Amazon will be sorting through 238 proposals from cities and regions in the US, Canada and Mexico that are hoping to land the company’s second headquarters and the investment it would bring.
The online retailer last month kicked off its hunt for a second home base, promising 50,000 jobs and construction spending of more than US$5 billion.
Proposals were due last week, and Amazon made clear that tax breaks and grants would be a big factor in deciding which entry will prevail.
Photo: AP
Amazon.com Inc did not specify which cities or metro areas applied, but many of the locations have made their interest public.
The company on Monday said that the proposals came from 43 US states, Washington and Puerto Rico, as well as three Mexican states and six Canadian provinces.
The company on Twitter said that it was “excited to review each of them.”
Besides looking for financial incentives, Amazon had stipulated that it wanted to be near a metropolitan area with more than 1 million people, be able to attract top technical talent, be within 45 minutes of an international airport, have direct access to mass transit and be able to expand that headquarters to as much as 743,224m2 in the next decade.
However, that did not stop some apparent long shots from applying. Amazon said that a bid came from Alaska, although the entire state has a population less than 1 million.
“Most of the 238 probably lack some of those big-city advantages,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at the job site Indeed.
However, most places probably could not pass up the chance of getting 50,000 jobs, “even if the odds of winning are low,” he added.
Although generous tax breaks and other incentives can erode a city’s tax base, Amazon’s headquarters could draw even more tech businesses along with their well-educated, highly paid employees.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has endorsed Newark’s bid, saying that the state and the city are planning nearly US$7 billion in tax breaks.
Detroit bid organizers have said its proposal offers Amazon the unique chance to set up shop in both the US and Canada, while Missouri officials proposed an innovation corridor between Kansas City and St Louis, rather than a single location.
The seven US states that Amazon said did not apply were Arkansas, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
Ahead of the deadline, some cities turned to stunts to try and stand out: Representatives from Tucson, Arizona, sent a 6.4m-tall cactus to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, and New York City lit the Empire State Building orange to match Amazon’s smile logo.
The company plans to remain in its sprawling Seattle headquarters and the second one will be “a full equal” to it, founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said last month.
Amazon said that it will announce a decision next year.
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