urbanMSP

Data centers are rarely built in the core city. They take up too much valuable real estate.

Properly run, a data center can be staffed by relatively low skill workers, and there's no reason it has to be in close proximity to the business.

I know the whole urban vs suburban job location thing has come up on UrbanMSP quite a bit, with some squarely on the 'talent doesn't and won't want to be in the suburbs' and others believing that for a small subset but not representative of any larger shifts in talent's desires. To throw more on that fire, my wife has been relaying some Target gossip re: the BP campus. Apparently the new IT VP is fairly outspoken and adamant that moving his dept's jobs out there is a killer for the group and they won't retain talent. He is shifting many of the positions that were already moved out there back to DT. Other VPs are all also saying they don't want their teams out there. Something will have to give, obviously, but it seems like a big snafu for them.

This move certainly feels more permanent given the fact that they're building and not just leasing out some space. I will say that 494 and 100 feels substantially different to most young urban people than Brooklyn Park or Shakopee. Anecdatally, I know plenty of millennials (I can count 10 friends & casual acquaintances) who choose to live in the core cities (various neighborhoods but all highly walkable) but are totally fine with a job in Bloomington. In their mind, they're going to have a car anyway, taking transit is probably out of the question for most home/job combinations, and a 10 mile drive to Bloomington isn't so bad as a commute.

More anecdata:

My wife and I both work out in the 'burbs and couldn't imagine living anywhere but in the city. If we hadn't lucked into our house half a block from the creek in the Field neighborhood we'd be over in Longfellow or somewhere close to it.

The older of my wife's two younger sisters has lived near Lexington/Grand in St. Paul for 5+ years now, despite working for her dad up in St. Cloud. She loves living in the city where she can walk and run places and be close to it all.

The younger of my wife's two sisters just moved to MPLS this spring from St. Cloud. She landed a job in Bloomington down near Penn/Old Shakopee Road. We helped her look at apartments, starting down in our area and eventually moving up closer to Uptown. She landed on a place near 38th/Bryant, despite it being a longer/more complicated commute because she loved how close she was to Lake Harriet and all the interesting things in Uptown.

I have a coworker who is from Chicago and is in her mid-20s. She's lived in the Twin Cities for a few years, and she and her husband have rented several different apartments in that time—all of which were near a bus line for him to get DT. They just moved into a rent-to-own situation and picked Longfellow because of the amenities, despite it making her commute down here to Edina quite a bit longer.

And on the other end of the age spectrum...

My newly retired parents moved to MN from ND less than two months ago. They looked at houses all over the south metro. Mrs. Shoes and I were pulling for MPLS while my ATL-residing brother was pushing more for 'burbs. My parents settled on S MPLS east of Lake Nokomis and couldn't be happier, despite the smaller house and yard. They love the access to things (34th/50th is just over a mile) and the neighborhood feel. Dad even used LRT/walking to get home from the airport a week or so ago.

I have a friend/former coworker who just left his job at the U for a job in Bloomington, at Normandale Office Park specifically. His biggest complaint is that there's just nowhere to eat for lunch, espeically compared to campus. He also had to buy a car for the job, though the increase in salary more than made up for the increased cost.

I think tech specifically, the trend is that employees want better amenities, not just higher pay. And to a lot of tech workers, an urban location is an amenity. In a lot of sectors, you take the job you can get, wherever it is. But for certain tech workers, they have the pick of the litter, so companies need to actually compete to get those workers, and location is one of those things.

I got a job offer to work for GM a year or two ago, because they're moving all their software development in house. They had four locations: Flint Michigan, suburban Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix. With the exception of the Austin location, they were sending a pretty clear signal that they wanted cheap talent, not good talent. If they wanted good talent, they'd be in Chicago, the Bay Area, Seattle, etc etc.

I've also witnessed increased attrition due to a move to a suburban office first hand. \anecdata.

I think tech specifically, the trend is that employees want better amenities, not just higher pay. And to a lot of tech workers, an urban location is an amenity. In a lot of sectors, you take the job you can get, wherever it is. But for certain tech workers, they have the pick of the litter, so companies need to actually compete to get those workers, and location is one of those things.

You're absolutely right. We're extremely tech-heavy and are starting to see our location be a bit of a liability. We've lost a few workers (permanent and contract) to places that have more amenities and/or better locations. We've done a *ton* of interviewing lately for contract help and it's been really hard to find people with the skill set we need, regardless of where they want to work. When we do see a really good resume come through, it's a mad race to get the person interviewed before someone beats us to them. It's not the early 2000s again when anyone with a modicum of tech knowledge/skill could land a development job, but it's close. I can only imagine that the very best talent is being extremely picky.

ETA: To be fair, our leadership is doing a hell of a job adding amenities and making this a fun place to work. From regular parties (booze included!) to booking food trucks to come hang out in our parking lot(s) to musical entertainment to killing the dress code for the summer, it's downright impressive. The cynical view is that they're fighting to keep us from moving on elsewhere, but I'd like to think that the ownership genuinely wants us to enjoy work.

Considering that the absolute top tier tech people are in urban cores like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc etc, even locating outside of one of those markets means your not getting the absolute best.

Ahem.

mulad and I at least would have something to say about that.

Our office moved downtown St. Paul from Mendota Heights a few years back. One of the stated reasons was to attract talent. Previously I had had a few experiences of managers telling me they lost recruits because the MH location didn't have transit access.

Older workers went kicking and screaming downtown but I think people are mostly happy now. Strangely, the predictions of gunfire and assaults didn't pan out.

Even though we're in a terrible building maintenance-wise (former Galtier), it's nice to be somewhere where we can walk to lunch.

Considering that the absolute top tier tech people are in urban cores like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc etc, even locating outside of one of those markets means your not getting the absolute best.

Ahem.

mulad and I at least would have something to say about that.

I also work in IT, and I will say that my most talented former coworkers are now living in Seattle working for Amazon or Microsoft.

I've lost three people on my team to Seattle, one to Boston, and one to Austin.

There certainly is a higher concentration of generalist top-notch people on the coasts and I wasn't even claiming that I'm top-notch (I won't speak for mulad ). My point was that "top notch" is sometimes pretty specific. mulad and I work for a specialty company, there are maybe 5-6 in the world that do what our company does. Because of that specialization, a lot of the "top notch" people in the field live right here in the Twin Cities. Probably a quarter of my team are legends in their field, by product recognition if not by name, as in, "wow, those guys are consistently amazing!"

so you guys are interchangable (you and mulad)? wow

so you guys are interchangable (you and mulad)? wow

Nope, different departments. I know I couldn't do what mulad does.

I feel like tech companies opening in the suburbs are just begging for second or third tier talent. Considering that the absolute top tier tech people are in urban cores like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc etc, even locating outside of one of those markets means your not getting the absolute best. Then land out in the suburbs and what dregs are left?

I agree that being in an urban setting would generally help rather than hinder attracting talent, but I think you're overstating the case a bit. There are plenty of IT jobs out in the suburbs, and plenty of very skilled IT workers in their 30's - 50's who live there as well -- not everyone in IT is a 20-something that wants to live in a big city.

Site plans:

http://74.208.147.253:8080/agenda/cityo ... n/3543.doc

http://74.208.147.253:8080/agenda/cityo ... select=460

Hotel conga line gets longer near MSP airport
http://finance-commerce.com/2014/08/hot ... z3EkGppQkx

A hotel developer has emerged for four vacant acres in Bloomington sandwiched between the Mall of America, a light rail station and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, an area quickly developing into a hotel hub.

According to documents released late this week by the Metropolitan Airports Commission, Maryland-based Choice Hotels International plans to acquire the airport-owned site on the southeast quadrant of American Boulevard East and 28th Avenue South, about two blocks east of the Mall of America. [...]

This is on top of the other hotels that are planned for this area. Did the BCS Hyattt that was on display at the IDS ever get started or is that just another developer with wishful thinking. I think that one was close to the American BLVD LRT station.

The BCS hotel actually is underway! Right next to the Bloomington Central Station.

Maybe the Choice parcel is the one I read about awhile back, that now has a brand to its name. It was on American and a building away from the LRT station. Need to take a LRT trip out to the Mall again and check out what is happening in that district.