. I just googled HD tech hubs and nothing came up but DFW and Austin. I'd believe HD would have a Tech unit of some size in ATL before one in Portland. I've been to Portland several times and its not a tech center for anyone. There's only a lower tier college there - Portland State. I could see though in Seattle, a couple of hours north.

Regarding Microsoft, have they broken ground on the west side site? If so, when do they expect the first employees to move in?
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Old 09-02-2022, 10:51 AM
 
711 posts, read 687,450 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
I'm not sure. I just googled HD tech hubs and nothing came up but DFW and Austin. I'd believe HD would have a Tech unit of some size in ATL before one in Portland. I've been to Portland several times and its not a tech center for anyone. There's only a lower tier college there - Portland State. I could see though in Seattle, a couple of hours north.

Regarding Microsoft, have they broken ground on the west side site? If so, when do they expect the first employees to move in?
Home Depot has about 3,500 tech workers with the majority based in Atlanta. I interviewed for a role with a department they call The Treehouse, which is responsible for the website and new innovations like the check-out kiosks. I really wanted to work on the checkout kiosks because I didn't understand why they weren't using payment services like ApplePay when they originally did. We can thank PayPal for that hindrance.

As for Microsoft, there are several big projects that include two new data centers in the suburbs south and west of the city. They recently moved 2,000 employees into the 525,000sf Atlantic Yards mid-rise project. The teams located there will focus on AI and cloud services.

https://youtu.be/O3Dn-k18yWA

The 90-acre Westside Quarry project is a much bigger lift with a longer development timeline stretching over years because it won't be just another office park. It's basically a whole new neighborhood with housing, retail, and commercial space. They've been holding master plan workshops with the surrounding community and are trying to offset the negative effects of gentrification and rampant speculation on that side of the city. Adjacent to the Microsoft campus is another 50 acres being redeveloped by developers New City and Tenth Street Ventures for another 2,000 apartments and townhomes. The MARTA subway station next to the Microsoft campus is slated to undergo a $50 million expansion to accommodate longer rail cars and improve access to the station.

Last edited by cparker73; 09-02-2022 at 12:08 PM..
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Old 09-07-2022, 09:46 AM
 
3,217 posts, read 2,373,727 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cparker73 View Post
Home Depot has about 3,500 tech workers with the majority based in Atlanta. I interviewed for a role with a department they call The Treehouse, which is responsible for the website and new innovations like the check-out kiosks. I really wanted to work on the checkout kiosks because I didn't understand why they weren't using payment services like ApplePay when they originally did. We can thank PayPal for that hindrance.

As for Microsoft, there are several big projects that include two new data centers in the suburbs south and west of the city. They recently moved 2,000 employees into the 525,000sf Atlantic Yards mid-rise project. The teams located there will focus on AI and cloud services.

https://youtu.be/O3Dn-k18yWA

The 90-acre Westside Quarry project is a much bigger lift with a longer development timeline stretching over years because it won't be just another office park. It's basically a whole new neighborhood with housing, retail, and commercial space. They've been holding master plan workshops with the surrounding community and are trying to offset the negative effects of gentrification and rampant speculation on that side of the city. Adjacent to the Microsoft campus is another 50 acres being redeveloped by developers New City and Tenth Street Ventures for another 2,000 apartments and townhomes. The MARTA subway station next to the Microsoft campus is slated to undergo a $50 million expansion to accommodate longer rail cars and improve access to the station.
They are moving EXTREMELY slow on the westside development. i still question that it will be as large as some believe in terms of employment. I think it may be more data-center oriented. I say this having seen what Apple has done in Austin since 2016 where they just opened a second campus (125 acres), with total investment now nearly $2 billion for both locations (1st campus is 38 acres). I don't see MSFT getting into mixed use development. That's not their forte. I think the adjacent 50-acre development by someone who knows R/E construction/marketing sounds like a good idea.
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Old 09-07-2022, 10:55 AM
 
1,385 posts, read 942,928 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
They are moving EXTREMELY slow on the westside development. i still question that it will be as large as some believe in terms of employment. I think it may be more data-center oriented. I say this having seen what Apple has done in Austin since 2016 where they just opened a second campus (125 acres), with total investment now nearly $2 billion for both locations (1st campus is 38 acres). I don't see MSFT getting into mixed use development. That's not their forte. I think the adjacent 50-acre development by someone who knows R/E construction/marketing sounds like a good idea.
They don't pay $300 million+ in land for "data-center" oriented development. Read why it's mixed-use: https://news.microsoft.com/2022/04/0...s-development/

https://news.microsoft.com/Microsoft-Atlanta/
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Old 09-07-2022, 02:06 PM
 
