why sell your most irreplaceable commodity?

Amazon intends to build a distribution center on 58.5 acres it recently acquired in eastern Pleasanton [CA], the company confirmed.

An Amazon affiliate purchased the property from Houston-based investor Lionstone Investment Group for $75 million, public documents filed Sept. 16 show. Lionstone declined to comment.

That’s $1,282,051/acre. I wonder what the ground rent for those parcels, right there in Henry George’s backyard, would be. Pleasanton doesn’t really benefit from this transaction until the sorting facility gets built and the workers are hired. That’s 2-3 years out. A ground rent would get development underway (who wants to pay rent on something they aren’t using?) and get those jobs filled more quickly. And holding onto the land makes more sense than leaving it in the speculator’s market.

Pleasanton sounds very pleasant indeed:

Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest middle-sized city in the United States by the Census Bureau.[9][10] Pleasanton is home to the headquarters of Safeway, Workday, Ellie Mae, Roche Molecular Diagnostics, Blackhawk Network Holdings, and Veeva Systems. Other major employers include Kaiser Permanente, Oracle and Macy’s.[11] Although Oakland is the Alameda County seat, a few county offices are located in Pleasanton. The Alameda County Fairgrounds are located in Pleasanton, where the county fair is held during the last week of June and the first week of July. Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park is located on the west side of town.

Pleasanton was ranked number 4 in USA Today’s list of “America’s 50 best cities to live in” in 2014,[12] number 63 in Money’s list of “The Best Places to Live” in 2010,[13] and was named one of “Americans’ Top Hometown Spots” in the United States in 2009 by Forbes.[14] Pleasanton was named the third wealthiest city in terms of earnings in the United States by NerdWallet in 2013[15] and 2016.[16]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *