Photo courtesy of Coin Desk.
Summary: Amazon has chosen 20 cities as finalists for the location of its second headquarters.
Amazon has honed its wishlist of cities to house its second headquarters. On Thursday, they chose 20 locations, according to The New York Times. The list includes cities in the Northeast, West, South, and Midwest, as well as one Canadian city.
Amazon said that they were looking for a city with at least one million people and was an area that could attract and retain employees with strong technical skills.
The finalist cities are:
- Atlanta
- Austin, Tex.
- Boston
- Chicago
- Columbus, Ohio
- Dallas
- Denver
- Indianapolis
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- Montgomery County, Md.
- Nashville
- Newark
- New York
- Northern Virginia
- Philadelphia
- Pittsburgh
- Raleigh, N.C.
- Toronto
- Washington, D.C.
Mexico also submitted bids, but Amazon narrowed down their list to only cities in the United States and Canada.
Amazon is a multi-billion dollar online retailer that sells everything from books to toiletries. The corporate headquarters is in Seattle, and there are numerous fulfillment centers around the country. Last September, Amazon announced that it wanted to open a second corporate location, and over 238 applications poured in.
Cities were eager to house Amazon, and they offered the retail giant tax breaks and other incentives to open a second office, which reportedly would bring 50,000 high-paying jobs.
On Thursday, Amazon announced its list of 20 finalists, and the New York Times said that the next stage in the process would be for Amazon to interview city representatives to help make their decision.
“Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough — all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Amazon’s Holly Sullivan told the New York Times.“Through this process, we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”
Amazon said that they needed the second headquarters because they were outgrowing their first office. Amazon did not announce how they had whittled down their list, but insiders told the New York Times that about a dozen people including human resources managers and economists weighed in on the decision.
Founded by Jeff Bezos, Amazon opened in Seattle in 1994 and it employs 40,000. The burgeoning company is responsible for transforming Seattle into an expensive metropolitan, which many say now has a high cost of living and traffic problems.
While Amazon may bring gentrification and the problems that come with that, it also brings a flood of money. To attract cities’ bids, Amazon stated that they planned to spend $5 billion to construct its second headquarters, which Bezos’ reportedly referred to as HQ2.
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