Haven’t you heard? The shoe is the new duck.

Tech companies like Google and Facebook are known for their perk-laden headquarters. Their famously souped up office parks champion the “work is play” mantra using colorful interior design, sprawling, lounge-like work environments, and enviable dining hall options, all in efforts to maintain a vibrant, healthy community of creatives.

To Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, the quirky, creative work culture fostered by these microcosmic cities was an indispensable part of building online retailer Zappos into a billion-plus company. But according to CNN, Hsieh has his eyes set on a different formula for success, one that will boldly move the Zappos headquarters from its safe suburban bubble in Hendereson, Nevada to the Las Vegas City Hall building in blighted downtown Vegas. Swapping shoes for urban planning, Hsieh and his company are striking out on their own, investing $350 million to scale the new Zappos office campus into a full-fledged city. Read on.

Las Vegas City Hall Building, image via Wikipedia.

It was just over a year ago when Hsieh announced that he and his over 1,200 employees would be moving into Vegas’ downtown neighborhood. As CNN reports, Hsieh’s proposal was met with cheers from the city when the CEO announced he was not only interested in forming a new secluded office park but also determined to transform the 1.5 square-mile downtown area into a thriving “live/work/play destination for Las Vegas’ emerging creative class.” More specifically, $350 million will go into purchasing the land, building residential high-rises, investing seed money into other tech start-ups, attracting local small businesses like restaurants, retailers, coffee shops and yoga studios, and, importantly, building up the Vegas school system. Hsieh was fittingly described as “Steve Wynn meets Walt Disney meets Jane Jacobs.”

A peek inside the Zappos office. Image via TechCocktail’s flickr.

Interestingly, Hsieh and his investment partners have not been burying themselves in books on New Urbanism and urban infill theories. Determined to maintain an outsider perspective and eschew any top-down approach to city planning, Hsieh tells CNN that he is more than willing to “ask the dumb questions.” In fact, Hsieh sees the move as a way of scaling up what he built at Zappos. With the health of his business in mind, Hsieh was motivated to break out of the isolated office park and find more opportunities for serendipitous interaction, spontaneous “collisions” between people that spark ideas, facilitate relationships and build stronger ties. Thus, his next move evolved organically, you might say, from “let’s build a campus” to “let’s build a city.”

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh in a sea of shoes. Image courtesy Zappos.

by Kelly Chan

posted in civic duty news

tagged cities, city planning, creative class, las vegas, Learning from Las Vegas, new urbanism, office, Office Park, planning, Richard Florida, Tony Hsieh, urban design, urban planning, urbanism, Zappos

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