711 posts, read 687,450 times
Reputation: 1873
Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
They are moving EXTREMELY slow on the westside development. i still question that it will be as large as some believe in terms of employment. I think it may be more data-center oriented. I say this having seen what Apple has done in Austin since 2016 where they just opened a second campus (125 acres), with total investment now nearly $2 billion for both locations (1st campus is 38 acres). I don't see MSFT getting into mixed use development. That's not their forte. I think the adjacent 50-acre development by someone who knows R/E construction/marketing sounds like a good idea.
Microsoft has explicitly said that every product group based out of its Redmond HQ will have an Atlanta equivalent. As for employment, I've seen as low as 8,000 and as high as 15,000, and these will all be six-figure roles. The two new data centers are located out in the burbs and wouldn't be a good use of land in the middle of the city like the Westside project just 7 miles from 50,000 Georgia Tech students they're looking to siphon talent from.

With more than 53,000 employees on 500 acres in Redmond, it's not inconceivable they'd squeeze 15,000 into 90 acres here. Wherever it falls, it will likely make it Atlanta's largest or second-largest tech employer compared to AT&T's 13,000 employees in the metro.

Because of what has happened to affordability and traffic in the Seattle/Redmond markets because of Microsoft and Amazon, Microsoft is trying to mitigate its impact being located next to mass transit and providing affordable housing. The trend in new tech company campuses is to integrate housing and other public uses into their buildings. Check out Facebook's proposed Willow campus for a look at the direction Microsoft is likely to go.
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Old 09-08-2022, 07:50 AM
 
716 posts, read 455,088 times
Reputation: 1367
Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
They are moving EXTREMELY slow on the westside development. i still question that it will be as large as some believe in terms of employment. I think it may be more data-center oriented. I say this having seen what Apple has done in Austin since 2016 where they just opened a second campus (125 acres), with total investment now nearly $2 billion for both locations (1st campus is 38 acres). I don't see MSFT getting into mixed use development. That's not their forte. I think the adjacent 50-acre development by someone who knows R/E construction/marketing sounds like a good idea.
You're way off on this it is absolutely not a data center not sure why you keep saying that crap. Microsoft themselves have explicitly laid out their plans for this. A quick google search will educate you more on this. Microsoft has purchased land in other areas of the metro for data centers.
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Old 09-08-2022, 06:34 PM
 
711 posts, read 687,450 times
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Originally Posted by MichiganderTexan View Post
You're way off on this it is absolutely not a data center not sure why you keep saying that crap. Microsoft themselves have explicitly laid out their plans for this. A quick google search will educate you more on this. Microsoft has purchased land in other areas of the metro for data centers.
I've noticed a negative tone to this person's comments about Atlanta (Are they a Dallas homer?). There's plenty to knock the city about, but their hot takes are never based on facts.
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Old 09-09-2022, 09:45 AM
 
1,385 posts, read 942,928 times
Reputation: 2530
Quote:
Originally Posted by cparker73 View Post
I've noticed a negative tone to this person's comments about Atlanta (Are they a Dallas homer?). There's plenty to knock the city about, but their hot takes are never based on facts.
Yeah, he's a Dallas homer that used to live in Atlanta. He will always downplay anything about Atlanta and then prop up anything about Dallas. If you counter him with a fact he will just ignore it...
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Old 09-10-2022, 07:07 PM
 
37,904 posts, read 42,114,208 times
Reputation: 27330
Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
They are moving EXTREMELY slow on the westside development. i still question that it will be as large as some believe in terms of employment. I think it may be more data-center oriented. I say this having seen what Apple has done in Austin since 2016 where they just opened a second campus (125 acres), with total investment now nearly $2 billion for both locations (1st campus is 38 acres). I don't see MSFT getting into mixed use development. That's not their forte. I think the adjacent 50-acre development by someone who knows R/E construction/marketing sounds like a good idea.
Who puts a data center in the middle of a residential neighborhood in a major city???? You seriously can't believe that's the goal here.

The reason Microsoft is taking their time with this is precisely because this isn't something they normally do. And with all the other development that has happened, is happening, and is planned on the Westside in connection with the Microsoft campus, particularly with respect to infrastructure, there's no way they renege on the whole deal.

Last edited by Mutiny77; 09-10-2022 at 07:30 PM..
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